When you are thinking of somewhere to go for a days walking you often think of the more popular ranges as an ideal destination, Glencoe, the Cairngorms, perhaps the Ochills or the Pentlands if you are looking for something a bit lower. Fife generally isn’t top of the hillwalkers list, yet oddly my last two days walking have been in the Kingdom. I’ve barely had time (or been physically able) to go for any walks worth writing about, and those I have done I haven’t managed to write up yet. Normally I’d write up my walks in the order I’d done them, but this will make a wee bit of a change. So you’ll just have to wait…
Pushing westwards along Shandwick Place towards Haymarket, like a salmon pushing against the current, I seemed to be the only one headed out of the city. Office drones and phone-zombies behind me, I settled on to the train for the relatively short journey over the Forth to the village of Ladybank, where Jim was waiting with the car for the short drive to Falkland.
By the time we had parked up on the south side of the village at the top of East Loan the sky was grey and there was a heavy drizzle which made the prospect of getting out of the car so much less appealing. We were both carrying bulky DSLR cameras, and these were tucked away into our bags, carried more in hope of clear skies than anything else. After only 10 minutes sweaty ascent through a pleasant mixed woodland the rain ceased and the sky promised to behave.
Within another 10 minutes we had broken free of the trees and were on the final stretch of bare hillside, climbing towards the summit, decorated with an impressive indicator, directing our gaze to impressive far off snow covered peaks as well as towards mystical mountains hidden in a haze of low cloud.
Off to the east is an old favourite of mine, Largo Law. Jim and I had visited it a few months back for a quick ascent before nipping down to Elie to do The Chain Walk. To the west The Ochills, which I had often visited with Glasgow HF. Most impressive though were two old familiars, though not from this angle: Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin. When I lived in Airdrie I could often see these and the appearance of snow on them was for me the first sign that winter was upon us.
East Lomond is an unusual hill in that the trig point is located 10m below the summit. I’m unsure why this is. The presence of the remains of an ancient fort and cairn may have prevented this, though that doesn’t explain the summit indicator. We picked our way down to the trig point before following the path south west towards an old quarry. It was at this point that Jim, while advising me to stick to the grass due to the thin skim of snow, saw his feet head skyward while his butt simultaneously headed earthwards. I could barely keep my balance, not from the snow, but from laughing so much! Jim spent the rest of the walk waiting for me to do likewise to get a laugh at my expense…
A brief diversion into the old quarry saw us on the trail of some skittish bullfinches, before we took the old road to the immaculately manicured Craigmead car park and visitors centre, with its handily padlocked toilet facilities. From there we headed along a well kept footpath through the trees onto the hill, following the footpath alongside Falkland Moss and Balharvie Moss, echanging hello’s with walkers and cyclists, as well as a solitary roe deer and a couple of hardy grouse tucked into the heather.
The pleasant amble over the moor comes to a sudden halt with the short, sharp, shock of West Lomond. While the path on the map curls around the hill we went if not straight up, then pretty close to it. Within a few laborious minutes we were both on the snow coated top. The trig point sits atop an eroded stump, but is otherwise in fairly good condition. We weren’t alone, being joined by another pair of walkers who had come in from the north west. The wind was rather nippy and we decided that lunch would be better taken down below in the sun. After a short, severe descent we were soon relaxing with our backs against a large boulder, out of the wind and free from the chill to be found 100m above.
Back at Craigmead, we detoured down towards Maspie Glen. I had hoped to see the waterfalls there, which I heard were impressive, but being on the wrong side of the path we passed high above them in the trees. Instead we were treated to a view of the impressive House of Falkland, before entering the village of Falkland itself. The village appeared familiar, and I soon had my suspicions confirmed; it doubled as a post-war Inverness in the TV series Outlander. The village, for all its small size, deserves greater exploration and I plan to return soon to visit it, as well as Falkland Palace.
East and West Lomond are ideally situated for a late summer evening walk or a short winters day ramble when light and time is short. Apparently they get really busy at weekends, so if you want the feeling of getting away from it all without travelling for four hours to get it, these are the ideal hills to head for.
The Airdrie Rambler 