Wednesday 1 May - Ward Law (NT262159; 594m)

When we drove into the Ettrick area a couple of days ago, I had six unbagged Marilyns thereabouts. However, because one of those hills, Ettrick Pen, sits in a more remote spot and because I ran out of time to put much thought into the most sensible logistics for that hill, I decided not to tackle it on this trip. Over the last couple of days I questioned that decision and as of yesterday evening my plan for today was to cycle the 8-miles to Over Pawhope bothy, nip up and down it, and cycle back again.

That plan persisted until I woke to the sound of rain this morning. When two hours later it was still pattering away I decided that Ettrick Pen can sensibly be tackled from the west and thus it could be missed out on this trip without causing us to have to go too far out of our way at some point in the future. Ward Law thus got reinstated as today's objective.

In two minds whether to go straight up its nearest flank or take the longer way via Ettrick church, I finally opted for the latter, which proved to be a relatively easy route as the entire hillside is being grazed by sheep and cattle.

It's a big cairn on the summit - the stile over the deer fence gives scale.

And the photo of me in front of a section of the cairn makes it look like I'm in front of a wall

I couldn't be doing with taking such an indirect route back down, so made a circuit by taking the line I'd rejected for my ascent. My conclusion at the bottom was that it would have made a perfectly acceptable ascent route, with any extra steepness and rough stuff being cancelled out by the shorter distance.

One of the white flashes down there is Bertie.

I'm pleased to report that cladding myself in full Paramo worked wonders: the rain held off for the entire time I was out. In fact, I got very acceptable conditions, with a scant breeze, clear tops (Ward Law's summit had been covered in cloud earlier) and a pleasant temperature.

The stats: a few yards under 4 miles, with 360m ascent.

Tuesday 30 April - Turner Cleuch Law, The Wiss and Law Kneis

There was uncertainty in my plan as to the logistics for Turner Cleuch Law and The Wiss. They sit within a short distance of each other, either side of a B-road, but without any Bertie-sized parking nearby. It was only last night that the obvious solution, that somehow I had overlooked, came to me: to use my bike.

The bike route started 3 miles out of shot. 

Turner Cleuch Law (NT287204; 551m)
Cycling on roads, particularly those of a friendly gradient, is so much easier than cycling forest tracks, so it didn't take much effort to get me from the parking area to the south of Cacra Hill to the cattle grid to the south of Turner Cleuch Law. There I left my wheels and attacked the hill head-on. It was a touch on the steep side, but height was quickly gained and, thanks to a vague ATV track, not too much heather-bashing and tussock-hopping was required.

A whole world of green and beige lumps and bumps as seen from the top of Turner Cleuch Law. Lovely!

I clung to the fence (not literally!) on the way down, rather than following the ATV line. That was steeper still, but it got me back to my bike efficiently.
(1.3 miles, 230m)

The Wiss (NT264206; 589m)
Another mile and a half on the bike took me up to the top of the road and along a forest track to a point, at a junction of tracks, where the 1:25k map suggested that a fire break would lead me up and out of the forest.

Easy going at the bottom of the fire break

There were some 'interesting' bits further up, but I didn't snap them

I didn't quite follow the break to its conclusion, as I could see a blow-down that looked to be blocking the way ahead, whereas I had found two rows of trees that looked to be sufficiently free of low branches to allow me through the remaining short distance of forest. It proved to be an easy way out, and going by the footprints at the point where I had to detour around a blow-down, I'm not the first to go that way. The only slight concern as I pushed past the one branch blocking the exit was being able to find the exact right point to re-enter the trees.

Based on past experience of bashing through commercial plantations in a state of panic that I'll never locate the break I used on my way up, I knew that it was important that I re-entered the trees at this exact point on my way back. I spent a few moments memorising everything that looked like a significant detail in this scene. And, as a fall-back, I took this snap.

