thelonious

26/05/2018 – Starting from Biggar we took the small path off the A702 (NT 04673824). It’s just after the new housing estate and a bit easy to miss. The path goes straight up through the trees then turns right through tall gorse. After that, cross a couple of fields and a final climb up to the top.

It was a busy Saturday in Biggar so it was nice to get away from the rush and spend a peaceful hour or so on Bizzyberry Hill (great name). Sunshine was lovely and the views fine.

I enjoyed my visit to this one.

26/05/2018 – Easy parking for this one. Layby on A701, just to the north of the hill (NT10343911). Walk south down the road a little and a gate and small bridge gives access to the field. From there it’s a short but steepish climb to the top. Cows in the field today but a long way off so no problems.

The hillfort has grassed over double ramparts. It’s nice enough and has good views all round. Worth a walk up if you are passing.

19/05/2018 – As the weather was so fine we decided to make a day of it and take the longer approach from the west. We parked at Glackhead (NJ 44382797) on the A971, a lovely scenic road from Rhynie to Cabrach.

A steep climb up Orditeach then little ups and downs over fine rocky tops to Turf Hill. Great view from here east to our way to Cnoc Cailliche hillfort. I’ve been wanting to visit this area for some time as it looked good from Tap o’ Noth. Rocks and boulders everywhere. The walk from Turf Hill was easy going. No access problems.

If yellow has a smell, it’s gorse on a sunny day, it was wonderfully strong on the last little climb that brought us to the top of Cnoc Cailliche.

It’s a nice fort with grassed over ramparts. Location is excellent and well worth a visit. Great views of the surrounding area.

We made our way back via Red Craig (fine place for a brew). A lovely sunny day out.

12/05/2018 – What a lovely sunny day to visit this one. Good parking and access from the east. A track then small path leads straight to the top. The place was full of butterflies today enjoying the sunshine, mainly Green-veined White but also the odd Peacock and one Orange Tip which was nice as we don’t see many of them round here.

Not much in the way of ramparts to see of the unfinished hillfort. It covers quite a large area and would have been some site had it been completed.

It’s worth walking on to have a look at Fernyhowe cairn as well.

This was our last visit of the day so we had time to have a sit on top for a while and take in the view. I love this time of year. Everything seems so green and alive.

12/05/2018 – Good parking at the bend on the minor road just before Boddomend (NJ 5492 0013). Nice track leads north towards Little Hill. After about half a mile or so we passed a biggish borrow pit on our right, then took the next track after that which led to the top of hill. From the top (which had a trace of what might be a cairn) it was an easy stroll east to the enclosure. Not a bad time of year to visit as the bracken hasn’t started to grow back yet.

Interesting enclosure. I’d love to know what it was used for and when. It’s location is lovely with grand views out across the countryside.

Fine place for a stroll on a sunny day. You can extend the walk with a visit to Mortlich to the NW as well if you have the time.

Easy access with no fence problems.

14/04/2018 – It had been a nice day so far mooching about a few hills between Keith and Fochabers. We were making good time so in the afternoon we decided to head a little north to the coast and visit Binn Hill. I had remembered seeing Drew’s post about the cairn on TMA a while ago and thought the location looked good.

Parking and access from the south is good. The walk around Binn Hill is excellent. A very pretty place especially in the sunshine. The cairn wasn’t too hard to find at this time of year before the bracken does its thing. OKish cairn with a couple of decent sized kerb stones still left.

If you visit and have the time, it’s worth walking round the hill. The top has what looked to me like an old enclosure, very intriguing. From east of the summit you can head down through the ‘sea of stones’ to the sea. Just a lovely area with one of the most extensive shingle systems in Britain.

I’ve been a bit fed up recently so it was a good visit to cheer me up a little. Sunshine, a nice place to walk and old stuff to look at, that will do me.

17/02/2018 – Must be well over ten years since our last visit. The reason for our trip was the Prop of Ythsie. Neither of us could remember if we had been there last time (the old memory is going).

What a lovely day yesterday was. Little wind, sunshine and blue skies. A good time of year to visit the stones with everything died back. The circle was a little bigger then I remembered, I had it in my head as just a little thing.

It looked just lovely in the sunshine today. We stood in the middle for ages, looking at the stones and then trying to spot skylarks singing high above against the clear blue sky. Magic visit.

The piece from the split stone seems to have gone. Anyone know anything about this?

04/02/2018 – Not been here before and you know what, I really liked it. Way up is short but a little gorsy and a bit of windthrow to get round. The fort sits in a lovely clearing. Nice size outer wall, very tricky to see any inner wall. After a rainy start to the day, the sun came out whilst we were there which made our visit. Well worth a trip if you are visting Old Keig RSC.

04/02/2018 – Been over Satter Hill a few times but didn’t remember the cairn. Made sure to have a look for it this time. Same route as Drew’s. Old maps list it as ‘a pile of stones’ and it’s hard to argue with that. Not much to see but the view and walk was nice. A little rainy first thing but nothing too bad and a very light dusting of snow on top.

28/01/2018 – Heading back from Edinburgh to Aberdeen on the train we decided to stop off at Dundee for a walk. We didn’t pick the best of weather days for it. Got off the train just after nine and 10 minutes later the rain started and didn’t really let up for the rest of the walk.

Very quiet Sunday morning streets as we headed first to Balgay Hill. Nice hill with an observatory on top. Don’t think there is anything old here but it look a good place for a bit of megalithic.

