On a day like today you could think spring had sprung early and, as we began our short walk, the Daffodils lifted their cheery heads and smiled at us. It was a good omen for the day. We had left one car a mile or so up the road at our finishing point to save us walking along the road, but it would not be too arduous to complete the circuit on foot if necessary. I just have a bit of a thing about walking on roads; I'm really not keen, which you could be forgiven for not having realised if you've read many of my posts as I always tend to end up having to do it at some point on my walks. This is largely due to the fact that I'm even less keen on linear walks and returning the same way and obviously want to walk through as many different grid squares as possible.
Anyway, Tim and I set off for our afternoon stroll from the delightful village of Collessie up a footpath we had noticed a few days previously. It led to Collessie Den.
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| Collessie Den - NO2813 |
The path gradually climbs away from the Den Burn to a fork, the left hand path leading back downhill across the railway onto the B937, and the right hand one leading uphill to Braeside and beyond. The latter was our choice for the day.
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| Braeside. NO2714 |
There was a lovely view back down to Collessie from here, whilst the nearer undulating hills were a little reminiscent of the Dorset landscape I had left behind.
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| Old farm machinery and Collessie from Green Law. NO2714 |
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| Undulating hills near Collessie. NO2714, with East and West Lomond in the distance. |
Northwards we gained our first glimpse of Lindores Loch, to which we were heading.
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| Lindores Loch from Green Law. NO2714 |
This was turning out to be a delightful walk with incredible views and we now descended to Cairneyhall, where we were forced to do a little road walking.
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| Cairneyhall and Lindores Loch. NO2715 |
There is an excellent footpath beyond where we were turning off today, but, as far as I know, no path exists at this section, which is a shame as it means one cannot enjoy looking at the Loch and birdwatching. We walked to the pier, from which at least you gain an open view of the Loch. I think we saw Mallard and Wigeon; Tim would no doubt remember more species!
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| Lindores Pier with sunbathing Mallards. NO2716 |
Once we'd got off the road onto a lovely track eastwards, we sat at the base of a tree and munched our afternoon snack, overlooking a promising reedbed. "That would make a great bird reserve," Tim mused and, ten minutes later we had virtually spent millions of pounds in creating said bird reservie, complete with bird hides and telescopes. Ah, but we can dream!
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| Lindores reedbed - NO2716 |
We ascended to a bifurcation in paths at Dunbog Hill. Had I been on my own, I would have been tempted to detour a hundred uphill yards or so to bag the trigpoint, but decided to leave that to another day, as it would be a gratuitous uphill on this occasion.
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| Dunbog Hill - NO2816 |
So we descended on Whitefield Farm track.
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| Whitefield Farm track - NO2815 |
There are some squares I need to zoom right into on my phone because the path only briefly goes into it and I need to be sure I'm in it to take the photo. Not that anything bad would happen to me if I took the photo when I wasn't in the square, you understand; simply, to satisfy myself I've taken a photograph of that gridsquare whilst IN that gridsquare in order for it to count in Geograph rules to make the photograph a Geograph as opposed to other categories. It is Geographs I am collecting.
Now that we've got that straight, we can move on to the next square, which was one of those aforementioned that we were only briefly in, so I worked out which direction I needed to take the photo in order to be photographing the correct square and snapped Cunnoquhie Hill.
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| Cunnoquhie Hill - NO2915 |
Our walk had started with waving Daffodils, a lovely portent of spring; now some adorable lambs came bounding towards us. Now that I've passed my half century I seem to be surrounded by reminders of old age, death and decay; it's really quite depressing. How I revel in reminders of springtime, of life beginning and renewed hope. OK, so I have to forget about the future destiny of the lambs, but I can do that quite easily when I see them bleating and gamboling.
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| Lost lamb. NO2915 |
Another early sign of spring was the Rooks congregating and getting ready for nest building, if they hadn't already begun.
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| Rooks near Monimail. NO2915 |
And so we had finished our walk, or nearly. I had one square left to photograph and, ever with the hope of happening upon a Wallcreeper we entered a disused quarry to take the snap.
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| Monimail Quarry. NO2914. |
No Wallcreeper, but that won't stop us looking again! A lovely walk with the promise of spring.
Number of new gridsquares: 8
Number of miles walked: 4.7
Walk worth repeating: yes
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