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We try to get out every day and have a little walk in the countryside around our local area, the trouble with that is we tend to repeat our walks depending on our mood and the weather so, with the forecast being a good one, we decided to do something a little different today and involve a hill, we didn't want to do anything big or too far away, so, I thought a sub 2000 would be a good way to get a little bit of fitness built up for the better weather and longer days in the hills we're hoping for in a couple of months.
So, what could we do? what's near that we could "bag"? ahh, now then, there's a sub to the east of Backwater Reservoir, Creigh Hill and it's got two burial cairns on it, right, something of interest as well as a hill and not too far away, decision made, we'll do that
There was no need to set off too early, 10am would be ideal, it's a hours drive to the start so we thought with a good forecast we'd take our time on the hill and have lunch on one of the tops. We arrived at the carpark at 11 and were off up the track that starts just before the car park at NO260597 by 11:20, the weather was very good, not sunny but very bright with not a breath of wind, grand
We were going to include the "bump" Macritch Hill so followed the track part of the way and then picked up one of the feinter paths that head directly uphill to the right of the fence.
Nice views on the way
Mount Blair
Cat Law
We were heading for the fence at the top that goes all the way to the top of Creigh Hill and continues along our intended route, so easy navigation, on a nice fine day
The top of Macritch Hill is marked by a block of white quartz, not a cairn just a block.
Cat Law from the top
From the top we walked over to the new looking deer fence, turned right and followed it to the top of Creigh Hill, it was fairly easy going and there is a feint path, we kept losing it in the heather so just stayed next to the fence and made steady progress.
Just before the top the fence changes direction and goes right continuing its way along the broad ridge, we had to cross it to get to Cairn Motherie which wasn't a problem, we just needed to go back over it to carry on over to Cairn Plew, the path looked better on that side of the fence, a bit less heather bashing
Cairn Motherie and the top of Creigh Hill
Views from Creigh Hill
Next on the agenda...Cairn Plew
It took about half an hour to walk over to Cairn Plew being careful not to find any holes in the heather we could disappear into
we had to cross the fence again to have a look but, again, no problem, it's low enough not to do any damage to fence or body
Cairn Plew
Views from Cairn Plew
Ballintore Castle just visible
Both cairns are interesting, it's thought that they date from the Neolithic or Bronze Age so they've been part of the landscape for a long time, we had our lunch next to Cairn Plew and tried to imagine how our view compared with what it might have looked like when they were built, would it have been native woodland and we'd be looking over a sea of trees??
Lunch time view
After lunch we crossed the fence to look at the summit cairn, something the main summit was lacking, then we set off back retracing our steps back to Cairn Motherie.
We set off down, found the top of the track at around NO271596, (it's a bit vague amongst the heather) and followed it back to the road.
Backwater Reservoir was worth taking photos of as we descended
Like a mill pond
It's a nice little hill and just right for a short walk, there's plenty to see from the tops especially the munros further north. Cat Law is the most prominent hill to the east and the flat farmland to the south provides a bit of contrast to the views, the one thing that stood out for us was the complete lack of wind or even a light breeze, it was completely still, a very rare thing even on the smaller hills, very enjoyable
