2025 may only be a few weeks old, but it is already shaping up to be a year of significant and potentially turbulent change in my life. It seemed fitting therefore, that my first hillwalking venture of the year should be a fairly radical change from the norm. It had been a long time since I had set off from my house for a hill day and turned left on the Dundee Road, heading for the A90 or M90, rather than turning right as usual and heading for the much more travelled A9 or A85. But turn left was exactly what I had planned for today. It felt strange to be heading for the hills and yet to be heading south down the M90, passing Kinross and my childhood stomping ground of Dunfermline, and then hurtling across the Queensferry Crossing and swinging around the Edinburgh City Bypass.

The skies had looked promising as I pulled out of the driveway just before 8am and indeed the forecast for all areas I had considered had been fairly promising with little if any chance of rain, good visibility and fairly benign walking conditions. And yet as I turned off the ECB and entered Midlothian, it was considerably murkier and less promising looking than Perth had been just an hour or so previously. Oh well, I was all in now - no turning back!

I was headed for the little parking area on the minor road to Moorfoot Farm on the southern edge of Gladhouse Reservoir near Penicuik. The Moorfoot Hills of Blackhope Scar, that peculiar thing that is both Graham and Donald, as well as the wind turbine infested Bowbeat Hill and the unappealingly named Dundreich (both merely Donalds, no pretentions to anything more than that!) were my targets. A check the previous day on my walks blog had confirmed that it had been over 7 years since my last Donald. This is the sort of statistic that would bring Kiltedbiggles out in hives! 5th January 2018 to be exact. Queensberry with Kev and his brother in law after a night in Brattleburn and an encounter with a seemingly unhinged gentleman from Beattock who carried an axe with him which he claimed he used for shaving!

As I said - a year of great change appears to lie ahead so why not! The hills on my more regular northern beats are not going anywhere! And I had new boots to put through their paces and the famed peat hags and bogs of Blackhope Scar and Dundreich would be a worthy first test of their mettle!

For all my years living in Edinburgh from the late 80s through to the early naughties, I barely know the lesser byways of Midlothian. Penicuik carried little more meaning to me than the butt of a thinly veiled joke referenced in the 1985 film Restless Natives. As for Auchendinny and Loanstone, they were news to me! Google Maps was up to the task though, and guided me effortlessly to my destination where 3 or 4 cars were already parked up.

Gladhouse Reservoir from the parking area

I released Luna from the confines of her travel crate and changed into the new boots, taking one last long look at them before they are forever changed in their appearance by their ecounter with Blackhope Scar! Then it was off along the tarmac to Moorfoot Farm, through the farmyard and onto the landrover track to Gladhouse Cottage.

A leisurely start

I stopped just before the farm to check a couple of Whatsapp pings and was caught up by a gentleman from Edinburgh by the name of Joe who was heading out with his binoculars to get high and do a bit of bird watching. We walked together and chatted as far as the ruins of Hirendean Castle, at which point he headed off across the Hirendean Burn and onto the wooded hillside to the east of the burn and I carried on up the grassy track on the well defined northern nose of Hirendean Hill.

Hirendean Castle and the sharp north eastern prow of Cotly Hill across the valley of the River South Esk

Hirendean Burn and a rare vestige of January snow on Hirendean Hill

Back down to Hirendean Castle, the immaculate brick built livestock enclosure and Gladhouse Reservoir with the Pentlands in the distance

A keeper then sped up from behind me on his quad bike and, I assume referring to Luna, told me in no uncertain terms that "that thing will be staying on the lead all day" as there were "loads of sheep up there on the hill" and "it's not as if there are no signs!" Oh well, at least he didn't call it "my hill", Mr Jolly of Turin Farm style!

We're getting high! I wonder if Joe is high yet!?

I located a suitable place to cross the barbed wire fence (gate to the left rather than via stones to the right as I had read about) without the risk of ensnagment (not sure if that is even a real world but if it isn't it should be!) and shortly thereafter, the lush grassy track morphed into what looked like a supply route for munitions close to the front line in Flanders circa 1916! There may have been precious little snow cover for mid-January, but clearly night time temperatures have been low enough to put a decent crust on it!

Donald bagging - this is more like it!

Contouring the western flanks of The Kipps

There had been a scattering of ovine quadrapeds quite some distance away from us at one point but otherwise, we appeared to be in a sheep free zone. Still, I kept Luna on the lead for the time being, much to her obvious annoyance. Walking with her on the lead on a firm, flat track is one thing, over uneven, tussocky, boggy ground quite another. I hadn't seen any more signs and wondered at which point they no longer apply. If I kept walking on my current bearing, I would eventually hit Langholm. Still a bit riled by the brusqueness of the keeper, I facetiously wondered if the signs would still apply then.

