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Had a good hotel breakfast before departing the hotel in East Kilbride for the final time, and rather than head straight up the road home, I decided to do another hillwalk while I was vaguely in the area. Chose the round of 4 Donalds (2 of which are grahams too) from Coulter near Biggar as it was probably about as good a length of walk as I'd easily manage with the shorter daylight hours now, given I only left the hotel at 10am. Started the walk at 11am. Ground was wet through a lot of it, but never anything walking boots couldn't handle, made it round with dry feet.
- A damp, overcast Monday in November - so I was surprised that both laybys/ parking spots had 3 cars in each already. First ascent, Fell Shin, the hill on the left.
- Heading up Fell Shin, looking back on the start. It was a walk which really reminded me of the Lake District, both in terrain of the hills, sheep dotted around ... and the easy to pronounce hill names...
- Eventually came to the summit of Culter Fell, though it was all in the clag and nothing to see.
- Heading down to Holm Nick, the next hill, Gathersnow Hill ahead, similarly shrouded in wet cloud
- Gathersnow Hill summit and the fence line to follow for the next stretch. I bent over to open my bag and take out a bottle of water after taking this ...
- ...then stood up and found that in those few seconds the cloud had lifted a bit and I could see the wind farm ahead (the slope I'd take to Hillshaw Head is going up to the left with the summit out of shot)
- Heading down Gathersnow Hill, the cloud had also lifted to give me my first proper sighting of Culter Hill (on the right) and Tinto (in the distance on the left)
- Zoomed to Tinto and Coulter Reservoir
- Hillshaw Head summit, Culter Hill and Gathersnow Hill behind
- Dropped down from Hillshaw Head to pick up the wind farm track for a stretch towards Hudderstone
- Finally got to see Culter Hill clear of clouds from the unmarked summit of Hudderstone Hill