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Whilst travelling home from Perthshire, I had a couple of hours spare and as it was a nice day decided on Mount Blair for a quick wander.
The B951 road from the A93 to Kirriemuir is currently (Aug 2013) closed at the A93 junction for what looks to be lengthy improvement works, there's an alternative way leaving the A93 a couple of kilometres south.
Mount Blair is one of those hills you notice from the A93; it's quite prominent and has the obvious telecomms mast on top. It's one I've often thought about doing, and today was the day.
I parked in a cleared area at the edge of the forest, right at the roadsigns showing the boundary between Perth & Kinross and Angus. A stroll eastwards up the road and the first gate leads into an open area of grazing with a faint track heading uphill.
The colour theme for the day was most definitely purple; first grand thistles in the grazed area.....
Then glorious ridges of heather higher up. A slight breeze was blowing but not enough to deter the bees which were everywhere among the heather.
Ling is the dominant heather higher up with the darker Erica variety a bit lower down. The whole hill was highly scented - a delicious smell of honey and my boots and trousers ended up fairly coated with pollen. If you could bottle the scent along with the fresh air you'd make a fortune!
The summit is dominated by the telecomms mast and gear, but even this doesn't detract from some great views.
Mount Blair is a boundary hill in more than one way. As well as being on the border of two counties it's very much on the physical boundary. South from the trig point the view is of rural Perthshire with its mix of woods, farmland and lower hills.....
...while to the north the scenery is definitely of the highland variety; as here looking up Glen Shee.
On the descent I left the track and headed north-east to a lower top before rejoining the road to the east of a small burn and so back to the car.
If you're travelling the A93 and have a couple of hours spare, this hill is a nice little diversion. If you get it in late summer with the heather scent - so much the better!
Kind regards
Ian