Heading east we moved on to Dundee Law. Easy to get a little lost in the streets between the two but nothing too bad. A short climb first through allotments and then steps got us to the top. I guess the views from here are great on a sunny day but today the low cloud and rain put paid to that.

Hard to see if we were looking at any bits of the original fort as we walked around the top. Impressive war memorial and trig there as well.

We headed south back down through the streets to the train station. Overall a nice quiet walk to visit Dundee Law hillfort. Worth going on a clear day just for the views.

27/01/2018 – After a very windy walk round Arthur’s Seat in the morning we made our way up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle.

Our siege on the castle was quickly halted at the entrance by a very nice woman who informed us that our rucksacks were too big to take in (44L size in case you were wondering, pack small if you visit). With our attack thwarted so quickly we made the slow walk back to where we were staying to regroup.

One hour later we were back. Travelling light we made it past the guard this time and into the castle. Our second assault again came to an abrupt halt. This time by a long snaking chain of people. Quickly realising this might work to our advantage and offer us a way through we joined the queue and tried to blend in. What seemed like hours later (probably nearer 10 minutes) we reached the head and another nice person to deal with. This time we made it past first go though not unscathed, my wallet took a direct hit on the way (£34 for the two of us).

Finally we made it into the main areas, we went into full tourist mode and started taking photos of anything and everything so not to draw attention to ourselves. High point is a little debatable but I liked the rock outside St Margaret’s Chapel though I felt a little silly standing there for the obligatory photo. Views from the castle are wonderful and it’s such a good location with a history that stretches back through the mists of time.

We thought our ruse of acting like tourists had been rumbled when a loud bang nearly gave me a heart attack. A quick scan of the map we had been given informed us it was just the one o’clock gun firing and they do it every day. Relieved we headed further inside and went to look for the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny. The security was tight and my belly was starting to rumble so we left empty handed and made for the cafe. Turns out we weren’t the only folk looking to get their hands on plenty of loot, nice food though despite the price.

With happy belly again and all batteries walked we made our way out. I sadly resisted the urge to sit on a cannon for a photo as the oldest person doing so looked about 5 years old and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself (bit rubbish getting old, I should care less what people think but I like to stay hidden in life).

Yes it’s a bit of a dear do to enter and nothing megalithic to look but there’s a wonderful sense of a continuing history to the place as you walk around. It’s well worth a visit.

20/01/2018 – It had been over ten years since our last visit to Benaquhallie. Don’t know why really, it’s just a short drive away from where we live and it’s a nice quiet walk with good views. High chance of avoiding humans all day as well which is always a good thing. Guessing most folk start from the south but to make more of a day of it we started near Tillyfourie, to the north. Good parking at the start of the forest track (NJ 6390 1262).

Main point of the day was to revisit Benaquhallie via Red Hill (couldn’t really remember if I’d been there last time). The night before I’d had a look on the internet and found two cairns marked on the old OS maps. One just south of the trigpoint on Benaquhallie at NJ 6070 0859 and the other to the north in Culthibert Wood (NJ 6217 1122). Aberdeenshire SMR also had two possible cist burials on Red Hill at NJ 6182 0999 and NJ 6194 1003. So the day was planned – Tillyfouire to Benaquhallie via Red Hill and back, with a look at two cairns to see if they might be old and two possible cists. Sounded good to me.

Very cold start to the day, 6 below and it never made it back up to 0. Easy walking along the track to its highest point (NJ 6255 1028) where we left it to head SW to Red Hill. The trees had been felled since our last visit so the views were great on this cold, clear and sunny day.

Finding the cists was a little tricky as the heather is deep here. First one (NJ 6194 1003) all we could find was a single stone. It could have been anything and nothing. Second one (at NJ 6182 0999) was much better and really looked like a small cist to me.

We walked on to the cairn near the trigpoint for a brew and a bite to eat. It’s a large modern cairn and although there is a hint of a bigger footprint, my guess would be not old.

Heading back we skirted round the south side of Red Hill and then headed back the way we came. Nice views down to Old Kirk of Tough stone circle from here.

Back along the track through Culthibert Wood we took a detour off to see the cairn at NJ 6217 1122. Very small lose pile of stones. Though it’s been there a few hundred years, my guess is it’s not much older than that.

It had been a good day out (apart from a blister on my foot, which was annoying as I never get blisters). Fine hill and an interesting walk. The cist looked good to me, if a little worse for wear and it was good fun trying to find.

13/01/2018 – Earlyish start, least it felt like it as the lazy sun is still having a bit of a lie in at this time of year (I can’t wait for the longer days). We started from Port Elphinstone and walked the Old Kemnay Road which is a nice beech tree lined track nowadays. Good views down to the River Don and Bennachie in the distance along here.

The track took us to Duncan’s Forest and then we made a similar climb to Drew’s, up to Bruce’s Camp. No problems really access wise, it’s pretty open woodland to the top.

In fact everything was going OK until near the top when about 30 seconds after mentioning Drew’s fence problem from his fieldnotes to Mrs T, Bruce’s Camp decided to claim another TMAer. All I will say is that there was barbed wire and blood! There’s a curse on this hill, I tell ye.

We did make it to the top which is a nice open area. The ramparts are pretty overgrown.

I forget to look for the cup marked rock which is a little annoying. I’ll have to go back sometime which is OK as it was a nice walk.