It all started very late, due to missing the bus I meant to get. There was a 'rural produce show' going on in the village hall in Carlops, but they were selling off all the produce by the time I stuck my head round the door.
- Carlin's Loup
- Carlops
- Carlops fountain
I took the path up beside the burn from beside the bridge, not the track from along near the car park, which may or may not have been a good idea - very pretty but very very muddy. And noisy with grasshoppers singing to themselves.
- Looking up the North Esk
- A green grasshopper
I met the good track before the reservoir, and the going got easier from then on. I caused a small grouse explosion at one point by opening a gate - and the air had that taste about it that means summer is ending, which wasn't there last weekend.
There was a good view of East Cairn Hill over to the west, which is on my list for the future...
- North Esk reservoir
I was disappointed by the Bore Stane - I was expecting an actual set up boundary stone, and all I found - after a bit of hunting - was a few bits of rocky outcrop.
But the setting is lovely - a sudden change from being able to see very little, and that all behind you, to being able to see right over Edinburgh to Fife and the highlands ahead. And maybe if you have a rocky outcrop more or less on the watershed, where no other rocks are, you don't really need to set up other stones.
- Over the watershed
- Possibly the Bore Stane
The path downhill is mostly made of logs, which I suppose is better than mostly made of mud.
- Kings Hill
The main problem with this walk was the long walk out - almost as far from the track junction at Listonshiels to the bus terminus at Balerno as the walk through the hills had been. There's a signpost at the junction pointing to Bavelaw, but the first part is just rough field with sometimes more or less a path, and sometimes various people's ideas of where a path might be but probably isn't, and the next part is along the edge of strips of conifer plantation, and even muddier than the path at Carlops. Still, I eventually made it to the road, and cleaned off some of the mud, and the road is long and straight but simple, with views over to the main hills.
Then because it had been so late when I started, it was 8pm when I got to the bus stop, and the bus due at 8:12 and the bus due at 8:42 turned up together about half past... but I did get home in the end!
- Gaps in the trees, Bavelaw
- Looking from the road