The going once out of the forest was a tussock-fest with some heather thrown in for good measure, but it wasn't too big a yomp before I was standing beside the battered trig point:

Even though on my return approach to the forest I had before me what looked like an identical line of trees, I managed to hit the exact right re-entry point. Phew!

Back at my bike, it was a speedy ride back down to Bertie (well, by my non-cyclist standards).

(1.3 miles walked with 200m up; the total bike ride for both hills came in at 8.8 miles)

(Cacra Hill
Whilst I was off up those hills, Mick needed something to entertain himself, and with the limited options available from where Bertie was parked, he took the same route as I did yesterday, up Cacra Hill. No summit selfie to share - he forgot to take any photos.)

Law Kneis (NT292130; 498m)

This afternoon Bertie was relocated to the car park on the west side of Law Kneis. At some point in the past a series of marked forest trails was installed here, along with this car park with 10 spaces. It's now a sorry place; the car park has an abandoned look, the footbridge is decaying, there is no information as to the nature/length/location of the trails, and the waymarks on the other side of the bridge have faded to illegibility. Meanwhile (and quite probably unrelated), a series of new tracks has been constructed through the forest, involving a vehicle bridge only about 30m away.

At 3pm I declared that if this hill was going to take us a couple of hours, and if we were going to do it before tea, we ought to get on with it. Mick initially looked unconvinced that he wanted to set off up a hill at this time of day, or indeed that he wanted to go up this hill at all, but he soon had his walking gear back on.

The directions I'd gleaned from logs on hill-bagging.co.uk worked a treat. The track takes a lengthy route through the forest, but by leaving it at White Sike, we were able to cut that loop and yomp our way alongside the burn, to the upper track. As with this morning's first hill, we couldn't help but think we had timed this one right: the bracken (and other greenery) is sprouting and soon the going will be much harder than the 'bit rough' we had today.

We popped out on a track that looked so new that I could have believed that it had been laid today (I forecast some harvesting about to happen), but that only lasted for another 100m or so, where it abruptly became an old semi-grassed-over track.

It led us gently downhill (always unfortunate when you're trying to ascend something) until, just after Gatescleuch Sike, we located the break in the trees where an old (now partially rotted away, the rest on its way there) fence can be followed out of the trees and up to the summit.

Nice and open at the bottom of the break

Not quite so open further up, but still easy enough, even if it was a lot steeper than it looks in this snap.

Mick surveys the surroundings whilst I investigate various tussocks in an attempt to find the highest point.

Getting down was a retracing of our steps and as we made the final approach to Bertie, Mick (who ordinarily wouldn't join me on a hill like this one - he's not a hill-bagger and only usually goes up those that he thinks have some merit) opined that it was an interesting walk up and down but that the top was pointless. I don't think he meant that it was flat and lacking an apex...

(3.3 miles, 315m)

Monday 29 April - Cacra Hill (NT317173; 471m)

Long way up, short way down. Total 2.6 miles with around 230m ascent.

It was 4pm by the time I set off for today's hill, although until around 3.55, there was no certainty that there was going to be a hill. We'd woken up in Hawick this morning to fog (the dripping from branches above Bertie's roof told me that even before I looked outside), which excused me nicely from an early start, then Mick expressed a preference to stay in Hawick a while and have a little wander around.

That we did, returning to Bertie around lunch time with three DVDs and two books, bought during a round of the many charity shops. We'd barely been in Bertie for two minutes when we were off out again. I'd found that there was a Wetherspoons in town and whilst their food is never going to get rave reviews, it's cheap, plentiful and highly calorific; moreover, they have good wifi and there were a few TV programmes I wanted to download.

In my state of post-lunch stuffedness, my first thought as Bertie was positioned in a pull-in alongside the Rankle Burn, below Cacra Hill, wasn't to nip up it this afternoon. But as I sat here over the next hour or so, I couldn't help but notice that it was a lovely day out and it would be a shame to waste it.

