This blog clearly shows the problems inherent in using a map when you’re visually impaired. On Tuesday Nita and I decided to visit the Campsie Fells for the first time. This small range of hills lie just to the north of Glasgow and so are quite close to us, but for some reason we’ve never made it over to them before. Anyway, as I was saying, there’s a problem ….I’m writing this blog at home and Nita is working a night shift, ……and I can’t see the map well enough to read the names of the hills we walked! I can’t even see the road number by which we parked the car. This then isn’t going to be a very informative blog. The nearest village was I think Lennoxtown …but don’t quote me on that.
Suffice to say that Tuesday was a beautiful day, very cold, but clear and bright and an ideal day for a wander. We’d set out quite late but even so were walking by about 11 am, following a small path that led up grassy slopes over a series of false tops. The sun was almost directly in my eyes forcing me to wear my peaked cap sideways on and at a very jaunty angle …it allowed me to make out something of the ground underfoot but didn’t do anything for my ‘street cred’! The ground underfoot was frozen and it was a case of trying to avoid the patches of dark ice as we went up. We’d parked at a lay-by which was at just over 200m I think and so if it wasn’t for the blinding sun I’d have seen some wonderful views out over Glasgow …..according to Nita anyway. I’m afraid I missed much of these but with my back to the sun the fells looked stunning. After a relatively short climb we reached a small cairn at the start of a long broad undulating ridge. It was a great view point and with my monocular I could see several very snowy peaks to the north. On our hills there was the last small patches of the snow but even this made the hills look extra special.
We then just continued along the ridge over and past another high point marked with a cairn and on to a third little top where we stopped for some late lunch. The path carried on up to the highest point at something over 500m …but of course I can’t see its name ….so I can’t tell you where it was, or exactly how high it was either! We retraced our steps after this short break and got back to the car around 3pm. It wasn‘t a long walk but we saw enough to know that we’ll be returning before long. It’s lovely walking country especially in the winter when it’s reasonably quiet …I imagine that being so close to Glasgow it’s probably quite popular in the summer. By the time we’d changed out of the boots the sun was getting very low but according to the car it was 6C. By the time we’d driven back down into the valley it was -2C! So then, that was our walk …….nothing like a bit of a mystery tour is there!
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