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Wanted to keep the mileage up this week but didn't fancy the sloppy snow around here after Mondays 'rib incident', so I decided to do a little local hill that had decent mileage without the snow cover. The weather was overcast but warm.
Starting from the village of Tarland and taking the circuit clockwise as suggested by WH, it's out of town on a very quiet road for about 2 miles.
I've only just started and the cloud is looking ominous.......so much for the promise of a sunny afternoon
Away to the west I can see Morven, still sporting a little sloppy snow
To the north-east is the first view of Pressendye and Broom Hill (Pressendye on the right) ...not too tough but seemingly quite far away.....
As the tarmac road turns at Easter Davoch, I continued on toward the western flank of Broom Hill - the sign reads
Boultonstone via Lazy Well 4.5 miles
At a T junction the arrow for the blue walk sign is missing, so a quick squint at OS-405 and as expected, it directed me through the farm gate and along the well rutted field
The ruts turned out to be dry with just the odd puddle which were easily avoided
I soon came upon the next sign - this time with its arrow intact
So through the gate and on along the deer fence with a last look at Morven before turning into the trees and quite a steep little pull through the woods
Once out of the trees it is back to a good path through the heather and up to the top of Broom Hill almost immediately, from there it is a drop of about 100m across the saddle before climbing again for Pressendye. Looking back to Broom Hill shows a controlled burn of the heather to the north.
To the south Morven still hogs the horizon
A nice gentle climb along the well trodden path through the heather is all that remains to reach the summit
I arrived at the summit and set my camera on timer and placed it on top of the trig point, I then ran across to the summit cairn and scrambled up a little way to pose for the pics........I almost scared an old couple and younger woman to death as they had been sheltering within the cairn on the north side, they had not seen me / I had not seen them
They forgave me for the fright and I joined them for 5 minutes and had a cuppa and a wee chat, mentioned WH, the younger lady said she used the site occasionally - so HI (just in case) and sorry for the scare.....here we are all behind the shelter of the (large for the size of the hill) cairn having a cuppa
From the trig point looking south - the camera (as always) doesn't do justice to the actual views, for a small hill Pressendye really does have some excellent 360 views.
I think they were talking about me
As my new found friends had left I though I would do the same and headed off in the opposite direction (they were doing the walk anti clockwise)
The clouds still threatened as I worked my way back down the lush firm pathway toward Tarland
A very pleasant surprise lower down was this avenue of birch trees that went on for 1km or so....a bit like something from a horror movie ..... glad it wasn't getting dark
The tree lined avenue then thins out and opens up to give a wider view of the home straight
Finally I step out onto the tarmac road about a mile north of Tarland giving a last view of Morven, then turn left and make my way back through the houses to the free parking in the town square without a drop of rain ever falling, even though it threatened to do so throughout the walk.
Although there is about 3 miles of tarmac road on this walk, I saw only one car during my time on Tarmac and even then I was greeted with a friendly wave from the lady driver
It was great to get another 9 miles in without any leg problems and I really do feel that I have turned a corner this week (I almost said "made great strides")
Anyway, enough of that - if you are out Tarland way and you fancy a 'warm down' walk, Pressendye won't let you down
