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Sub 2k Marilyns: Broomy Law, Goseland Hill.
Date: 24/11/2019.
Distance: 2.5 + 1.5 km.
Ascent: 140 + 145 m.
Time: 40 minutes + 30 minutes.
Weather: Warm, calm and almost continuously foggy, with limited views even though neither summit was fully in the clouds.
Part of a 42 mile bike ride
This weekend's forecast wasn't looking particularly promising, but at least Sunday appeared to be dry. Rather than drive anywhere, we decided to jump on the train to Lanark and cycle into the Borders countryside. A Marilyn or two would probably be the order of the day as well...
Cycle map We were on our way from Lanark by 10:15, passing Carstairs and the hospital/prison before heading out into the countryside. Some roads were busier than others, but generally the going was pleasant enough. We passed the Apple Pie Bakery in Carnwath - it was tempting to call in there and not bother going up any hills at all, but given we had only travelled about 7 miles from Lanark, it seemed a bit soon! The cloud was generally low, although the sun almost broke through at a couple of points and be could almost see Tinto...
On the road near Libberton 
Tinto almost comes out of the cloud Our first objective was Broomy Law, which has a vehicle track to the top and is nice and easy. Crossing the A702 was less than pleasant - a fast and busy road. We cycled up to Brownsbank farm and decided to leave our bikes there and walk the rest.
Broomy Law approaching 15 minutes later, we were there. This might well have been a good viewpoint in better conditions, but all we could see was our immediate surroundings and bare, brown hills marching off into the clag. No wind though, and quite warm, so we decided to have lunch before going back down the same way.
Approaching the summit of Broomy Law 
The top 
It's grim out there.... We had to endure a few minutes of unpleasantness on the A702, but very soon we were turning off towards Skirling. Brakes were slammed on so we could walk over a footbridge instead of cycling through the ford. The base of the ford was made of slippery cobbles and the flow in the burn was impressively fast.
Ford near Skirling We had also decided to include Goseland Hill in our route today, preferably from the south. So we headed round out of Lanarkshire and into the Borders proper, then through Broughton. I was minded to stock up on beer at the brewery there, but it wasn't open on Sundays. A nice village though, and more of a feeling of being in the hills than we had experienced so far today.
First view of Goseland Hill 
Biggar or better? Taking the small road on the south side of Goseland Hill, we turned off at Gosland farm and abandoned our bikes on the grass. A couple of inquisitive Shetland Ponies charged towards us looking for food, and seemed pretty keen to eat my pannier and Jackie's pedal, so we moved the bikes to a small fenced area above the farm.
Round the back of the Coulter Fells 
Hungry ponies Although we thought this would be the longer walk, we were on the summit after a mere 12 minutes of rather steep grass
. Even though it was only early afternoon, the gloom felt like dusk so we didn't hang around.
Yay - more views....! 
Cardon Hill 
Back down to Gosland We followed the other branch of the farm track back to the road to avoid going back on ourselves, but this proved to be a bit rougher than the main farm access. Grass, bog and gorse gave Jackie's nice new bike its first taste of offroad
.
Jackie offroading There was a bit of a climb from here before we dropped steeply towards Biggar and followed a convoluted set of lefts and rights to avoid the A702. In the end we didn't actually go into Biggar, passing it to the west and heading for Thankerton up a hill I hadn't noticed on the map....
Some more main road dodging (and hills that Jackie wasn't best pleased with) dumped us back on the A73 into Lanark - a fast road, but also fast for us. We got back into Lanark with just enough time to grab a cup of tea in Morrisons before getting the 16:15 train home. Back in Glasgow it was properly miserable.
