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This was to be an opportunity to blow away the cobwebs prior to returning to work, little did I know how much, and after our curtailed walk up Ben Chonzie on New Years Eve, was also another day out with my son, Chris. We hadn't been walking together since our day on Ben Vorlich so I was looking forward to this a great deal.
We would be having a late start due to dropping off my wife at work, somebody has to bring in the moolah.
We headed for Flotterstone around about 10:30 and arrived at the carpark to find it was brimming to overflowing, so quick rethink and we headed up the road slightly and parked of road at House of Muir farm, where there is a small section of disused carriageway.
Weather was looking good with showers forecast later, so we set off down to join the path to Turnhouse hill, smallest of the hills for today, but in my opinion the steepest, it never fails to get the legs going and the heart pumping. The majority of visitors seemed to be doing rounds of the reservoirs or just little walks up the hills.
Quite quickly the path deteriorated to mudfest status, but that didn't seem to bother the fell runners who came hurtling off Turnhouse as we made our way up.
Pretty soon it was evident the forecast had skipped the bit about wind, bloody hell it was blawin' a hoolie. And the clag had descended, but we kept on and soon enough made the top and just carried onto Carnethy Hill.
I had downloaded the Viewranger app the previous day so this was supposed to be its launch, but somehow I forget/ didn't know how to set it off recording our route. Whatever reason, when I checked afterwards it had only recorded from Carnethy onward including the drive home so all in all we managed 46km that afternoon, impressive eh!!
Going across the crest of Carnethy the wind really livened things up, stopping in one of the windbreaks for a quick brew, and nearly losing our sandwiches which would have been catastrophic.
We carried on in the bleeding awful wind, it wasn't particularly cold but it was playing havoc, nearly knocking us off our feet and really rattling around our lugs. The paths on the tops were in pretty good condition not too boggy, which was surprising given the amount of rain we have had recently.
We passed a few folk but nobody was in the mood for stopping for a chat, so we pressed on for Scald Law and soon made the trig point, and I embarrassed myself with a feeble attempt at planking....... whats that all about!!!!!!!
Think it might have been the wind or something....
Luckily no photographic evidence
We had planned on carrying onto the Kips, but we had a little conflab, and decided it would be better if we just cut of the hill before the Kips and head down to Lovers Loup and the Howe.
When we got out of the wind and down at the sheepfold we took a quick pitstop, and then started on our walk out alongside Loganlea Reservoir ,and onto Glencorse Reservoir. We had been up walking up this track just the day before but to see some of the damage from the high winds was startling, somebodys shed turned into kindling and a good few trees down damaging the drystane dykes along by Glen Cottage.
We made good time back to the car, skirting up the hedge line at the path closest to House of Muir to avoid the mud fest. Changed and back on the road, it had been a right blowy day but a really enjoyable one.
