Sell Moor Hill

[nigheandonn]

This was not a very organised day - I was going down to West Linton to cross the Pentlands, but as usual I missed the 10:23 bus, then I was going to climb Dundreich just because it was on the edge of the Pentlands map but decided there was no point if I didn’t have time for its friends, and eventually I set off for Stow, more for the fun of the New Train than from any particular desire to climb the hill. (I like that the train tickets say 'Stow of Wedale' - everywhere should have a Sunday name!)

It was a beautiful journey down with the colours of the trees glowing all around, although I don’t think they were at their best yet, and Stow was looking very pretty too.

Train at Stow

Autumnal church

Sell Moor Hill was generally unexciting but pleasant - up past the town hall, turn left and follow the road uphill, counting clumps of trees and looking back to the rolling hills on the other side of the railway line. I thought about carrying on to Lauder to make it a bit more of an adventure when I saw the sign saying it was 5 miles away, but I wasn't sure enough about the buses home.

Looking back down the road

After the fourth lot of trees I turned off the road, since there was a gate and a wall to follow uphill. The ground had been a bit trampled by cows at some point, but i didn't see any, and it was generally solid enough. By the time the wall turned too far away I could see the edge of the next group of trees - the only problem was a very muddy place which I had to skirt.

Up by the wall

The views around were gentle but pretty enough - more farmland than hills, but a nice empty feeling.

Valley below

From there it was just a case of heading gently up, until I met a broken wall and realised that it must be the top because I could now see the Eildon Hills ahead - the trig point was just along to my left.

Sell Moor Hill summit

I carried on over the hill to come down to the road on the other side, and had my only excitement of the day when I met two fences and a wall together - I couldn't see a gate, and was standing looking at a low bit of wall with my hand idly resting on the first strand of fence, when I thought 'did that fence just bite me?!' So I tried again, and it had, but I'm not sure what the point was, because I've had worse shocks from car doors!

The second strand of fence then tore my jacket, and the wall tried to fall down while I was on top of it, so I was generally quite glad to be over. After that it was uneventful again, just following tiny paths down to the road and the wind farm.

Road and windfarm

The road led back down into Stow, with a good view of the whole hill on the way, then through some very pretty autumn woods.

The hill

Autumn woods

As I had about half an hour to wait for the train I went wandering and realised that Stow is quite an odd place - it has a school and a doctors and a shop and a coffee shop and a church and toilets and a garage and another shop that sells tractors and even a ruin, but it has no pub - not that I was looking for one, but there are a lot of smaller places that do.

The old church

Overall it was quite a nice little railway adventure for a not too energetic day.

our_route.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts