Walkhighlands

A round of TUmps in the Tillyfourie area.
viz: Green Hill ; Red Hill; Knockfullertree ; Tillybirloch ; Balblair; Carndaie.

The GREEN and RED HILLs of Benaquhallie ( PORT & STARBOARD )



The track starts a wee bit to the east of the house marked on the map and goes round the back of it. Good parking at the end of the track. Take the left fork in the track which terminates in the forest, but a path continues to the top of the wood.




We took the easy path to the east from the end of the wood which swoops round on to the top, marked by a solitary pine tree and a wee grassy patch among the heather.




A path goes across to the N top, which we followed, but then thrutched down some deep heather to the forestry track in the bealach between Green and Red, while Harvey porpoised alongside !. A forwarder track heads up through the clearfell on to the shoulder of Red past the edge of the trees to the junction of the fences. There is no apparent path along the fence, so we moose-stepped alongside the fence until we came to a granite marker stone with "F" on one side and "T" on the other.
We speculated that it was an estate march boundary marker ( probably incorrectly ) as it was in the middle of no-where.






Eventually, after more moose-stepping, we arrived at the top of Red. It was breezy but the sun was out.




On the descent, to avoid the rough ground we'd traversed on the way up,we took a beeline down to the edge of the forest to pick up the track at the other side of the grass field down to Denwell. It was marginally better underfoot this way.
The first track to Upperhill didn't exist, so we took the next one up towards Upperhill, then crossed to our original track along the flank of Green Hill, as I didn't want to walk H along the narrow road back to the car.




Luckily, someone was hacking their horse along this path fairly regularly, otherwise the track would've been completely overgrown..






KNOCKFULLERTREE HILL




Drove along the road to Dave McG's parkup S of the trig. Climbed the fence and walked up through the wood to the outlying trig.




The field to the W had kye in it at a feeder, which diverted their attention from following us up the field to the wood.



Heaved H over the fence at the forest, as it had pheasant /chicken wire on the lower half and BW on top. Wandered up through the wood to the top to a non-descript top in the trees. Someone had built a howf near the top.





TILLYBIRLOCH HILL



Attacked Tillybirloch from the S at Auchintoul, up the track to the edge of the wood. Wandered up through the wood to another non-descript top in the trees.



BALBLAIR HILL


Nice parkup on the corner. Followed the path until it forked. Took the wrong fork and had to cut up to the top through the trees.




Followed a firebreak down but had to jump over the planting ditches as we made our way back to the track " across the grain ".




CAIRNDAIE HILL



Parked up to the W of the track up to Wateridgemuir where a generous approach to a garage had been fashioned. Blinds were down to thought it must be a "let" cottage. Walked down the road to the first track, which ended in the courtyard. Backtracked a wee bit and through a gate to skirt the buildings on a grass track which met the other track coming up from the road. Continued to Cairnaie croft,( derelict ) where we saw that the field alongside had just been ploughed, but the end-rigs hadn't been done, so we skirted the croft on the old stubble then through a gate and walked up a grass field to the rubbish tip at the top.( looked like someone had demolished a bothy and dumped it on the top of the hill - strange place to dump it ! )




Returned to the car down the other track..