Benarty Hill

[nigheandonn]

It's starting to feel like we're all following each other around these little hills - I was on Beinn Lora 5 days before weaselmaster and Sick Kid, then on Moncreiffe Hill two days after KatTai and a day before Malky and Jaxter. I didn't think anyone had followed me to Benarty Hill yet, but apparently I'm just slow - weaselmaster was here two weeks ago!

This was a genuine last minute decision - the wind was due to be less strong in the east to start with and to die down quicker there so I was looking over that way for something quick that I could do in the late afternoon, but I really had my eye on Largo Law, missed out from the coastal path two years ago because of the Beast from the East snow. The East Neuk is always surprisingly far away, though, and there are other summer things I want to do over that way, so once I'd realised that I could get to Ballingry relatively quickly, Benarty Hill became a better plan - I caught a 2:30pm bus from Barnton, with the hope that the wind would ease about 4.

Ballingry was an unlikely start to a walk - the kind of place where everyone keeps their household junk in their front gardens. From where the bus turned away I walked up past a school and a last scattering of houses and out onto what was just beginning to be a country road, where a path led into the woods by a sign which said that this was Beautiful Fife.

Start of the path

Quite quickly I had a choice of high road or low road, but I kept to low, near the actual road, as I wasn't quite sure where the other path would wander off to. The woods weren't amazingly beautiful, but they were nice enough, the path leading to a track which began at a green barrier and started to climb.

I've walked all round the outside of Fife, and what I really like about it is its variety. This, then, seemed to be a very Fife kind of view - town and farmland, loch and hill, wind turbines and industrial chimneys.

Fife view

After climbing for a bit I came to a track junction with a signpost - one way for Loch Ore, which was actually behind me on the other side of the road, and one way for Loch Leven, which was somewhere over the other side of the hill. Neither instruction really helped, so I just kept on more or less in the direction I was going anyway, which happened to be the Loch Ore branch.

Looking back at the junction

The track ran up to a kind of viewpoint, fenced off above a steep drop - a better version of the earlier view, mostly, over Loch Ore and its islands, but round the corner a hazy Dumglow was coming into view against the low sun.

View from the corner

The track didn't exactly stop here, but it did change dramatically - a little thread of path seemed to continue on, while a rough track swung back and up, and then back again and up again.

Rough track

A path led over to a gate, and a complete change from the trees and cleared areas below to heathery moorland.

Despite the forecast, it wasn't entirely clear up here that the wind had calmed down - it was strong, and very cold, but on the other hand it wasn't actually trying to blow me away.

Through the gate

From the gate a path led on over a nearby top - in places it was very muddy, but always clear.

To the first top

This first top is the one called Seamark on the map, marked with an odd round stone - apparently the hill can be seen from the Forth, and made a useful landmark for sailors steering up the river.

Seamark

I was beginning to have views around me now, as well as across the valley behind - the tops of the Lomond Hills, which I knew were the highlight of the view from the summit, were visible behind the slopes.

Lomond hills

On the other side a little valley gave a glimpse of hazy hills beyond.

Glimpse through the valley

Just occasionally there were odds and ends of snow lying, to show that the hill had been well covered once - I think this patch, just before the trig point, was the only one on the path itself.

Remnants of snow

The summit is just a grassy area not much higher than its surroundings, but it does have a trig point, which is always nice.

Benarty Hill summit

From the trig point the snowy Ochils were fully in view, layered behind the rougher little top of the hillfort.

Ochil view

Getting the real view, though, meant going on a few steps towards the fence which skirts the steep northern edge of the hill - Loch Leven spread out below, and the Lomond Hills rising on the other side.

Lomond view

From here there was very little sign of the snow which had been visible on the north side of West Lomond - I could have been up there the day before after all, if I hadn't been worried that the snowline might still be very low.

It had taken me longer to reach the top than I thought it might - there didn't seem to be much point to trying to find a way down the far side, because I would just have to hurry along to catch the last bus from Kinross, and also I wasn't sure if the loch was up over its banks and therefore over the path.

I turned along the edge of the hill just the same, for a change - further along the fence was joined by a tumbledown wall, very scenic with the hills beyond and the cool evening light.

Over the wall

Lower down there were trees along the wall - bare ones in the heather, and then bent larches in the edge of the farmland.

Through the trees

The northern end of the hill was a smooth stretch of farmland, still one step below me, and my plan now was to head down across it to the track when came up to Ballingry Farm. Where the fence around the top of the hill came down to the farmland and the edge of the trees there was another gate, but instead of following the path on into the woods I followed a rougher path straight down.

Down towards the fields

Surprisingly, though, instead of ending up in the edge of a field, I suddenly ended up on a good gravel path which curved round the edge of the hill. I thought about it, but although the path went on curving back up again into the trees, where I hadn't really meant to go, good path was too tempting and I followed it round to meet the top of another forest track.

Unexpected path

In spite of that I was almost tempted away by what seemed to be a tiny shortcut path down through the trees below the path, but it was slippery enough with mud at the top to put me off, and I stuck to the track - dull but safe - back down to the junction. There was a good view of Ballingry from above - looking as if it had a lot of new houses, but I think it really just has a lot of houses with new roofs - and a very odd thing behind a bit like the pyramids at Livingston.

Ballingry from above

I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get back to the bus stop, so I kept to the road rather than the path for quicker walking - more and more rubbish in the verges as I got closer to the houses.

Back on the road

In the end I had maybe 10 minutes to wait, and I let myself be distracted by a very unexpected building which came into view just round the corner in this direction.

New places often have a core of old houses, of course, but nothing about Ballingry had prepared me for an old stone church, or a gravestone dated 1753 - there was really nothing else of that kind of age about, except maybe the house next door, which had an old solid shape under its modern grey harling.

Stone church

I walked along as far as the shop, but then discovered I didn't have any change, and just went back to wait for the bus. I hadn't really felt cold on the hill, but now I felt as if the wind had cut through to my bones, and it took a long time to warm up again - a warm tap in Dunfermline eventually helped.

I decided that as the bus I was on was heading to Dunfermline, I was better going there than trying to find something to eat in Cowdenbeath - I have experience of Fife on a Sunday night in winter from when I walked the coastal path. But I should have remembered that I also have experience of trying and failing to get out of Dunfermline - I knew I was never likely to catch the next direct bus, but it turned out that the Halbeath connection was only about 10 minutes later, and I rushed up and missed it, and spent a while hanging about the dismal bus station - it was a good bit later than I expected when I got home.

But it was a much better use of the afternoon than hanging about inside, and I made a useful discovery - I've been reluctant to do a Sunday round of the Lomond Hills because it would mean not just retracing my steps off Bishop Hill but then walking right back to Strathmiglo, but a roadsign at the edge of the village made me realise that there's no reason why I shouldn't walk out from Scotlandwell to Ballingry, which has a bus every half hour...

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[Sgurr]

If you had followed the gravel path down you would have come to the RSPB centre. We used always to do it from there until we discovered the way you went up, but that is spoiled by all the felling that has taken place. I was casting around for a way to describe Ballingry when weaslemaster bravely camped quite near, but anyway, it was far enough that people who keep their rubbish in their front gardens are probably too dispirited to bother coming out to harass campers at the bottom of the hill.

[nigheandonn]

They might well all be perfectly harmless people, but there's a certain kind of place where apparently if you don't want something, you just leave it lying outside!

I did realise afterwards that the path I met was presumably the signposted way to Loch Leven, but by then I don't think I'd have caught the last bus coming down from Kinross. I didn't mean to go over the other side originally, it was only when I was looking at the map on the bus that I realised it might be possible.