The gradual ascent eventually brings a touch of white

The trig point summit of Blackhope Scar soon appeared against the grey background of the sky and I approached my first Donald summit in 2,570 days.

A trig point at the junction of three fences - who'd have guessed it's a Graham cum-Donald!!??

I threw caution to the wind, letting Luna loose while I had a bite of lunch. When I was ready to continue, I climbed over the fence, put my foot down on the bottom wire of the fence and pulled up on the second wire from the bottom to let her through, whereupon she proceeded to take a running jump, clearing the fence and smacking me right in the chest with the full weight of herself. For that alone she went back on the lead for the next section.

It's really not very often that I look forward to the prospect of a stretch of windfarm track but as I descended west off Blackhope Scar and dropped down to the bealach below Emly Bank, I was eyeing up the great scar of windfarm track across the bealach with some degree of enthusiasm. It would certainly make a change from the current terrain!

Who wouldn't welcome a windfarm track at this point in proceedings?

I had relented and allowed Luna off the lead. There was no sign of any sheep and hadn't been for at least the past hour and a half or so. Even if there were some around, unless they were eyeballing her at 10 paces, she wouldn't be interested and I know her recall is excellent (unlike her fence etiquette!). If that bloke reappeared and started shouting the odds, well I would deal with that then.

Ahead to Bowbeat Hill - I'm not sure who has more to answer for, Percy Donald or Renewable Energy companies!

Back to Blackhope Scar

I stopped off at the summit of Bowbeat Hill (a short heather whack off the track) for a second bite of lunch. This is as unprepossessing a summit as I think I have ever experienced. I did take a photo of the deer lick which seems to serve the dual purpose of summit cairn substitute, but sadly it came out all blurry!

Back on track with Dundreich next in our sights

Back to Bowbeat

I stopped for a third lunch on the steps of the service building and portacabin office beneath the northernmost turbine, more because I was still quite peckish rather than the aesthetic beauty of the setting. Then it was "back to the bog" as the route description puts it, for the yomp up to Dundreich.

Back in the bog and back to Bowbeat and my third lunch spot - surely the pick of them all!

I tried to follow the WH route description for this section but let's just say it's a little sketchy on the ground. In the end I settled for a bearing and made the most of it. At least I had the new North Face boots on and not the old Asolos which were pronounced dead in the immediate aftermath of the recent atrocity on Beinn Eibhinn and Aonach Beag!

Definitely one for the connoisseur of big skies and wide open spaces backed by renewable energy installations!

We eventually hit the fence line where a left turn led us up onto the summit of Dundreich, another summit in the classical Donald style complete with trig point, small pile of stones, broken down drystane dyke and feature fence.

After no Donalds for 7 years, here comes my third in the last couple of hours!

Luna living in hope that I break out a fourth lunch

South west towards deepest darkest Upper Tweeddale

Portmore Loch and the Pentlands

Leaving the summit of Dundreich, I could see that there were no sheep as far as ahead as the slight rise of Jeffries Corse so Luna remained off the lead. The going along the fence was (with the exception of one or two spots) a huge improvement on much of the day (bar the Wind Farm tracks obviously) and we made good progress over to Jeffries Corse, where Luna was shackled for the remainder and our start and end point back at Gladhouse Reservoir came into view.

En route to Jeffries Corse

Gladhouse Reservoir and a distant Edinburgh

As I carried on down the side of the drystane dyke towards Gladhouse Cottage, there were occasional shots that rang out, their echoes reverberating around the hillsides, and lower down towards the cottage, I could clearly pick out 3 or 4 figures against the skyline on Hirendean Hill. Were they shooting? Were they being shot at? Should I be concerned?

Dropping back down towards Hirendean Castle and Gladhouse Cottage

Down at the cottage, the rather rude and aggressive keeper from earlier on was standing with another equally grumpy looking fella, binoculars trained on the figures descending off Hirendean Hill. We paid one another scant regard as I carried on my way, stopping only briefly near the cattle grid for one last shot back.

Across the River South Esk to Hirendean Castle and my earlier ascent route

I was back at the car for 15.15 and back in Perth in time to collect my daughter from her drama rehearsal. Not a vintage day out but the 2025 account is up and running, I ended my long period of absence from the Donalds and gave the new North Face boots a good christening. They were not found wanting. As for the Donalds, will it be another 7 years before I stand atop another? I don't think so, but who knows? Will the remainder of this still young year bring better hill days my way? I think so, but in this year of big changes, who really knows? I don't, but I guess time will tell. Watch this space!