Mick declined to come with me and I dithered a while over whether to go straight up the side of the hill from Bertie (silly-steep for the first 100 metres from the road, but less than 0.5-mile distance) or whether to walk back along the road to a track that would lead me to an ATV track that would take me to within metres of the summit (at least three times further). I went for the further-but-easier option via the track in the end - a good choice if only because I saw an adder as big as I've ever seen basking itself on the tarmac on my way.

I had the summit feature noted as a single stone. Another three have been added since that note was made in the hills database.

Just before the ridge, I lost patience with the ATV track, as it wiggled around, and just headed straight up. Then, having admired the view (so many lumps and bumps! So few signs of habitation!), I thought I may as well take a more direct route down. My knees wouldn't have thanked me for heading straight for Bertie, but a line slightly to the east looked feasible, with the added benefit of landing me next to a gate back onto the road.

Bertie, being a blot on the landscape

A nice little hill, is my verdict. Mick may well go up there tomorrow whilst I take my bike out to visit a couple of other nearby tops.

"Have we been here before?"

As we approached the semi-ruin of Braidliehope yesterday, I thought it looked familiar. Indeed, certain distinctive details were identical to a picture I had in my memory.

"Do you remember on one of our big walks we followed a stream that was full of dead sheep, then came upon a building that looked identical to that?" I asked Mick. He did. We wondered if we had indeed walked here before. We wracked our brains to remember where those dead sheep and that building had been, but couldn't narrow it down much further than 'Scottish Borders'. We thought little more of it as nothing else about the walk seemed familiar.

It was only as I came to write the post about yesterday's walk that I looked at my photos, and paused over the one of Braidliehope. There surely couldn't be two such buildings in the Borders with the specific details present in this one and the one I remembered. Was it possible that we had indeed come this way before?

We set about seeing what we did remember about the days around this area on our Kent to Cape Wrath walk. We recalled walking through Kielder Forest when the rally cars were out making their course notes. We remember camping next to the river Liddel that night and the threat of being joined by beer-toting rally spectators. I remember stopping at the cafe in Newcastleton. My memory is then a complete blank until we arrived in Hawick and Mick's is even less clear than mine.

To me the huge benefit of having an online blog is the ability, from any location with internet access, to look up stuff we did years ago that has faded from my memory. I thus travelled back to April 2011 and found that yes, Braidley Burn was where we recall seeing all those dead sheep and Braidliehope was the ruin we walked past that day.

That set me wondering how we had got there from Newcastleton and how we went onwards. My blog didn't answer the first of those questions, but with the clues to be found in the text, plus a bit more map-poring, it's a distinct possibility that from Newcastleton we went over Roan Fell (the hill I did in horribly wet and breezy weather last Friday, in the belief that I'd never been there before). From Braidliehope we then passed between yesterday's two hills.

So, at least another two hills to add to the list of "Passed within a short distance years ago, not knowing that one day I would need to come back to go up it" hills.

I think it's safe to say that one of the first things I do when I next have my laptop out at home will be to look at the detail of our Kent to Cape Wrath route to settle my curiosity about Roan Fell.

Sunday 28 April - Cauldcleuch Head (NT456006; 619m) and Greatmoor Hill (599m)

Ignore the red line - that was Friday's route. The starting point for today's (blue) route was Hermitage Castle, just outside of this screenshot. 

This being the only multi-hill walk I have planned for this trip, I was keen for Mick to join me. With Sunday forecast to be dry (there were even bits of blue sky at times), Mick was equally keen to come along, and thus we set out together along the road from the Hermitage Castle to the track to Braidlie.

It was approaching the far end of that track that the old house (now falling into ruin) at Braidliehope came into view and it looked very familiar.

I'll come back to the subject of this semi-ruin in my next post.

An ATV track took us up to the top of Queen's Mire. More ATV tracks continued from there, but with the ground being waterlogged, the ease of the lack of tussocks along the tyre lines had to be weighed up with the inconvenience of the bog that had congregated there.

