Few natural events are as evocative as the noisy migration of geese in autumn. Seeing the geese overhead and hearing a sky full of their wild voices fills me with joy and eager anticipation for the winter season about to move in. Loch Leven, a huge inland loch near Kinross, is a great place to watch the geese as huge flocks gather here in autumn. So a short October overnighter beckoned, combining a dusk and dawn goose watch with a walk up one of my favourite wee hills - Benarty Hill. It lies along the southern shore of the loch and its profile when seen from the north has given it the other name of the Sleeping Giant.
Mid-day on the Saturday and I met my dad for an afternoon walk up the Giant. My dad is in his seventies now and prefers these small hills to the bigger Munros that we used to do. After a steep pull up from the lochside, a pleasant path meandered along the Giant's ridge. The autumn light was soft and beautiful on the hills around us and combined with light rain showers to create rainbows over the loch.
We walked the full ridge enjoying panoramic views of Loch Leven, the Lomond Hills and the Ochil Hills to the west, and ate lunch round about the Giant's chin.
We retraced our steps to the loch and when dad headed off home, I filled the hours until dusk wandering along the hillside trails which were wooded with golden birch. One of my earliest childhood memories is from this exact spot. We walked here as a young family and I remember feeling that the hillside was so steep, I might fall off into the loch.
As the light faded, I made my bivvy on top of Vane Hill, the east end of the ridge and essentially the Giant's feet. It was a stunning spot that afforded a great view over the loch and captured the soundscape of the noisy geese below. Through dusk, large skeins of geese came into land on the water's surface like paper aeroplanes falling out of the sky. Then a bright harvest moon rose and we all settled down to sleep.
A pre-dawn, torchlit walk down through the woods early next morning took me back to the lochside to eat breakfast and make a hot cup of coffee.
It was a murky, misty, clagged in kind of morning but before too long large flocks of geese started to rise up. They swooped across the loch and its adjacent fields as huge black smudges on a grey sky. Their combined honking filled the morning air with sound. For about an hour after dawn, flocks continued to take off and head out into the surrounding countryside while a weak sun started to shift the mist.
Despite light flooding the day and the noisy geese all around, the Sleeping Giant continued sleeping.
Fact File
Start/finish: RSPB Loch Leven Visitor Centre
Public transport: A couple of options, none directly to the start. Bus from Edinburgh to Kinross gives access to the Loch Leven Heritage Trail which can be followed around to the RSPB centre. Or a train to Lochgelly then use the footpath alongside the road north to Ballingry but leave it to walk into Lochore Meadows Country Park. Trails through the park link to Benarty Hill and Loch Leven from its south side.
My route: From the visitor centre took the path which heads onto the hillside and is signed for the Sleeping Giant and the walking/cycle route to Ballingry. Where it levels out at the top of the steep climb the obvious ridge of Benarty begins on the right and a faint path is just visible across the grassy slope to join it. Once on the ridge, the path westwards is obvious with the top and trig point about halfway along. We came back down the same way.
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