Kinross-shire - Sleeping on the Sleeping Giant

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.

Borders - Cycling worth celebrating

The quiet roads and trails of the Borders have definitely become my quick getaway in recent years, especially since the Borders Railway opened. I can jump on the train just minutes from my front door and in less than an hour be cycling through rolling hills and pleasant Borders towns. This summer saw a couple of trips there with my friend, Graham, at either end of the season.

At the start of summer, we had a weekend of great cycling based in Jedburgh and spent the first day stringing together two short loops close to town. Of course, they were interjected with coffee and cake on the main street! Our first loop headed south out of town on a skinny back road that climbed steeply into the countryside. We turned off onto a farm track which soon became a narrow footpath overgrown with summer grasses and wild flowers. 

Before too long we popped out onto rough track again and found ourselves on Dere Street, the old Roman road. It originally ran from Hadrian's Wall to Edinburgh and still cuts a clear line for much of its way through the Borders. We pulled up to ponder the past and the thousands of footsteps that must have walked this way over the years. The afternoon air was hot and thick now and filled with the sweet song of the hedgerow yellowhammers.

Every north-south road out of Jedburgh must be steep because our second loop, to the north this time, took us up another crazy climb to join the single track routes and forest trails of Lanton Muir. But what goes up, must come down and we finished that day with a sweeping descent back into town. 

These short loops of the first day limbered us up for a longer ride out of the nearby town of Hawick. We cycled out on the Craik road and came back via a wonderful unclassified road that contoured round Chapel Hill, opening up great views. The closed gates at each end were unusual for a public road and clearly inhibited any traffic from coming along here, so we had the place to ourselves.

We made another cycle trip to the Borders, at the other end of summer. On a sticky, hot first day we simply cycled away from our front doors and headed south through Whitecraig, Dalkeith and Bonnyrigg, gradually leaving the city and its suburbs behind us. 

A stiff southerly made the climbing through the Moorfoots more difficult than it need have been and we even had to pedal hard downhill to reach Innerleithen before the cafe closed.

Back roads, forest trails and farm tracks then took us east and, with a degree of difficulty, we found a place to pitch for the night just as the light was fading. Of course, it's perfectly legal to camp wild in Scotland but nonetheless, Graham and I prefer to find a discreet spot where we think nobody will see us. We failed that night. 

As we settled at our picnic bench to make supper, vehicle headlights approached along the track that we'd pitched beside and which we'd thought would be secluded. As the vehicle pulled up beside us, I thought the local farmer was going to complain about our spot. But I was wrong. The farmer and his family had been out checking their fences and were delightful people to meet. We spent about an hour having a right good blether and putting the world to rights!

We woke next morning to tents and bikes dripping with dew, a sign of the advancing year and cooler night time temperatures. We'd only a short ride that day to pick up a train home from Tweedbank but a funny thing happened en route. In the middle of nowhere, along an empty country road, I cycled passed a perfect, unopened bottle of Prosecco, lying at the side of the road. (Prosecco, by the way, is the only alcoholic drink I like). Graham was a little way behind me so, although I thought it was odd, I didn't say anything and carried on cycling. A few miles further on, I waited for Graham to pull up alongside me and low and behold, had he not picked up the bottle of Prosecco and stashed it in his pannier!

A mad, fast-as-we-could-go last few miles of cycling saw us catch an early train home ahead of a band of heavy rain. As well as beating the wet weather, it left some time in the day to open the Prosecco and celebrate our summer cycling trips.

Fact File

More photos on Flickr - click HERE
Routes: First short loop out of Jedburgh used the Ulston road, Borders Abbeys Way and Dere Street. The loop to north climbed out of town on the Lanton road. At the top of the climb a forest track starts on the right beside a house and connects to forest paths and trails. Came out the far side of Lanton Muir and joined the Sharplaw road into town. The loop out of Hawick uses the quiet road through Wilton and then climbs on the B711. Turned left at Roberton towards Craik then turned south to use the road on the south side of Chapel Hill. For our second trip we used national cycle 1 south out of Edinburgh. Where it turned north towards Galashiels, we continued over the  Ettrick Bridge which is open for cyclists only and crossed over the A7 to Lindean, picking our way to Tweedbank rail station along the quiet roads.

Public transport: Borders Railway to Tweedbank

Information: I love the wee cafe in the little village of Lilliesleaf which is on the way back to Tweedbank. I think because it's such a surprise to find it out here but no doubt it's well used by hungry cyclists.