The going became better when we reached the dip between Swire Knowe and Cauldcleuch Head, from where a trod was followed up the steep hillside, before we levelled out, still some distance from the summit. That distance was the hardest of the day, with the rain of the last couple of days having drenched terrain that was probably a lot more hospitable last week. We duly picked our way across it, and found the patch of ground that's just very slightly higher than its surroundings:

As this hill had been an out-and-back from our circuit, the same terrain had to be tackled again in reverse, before we dropped back down towards Swire Knowe on an incline that, to me, seemed much steeper in descent.

By the top of Swire Knowe we had to conclude that we weren't going to stumble upon a bench or indeed any pleasant place to sit until the summit of Greatmoor Hill and my need for elevenses was more urgent than that. We thus plonked ourselves down on a not-so-waterlogged part of the ATV track we were following and rolled elevenses into lunch to save the need to stop again.

The top of Greatmoor Hill was much more pleasing than most of the summits I've visited so far this trip and it also gave Mick a phone signal for the first time in 7 days (I've had a signal on various tops in that time).

Mick does his best catalogue pose at the trig point 

The plan had been to drop back down to Braidliehope, but as we started descending it became appealing to make this into a circuit by heading down over Hermitage Hill. It would be shorter* that way, but also much harder going. In terms of being fit and ready for the TGO Challenge, we decided 'harder' was of more benefit than 'longer'.

We didn't quite hit the footbridge to take us back over the river to the road, but we weren't far away, and a few minutes later we were back at Bertie, gasping for a cup of tea.

The stats were 12.1* miles walked with around 720m ascent.

Hermitage Castle, from where we set out, and which we visited in the afternoon. It was interesting enough, but not the best value such cultural tourist attraction we've ever stumbled across.

^^(*I'd only roughly measured the intended lollipop-shaped route and I advertised it to Mick as being 11.3 miles. You may notice that with the 'short cut' it came in at 12.1 miles. When I upload the route onto my laptop when we get home I may find that the reality was somewhere between those numbers.)

Friday 26 March - Roan Fell (NY451931; 568m)

Bike in red. Walk in the funny bluey sort of colour

The Met Office weather forecast for today said that it was going to be sunny in the morning but with heavy rain coming in for the afternoon (80% chance 1-3pm, 90% chance 3-6pm); the wind was to be constant all day. The Mountain Weather Information Service said it was going to be rainy with cloudy summits in the morning but brightening, with a rising cloud base in the afternoon, when the wind was also predicted to rise, possibly to 40mph.

Faced with two such contradictory forecasts, my faith went with the Met Office, and sure enough we woke up to clear blue skies. Sense would have dictated an energetic leap out of bed and an early start, so as to visit my hill before the rain came in. However, we shelled out £23 for a small patch of ground at a campsite last night, so wanted to make some sort of effort to get our money's worth. Unnecessary showers were had and we made as full use of the electicity as we reasonably could (i.e. we charged everything), before we finally rolled off site just as the clouds were coming in.

I should, perhaps, have set out immediately upon arrival, but I was hungry so a pause was had for coffee and an item we bought that described itself as a scone, but based on the ingredients list I'm not sure that was accurate.

I should, perhaps, then have decided not to do any hill today. We've got more days available to us that I have hills on the list for this trip, so we could have just sat around for the day, but I didn't.

I made it around 4 miles into the bike leg (just past the kennels of a pack of hunting hounds who were putting up such a racket that ear defenders should have been provided for passers-by) before the spots of rain became insistent enough for me to don waterproofs. It then rained on me for the whole of the rest of the outing.

There's a track that runs to within feet of the summit of this hill, and I've read at least one account where someone said they biked the whole way. I made it to the point where the gradient for the next 6-700m suggested that if riding it was possible for someone of my leg and lung strength (which I doubted), then it would certainly not be enjoyable, either up or downhill. Walking was, for me, the way forward.

Turning at the summit I could have believed the weather had improved, but the reality was that after battling a head wind, with the rain blowing straight into my face, it just felt dry and calm once the weather was on my back.

