Not a belay in sight!!

Yesterday saw me and a couple of friends venture out into the Lammermuir's just outside of Edinburgh for what should have been a couple of hours walk.  Being a short walk we decided to have a late start so left Edinburgh at 10am, which was a really nice change from our usual 6am departure heading for the bigger ranges.

I'd done this particular route a good few time but have not been near it for about 5 years so I had the route firmly in my head (I still had a map and compass etc though).  Off we set and within the first kilometer it fast became obvious that the farmer had changed things so a field that once had a path through it was now bearing crops so had to be avoided.  Not to worry though as this provided me the opportunity to teach Joan a bit more navigation - on this occasion about doglegs around obstacles etc. We cleared this first change to the route and headed for the top of Lylestone Hill (389m).  From hear we shout have been able to head north and just hit the path for the remainder of our journey - but the terrain had again changed and the farmer/landowner had put a number of fences up which again meant we had to swing round these obstacles.

We eventually got back onto the original route and things settled down and we where able to get into our stride.  It was, though, very wet underfoot so we had to do a fair bit of jumping from tuft to tuft.  But, the sun was out and we got some great views.  This year has seen me spend a lot of time improving my skills and knowledge around graded scrambling and climbing so it was really nice to just be walking along chatting and not having to think about the next anchor and belay.  Oddly I only took two pictures all day. The contrast in colour from hillside to agricultural land was stark and really beautiful to see.  Although the sun was out it was very cold on the ridge line as we walked over Peat Law (414m) and Hogs Law (448m), but this gave me a good opportunity to test out the Montane gloves I recently bought (see review).

So a route that should have taken about 2.5 hours ended us being 3 hours 45 minutes, but during that time I was able to do some decent navigation training with both Joan and Stephanie and there was not a single belay to be had!  Oh yes, and we found a brilliant new cafe that does the best fruit cake so another bonus.