The Black Hill (Pentlands)

Height : 1,637 feet
Walk distance : 5 miles
OS Map : Pentland Hills
Difficulty rating : 1 out of 5

My eldest had been asking if he could come walking with me for a while, he'd climbed Turnhouse Hill last year and enjoyed it, so I thought we could try something a little harder this time (not too hard though, before someone calls the social !)

 We started off at the car park by Harlaw Ranger station and headed on the path towards Threpmuir Reservoir. After some short detours to throw sticks in the water and a quick "King of breaking the ice" contest, which I 'lost' (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) we cut across towards the Black Springs.

A short way along you soon come upon an old abandoned farm building by the entrance to a 'spooky' wood, couldn't be more Scooby Doo.

In the spooky wood we also found a shelter made out of fallen tree branches

After round two of "King of Breaking ice" we found a wee beach, if you could call it that, where my walking colleague decided it was high time for juice and crisps. After the briefest of stops we continued on to the Black Springs and followed the path that runs parallel to a dry stain dike up the side of Black Hill.

Ever the adventurer, this was a bit too boring for my son so he decided a shortcut was needed, right up the side if the hill, so off we went.

After what felt like an age walking through the gorse bushes we eventually reached the summit where it was time for more food, sandwiches this time, and a chance to view the Pentlands from the other side of the glen.

After climbing the Pentlands so often I've got a bit used to the views and tend not to stop and take them in that often, so it was a refreshing change to see things from a different perspective.

The Pentlands are a great place to visit, if you're in the area then they are highly recommended.

Here's the profile of the route we took :

And the route :

Herring Road and Clint's Dod

Situated in the famous Lammermuir Hills south of Edinburgh, this relatively straightforward circuit returns by an ancient route once used to transport Herring caught at Dunbar. Starting of at the car park by Pressmennan Wood near Stenton you follow the road up into the hills and into what can only be described as a surprisingly wild and vast area of highland !

Road to Pressmennan Woods

Stenton in East Lothian is around a 40 minute drive from the centre of Edinburgh and is pretty remote with only a few households and farms making up the picturesque village. When you head into Stenton take the right hand turn by the school then turn left at the sign for the car park for Pressmennan wood. Park up then head back to the road and turn left, follow this for around a kilometre until you come to a junction and turn down to the right. There's nothing spectacular about this section, the highlight for me was walking past a disemboweled poor wee Rabbit. The surroundings are similar to the Yorkshire Moors so thoughts of what type of beast could have done this ran through my mind, with haunting echoey voices in my head murmured "Beware the moon . . " and "stick to the roads" sending chills up my spine . . . .

Stick to the roads . . .

Follow the road passing the ford signs and the most rickety little bridge imaginable (it's only there to help cross the ford on wetter occasions) and you'll soon come to some cottages with a bend in the road to the left. This leads you up to Stoneypath Farm, follow the road right (signposted for Johnscleugh).

Keep on the track until you come to the farm, go through the gates to the right and follow the track along the path of Whiteadder Water. There is an ancient hill fort called White Castle just off to the right and 15 minutes detour which is well worth a visit if you feel so inclined.

Looking back to Johnscleugh Farm

You're now up into the Lammermuir's proper, immediately I was struck by how vast, wild & beautiful they were, I was a Lammermuir Virgin and quite taken by it all. I found the track difficult to follow as there was still heavy snow on the ground covering what path was there. This clearly wasn't a typical well trodden Munro path as mine were the only footprints visible. I walked on for a mile or so more and decided to head back, light was fading, the wind was howling and I'd neglected to bring an OS map with me. I did have my GPS but wasn't sure of the battery charge left so decided it was high time to high tail it back home.

Here's the details of the walk :

Elevation

Route

Equipment Test - Memory-map 2800

I'm a male, I like gadgets and things that make cool noises, so ever since I started hillwalking I fancied getting myself a wee bit of technology to take along for some fun. What better gadget to have than an electronic map, compass, altimeter and other fancy things.

After a wee bit of research on the different types and prices I settled on this one, mainly because I'm Scottish and at £180 it was half price in the sale. From what I'd read other handsets don't have pre-installed maps, these had to be purchased seperately, memory-map handsets have some maps pre-installed so they save you a small fortune (electronic maps vary from around £30-£150) which is an essential if you are a Scot. In terms of size and weight it's comparable to iphones and mobile phones so can easily be shoved in a pocket.

See, it's quite wee really.

The whole package, as you can imagine, is a bit more than just a GPS handset and it's not as simple as plug-in and go if you want to get the best out of it. The handset comes with a disc with the pre-installed maps on it and it's here the potential of the handset comes to light. It's too complicated for me to even begin explaining and unfortunately doesn't come with particularly user friendly instructions, but i'll try and cover some of the features I particularly like and dislike.

The Positives

• You can plan your route in advance and download to the handset. 

•  You can check the profile (elevation) of your route from start to finish. 

Height shown in Metres

• You can view a 3d 'fly-through' of your walk

Glen Lyon in 3d

• Once you are out using the handset it's fairly straight forward to get it to do what you want, and most importantly it is very accurate. I first used it when I climbed Ben Chonzie, when I reached the summit I checked the height I was supposed to be at and it matched exactly my traditional OS map. the handset gives you lots of additional info, such as speed you are walking, average speed, e.t.a. directional marker and the traditional extra's you would associate with this type of equipment.

• Most hillwalking websites allow people to share their own routes, so you can download other peoples routes before you go on the walk. Which is nice.

• Battery life seems very good, the first time used it I didn't switch on any energy saving options and it lasted a full 5 hours. 

• It makes a "doi-oi-oi-oing" noise if you zoom in to close on the map.

The Negatives

• Like any other male I tend to be able to work things without reading the instructions, not with this ! The Instructions are very sparse, borderline daft. I spent a good couple of hours trying to create a route then download to the handset following the 'instructions' but failed each time. Luckily someone invented youtube. so I checked here for tutorials and found some very useful information and managed to download my walk, hurrah !

• It came with a stylus which isn't attached to the handset, said stylus fell out my pocket and is currently littering Ben Chonzie. £18 for a new one.

Summary

I like this very much, it's reasonably priced and comes with it's own maps. If it was more user friendly I'd say it was excellent but due to the poor instructions I'd have to say it was very good with a lot of potential. If you're in the market for something along these lines then this could be worth a look.