A rainy day, but far better air clarity than any day last week.

Lunch was eaten on the hoof as I strode back down to my bike. Arriving there I was not looking forward to the ride back (progress this year: I packed the mud guards and even have the front one affixed to the bike; it would have been handy to have added the rear one for today's trip). It passed quickly enough, but not without an small incident where I ground to a halt mid-stream, resulting in me plunging both feet into the water. Careless as I'd managed to keep my feet pretty much dry until that point, and this was the final of 6 or 8 fords.

Back past the barking dogs, a greeting to a farmer on a quad bike, then it was full steam ahead back to Bertie, with the rain in my face much of the way.

Mick met me at the door with a towel and my cuggiest PJ trousers. My bike is currently locked to a bench outside (no chance of emptying Bertie's boot to put it inside in this weather!) and the shower room is full of dripping gear. As I said earlier, perhaps I should have just stayed in today...

8.8 miles biked, 4 miles walked, a total of 450m of ascent.

Thursday 25 April - Blackwood Hill (NY531962; 447m)

The plan had been for Mick to join me on this hill, but then the plan had also been to park in a large lay-by that, it turns out, does not exist. We did find somewhere big enough to leave Bertie without blocking any accesses, but when Mick learnt that I could use my bike for much of the 5-mile outing, he set about emptying Bertie's boot to retrieve my wheels. It's possible that his eagerness in volunteering to stay behind was based upon having seen the hill; I admit it doesn't look very attractive when viewed across the wasteland of a largely-felled forest.

I had three possible routes noted for this top (four if you count combining two into a short-handled lollipop, which is the option I would have gone for had Mick joined me and we'd gone on foot), and my one concern in biking up through the forest was that the felling might have obliterated the breaks leading out of the trees from the upper track. Happily, as I huffed and puffed my way to that upper track (the first ride of the trip that has had me gasping), I could see that to the left of the most recently felled area was a break that was largely free of debris.

A while later, after ditching the bike and walking up to the top of that break, I had to marvel at my lucky timing. I imagine that in a few weeks, now that the trees to the right are gone and the sunlight can reach this ground, all sorts of plant life will spring up there. Today, however, I had a gloriously firm, cropped surface on which to walk.

Breaks in forests don't get easier than this!

Even better, with the recent felling activity, I wasn't hemmed in by trees, but had views.

The joyfully easy going continued once I reached the top of the forest

Before I knew it I was at the top, looking over the other (west) side of the ridge. After days of forests (mostly the mess of felled forests), it was lovely to look out over such an area of lumps and bumps:

I was back at Bertie just a few minutes more than an hour after leaving, much to Mick's surprise as he'd expected me to be gone for two. A good job he hadn't nipped out for a walk whilst I was gone - I might not have been amused to have been locked out two days in a row!

The stats: shorter than expected at 3 miles cycled with 120m ascent and 1.4 miles walked with 140m ascent.

^{(Today's 'stupid cow' incident. As I looked east from today's hill, I contemplated the hill on the other side of the B-road and felt sure that it must be a Marilyn. Which hill was it, I wondered, and when did I visit it, as I didn't have it on my list for this trip? It's only just now that I've looked at the map and discovered that it's Larriston Fells - yesterday's hill. I'd forgotten that one of the two options I'd noted for that hill was to approach it from the same (non-existent, as it turns out) layby as for today's top and it had been sufficiently long a drive around from Kielder Water that it made me forget how close it was to Blackwood Hill.)}

Wednesday 24 April - Larriston Fells (NY569920; 512m)

That was a pleasantly straightforward outing, with it just being a shame that I set out too early, not realising (because the only thing visible from Bertie is nearby walls of trees) that the tops were shrouded in cloud. I was on my way down by the time the sun started to show through.

The ride up through the forest was easier today, being a gentle gradient and without yesterday's undulations.

I have a cheap bike, little experience and scant skills, but I did it anyway.

