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Report on Pentlands
6 September 2009
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Attendees: Irene, Gail, Dorothy and Hans
Irene, Gail and I travelled together and were going to meet Hans, a prospective new member at the car park. On the journey we speculated about what he would be like. How would we know him? Would he look German? Would we be able to understand him? Would he understand us? It was all very intriguing. We couldn?t speak German but we could say ?Guten morgen, Herr Stolte? that should impress him! We parked at Flotterstone Ranger Centre and had just put on our boots when a young man approached us and introduced himself, in perfect English with a Scottish accent. Yes, you?ve got it; he was as Scottish as we are. Introductions over and a wee laugh at ourselves, we set off along the road.
We soon reached the path that would lead us uphill to Turnhouse Hill; it was relatively short but very steep. The sky was blue and there were good views all round, we could see right over to the Forth Bridge. We then descended for about 200 feet before another steep climb of about 400 feet to the summit of Carnethy Hill. It was quite windy here and we could see the mist and rain approaching from the west. We headed downhill again before another steep climb to top of the highest summit of the day; Scald Law. It was really cold here and clouds were low with wind and rain in our faces. It was a quick summit photo before hurrying onwards. We descended to the low point and then took a vote on whether to head to the Howe and back along the road or should we continue on to do East Kip and then West Kip. We decided to let Hans make the final decision and he opted to carry on and go over the hills. So, we set off over the two Kips. They didn?t look big but they were fairly steep and we were walking into the wind and rain. Unfortunately, there were no views at this point.
We finally got down off the hills and reached a fine wee sheltered spot where we had our well earned lunch. We were all still in fine spirits and Hans said he was enjoying it, despite the weather. After we had all re-fuelled we headed up Hare Hill and by this time the sky had cleared and the rain had stopped. We followed the path which took us round the base of Black Hill with Thriepmuir Reservoir to our left, we then turned along the road past Glencorse Reservoir and eventually back to the ranger centre. We had walked for 6 hours and it had only rained for two hours, that wasn?t too bad considering what the weather had been like all week.
We finished the day with a drink at the Flotterstone Inn and we had a good wee chat with Hans. Hopefully we haven?t put him off and he will join us on another walk.
Dorothy McGhee
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