I'd read that it is possible to ride all the way to the mast, a fact confirmed by the sign in the snap above, but (even before seeing the sign) had thought that it would be too technical for me and that I would be walking from the end of the forest track. I didn't depart from my norm, though; when I reached the end of the track I thought I'd see how far I could get on the continuation of the route.

It got narrower once I left the forest, but it was a good firm surface.

I made it without difficulty all the way to the mast, which sits up above the high point of this 'Cross Border Route'. As the name suggests, I had, on my way, crossed the border into Scotland, which is where this hill is located.

A large pillar on the Scottish/English border acting as a milestone and as a statement of toll fees once applicable to this 'road'. 

With the bike abandoned, a bearing was taken (I could barely see the mast from the end of its newly constructed service track, never mind my summit two thirds of a mile away) and off I went.

I shall quote here verbatim part of someone's log on hill-bagging.co.uk, describing their ascent from the mast:
"across horrendous tussocky, boggy, heathery sh1t to summit". That had set my expectations and for the first few hundred metres I couldn't have described the conditions any better myself (although the bogginess is currently minimal). Stepping over a fence that lay in my way, I was then lucky enough to come across a faint trod, which took me a good way towards the summit, when it either petered out or I lost it in a boggy patch. I picked up another such trod later and thus reached the trig point with not too much effort having been expended.

The mast would easily be seen behind the trig in this snap on a clearer day. 

My stay on the top was longer than it would have been if I hadn't put my open lunch box atop the trig (lid under the box). I was just looking at the weather forecast, eating a sandwich, when the wind deposited the remaining sandwich on the ground and removed the lid out of my sight. I hate littering, so had to make efforts to find it, which I did, surprised at how far its flight had been.

A different trod was taken on my return. Indeed, I think it may have been an ATV track, but it turned out not to be a good choice, as it veered off in an unhelpful direction leaving me to tackle more of the 'horrendous tussocky, boggy, heathery sh1t' than I had on my outwards yomp.

After a return to and through the forest that was hampered a little by a noticeable headwind, I arrived back at Bertie to find him all shut and locked up. This was a bit unfortunate as I didn't have any keys with me. However, I knew where Mick was headed on his walk today, and I had the advantage of a bicycle, so I set off in pursuit, expecting to meet him within minutes.

By the time I got to within a couple of hundred metres of his turn-around point, I'd convinced myself that he must have turned his out-and-back into a circuit and thus there was no point me pedalling that extra small distance. He knew what time I was due back, so it seemed too unlikely that he was still at the furthest point of his walk.

Rounding the final turn back to Bertie, I could immediately see that Mick still wasn't back. Figuring that his circuit through the forest had turned out harder or longer than expected, I sat down to wait. He arrived back an hour after I'd first returned, and it turned out that he had walked out and back on the very route that I'd cycled. The only possible conclusion is that he was indeed at the very furthest point of his walk when I gave up, 200m before that point, on finding him. He'd been a bit late leaving, I'd been an hour earlier back than expected.

Anyways, the stats for the outing were 15.2 miles cycled and 1.4 miles walked with a total between them of around 330m ascent. That ignores the 3.3 miles I then cycled in search of Mick.

<sup>(Other stuff:
1. On my way into the forest yesterday I came across a notice of closure of Access Land on 26/27 April, making it fortuitous that I missed those dates by two days. It didn't give any details as to why (except for the uninformative statement of "for public safety"), but today it became apparent that it's for the Pirelli Carlisle Rally. It said that rights of way were unaffected, but it was clear on today's outing that there will be much happening on the tracks I covered, even if they're not part of the live race. Coincidentally on one of our Big Walks (Kent to Cape Wrath I would guess), we passed through the Rally area of Kielder Forest on the day before the closures, but on the day that cars were out making their course notes. Our timing was even more marginal that time as if we hadn't foregone an intended rest day a couple of weeks earlier, our forward progress would have been thwarted by the event.
2. This is another hill that most people approach from the other side. It's a much shorter outing from that side and (based on the newly laid track up to the mast coming from that direction) there's a good track. I only chose to do it from the Kielder side because we were comfortably parked there anyway.</sup>

^{3. I followed the Lakeside Trail for the first half mile or so today, having cycled the road and forest track to get to the same point yesterday. That was a mistake - it wiggled around with pointless ups and downs thrown in. I returned via the track/road.)}

Tuesday 23 April - Sighty Crag (NY601809; 520m)

The first wiggling of my legs as I awoke this morning suggested that yesterday afternoon's hill had been a mistake. My quads were most definitely making their presence felt and it looked like yesterday's intended rest day was going to have to be moved to today, as there are no quick-and-easy Marilyns to be had from our current location.

Mick, fine husband that he is, volunteered to make me breakfast in bed and much lounging was done. When I finally emerged from under the duvet, it was to find that my legs weren't as sore as I'd thought. Were they up to a 14-mile bike ride and 3.5 miles of yomping over monster tussocks and through heather? By late morning, I decided that yes, they were.

Most people attack Sighty Crag from the west side. I was approaching from Kielder Water (to the NE), simply because I couldn't find anywhere suitable to park a Bertie-sized vehicle nearby on the west side. That gave me a longer outing, but as most of it looked cyclable, I decided it was the better option.

The ride in involved more coasting downhills than I would prefer (it doesn't take a genius to work out that coasting on the way in means pedalling on the way out), but was otherwise uneventful and a little over an hour after setting out I was chatting to a tree planting chap just before the end of the track. He's part of a team of four who are in the process of planting 10,000 broadleaf trees, which will take them around 3 weeks. It's a slow process, he explained, with the need to use a stake and protective tube for every tree. Their progress on the other side of the track, which is to be re-conifered, will be quicker.

A minute later I stopped again, this time to chat to a bird protection chap who was checking on the Peregrine Falcons nesting nearby, to see if they're sitting on eggs yet. He was full of helpful information, such as the advice that I would have been much better approaching the hill from the other side.

I had expected to walk from where he was parked, as my map said that was where the track ended. However, a couple of very rough tracks have been put in leading towards the forest edge, which was fortuitous as, with all of the felling, the fire breaks I'd intended to use to exit the trees have been obliterated. Those tracks turned out to be too tough going for me to ride, so the bike was soon abandoned in favour of my feet.

I was glad for the continuation track, even if it was too rough/steep for me to ride.

The walk turned out to be far easier than I'd expected. Only about 100m of forest detritus had to be negotiated between the track-end and the open hillside, where I picked up a vague animal trod that helped me along until I reached an indent in the landscape down which ran a stream. That indent was mainly grassy, with a few areas of quivering bog and a few more of monster tussocks, but there wasn't much heather down there, so it was comparatively easy.

Comparatively easy walking in a dip in the landscape. I seem to have photographed a section with more heather than was typical alongside the stream.

Reaching the top of that stream, the going was right up there with the hardest sort of wading through tussocks and heather, but only for a third of a mile. As I reached spot height 508m I could see that I was only a short distance from a fence that leads all the way to Sighty Crag's summit, and where there's a fence there's generally some sort of a trodden line next to it.

So it proved to be, punctuated here and there with some deep peat hags, although I imagine the going for the entirety of this section would have been rather more challenging if it hadn't been so dry lately.

Standing on the high point, with the trig behind me

Lunch was had on the summit before steps were retraced. My descent route can't have been far removed from that of my ascent, but I seemed to find easier terrain sooner on the way back, reducing the amount of heather-tussock-wading still further.

The return bike leg was slowed not just by those pesky undulations, but also by a headwind, but even so, I arrived back at Bertie almost three hours ahead of the 'panic if I'm not back by' time I had agreed with Mick (no mobile phone signal where Bertie is currently parked, so I couldn't update him on progress).

The stats for this one came in at 14 miles exactly for the bike ride with around 310m ascent and 3.4 miles for the walk with around 150m ascent.