A year ago, the start of 2020 there was the rumblings of what was happening on the far side of our planet…. China was going into Meltdown, sorry Lockdown, some crazy bird-flu type thing seemed to be hitting Wuhan City in the Hubei Province.
The rest of the world looked on with our usual, hmmmph, typical, what do you expect? Type arrogance, with the usual finger wagging, rather than any sort of compassion. Anyway, a year on and the the vast majority of the world seems to be in one form of Lockdown or the other. Here in mainland Scotland, we are classed currently at Level 4 Lockdown which is our highest, most stringent set of restrictions, with many sectors of industry and the general freedom of movement for the public under controls of one type or the other.
Local area exercise only, limited contact with persons from households other than your own! How do you survive sh*t like this?
Easy! Well easy enough if you live a stones throw away from excellent hills and trails of Central Scotland. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not talking mountain country, but none the less, more than enough of a grind in the Campsie Fells and Kilsyth Hills to let you know you’ve had a good work out, with more than just a little scenery and nature to recharge the batteries.
Unfortunately I was diagnosed with Covid-19 just two days after Christmas, whilst at my work on an oil platform in the North Sea. Two days of isolation in my room offshore before being flown home for another 14 days of isolation, the 10 from when my symptoms began and the additional days because I’m a man and if you’ve ever had man-flu, this is man-flu on steroids. Seriously though, I did feel terrible, yet cannot stop thinking about how lucky I have been when you hear what some folk are going through.
Yesterday was my first outing, or rather stretch of my legs since being diagnosed, I’d joined my father for a walk on the Campsie Fells, which are literally his back garden, or at least a hop over the fence of his back garden. We set of just after midday and skirted around a wee loch a couple of hundred yards from my fathers house. The loch was still heavily coated with ice, well for the most of it anyway. The one section where the thaw had started had a couple of swans enjoying getting there tail feathers wet again after a couple of weeks of ice-skating.
Leaving the loch we started to climb the hill, to the North the clarity was excellent the Campsies spreading from Brown Hill in front of us away to the West. To some point away out of view, Dumgoyne, the beautiful wee hill that punches way above it’s weight, as it looms over Glengoyne Distillery and much of what would be ‘Day One’ for anyone walking the West Highland Way. To the East of Brown Hill sits the Kilsyth Hills, with Lairds Hill, Garrel Hill and Tomtain protecting the South flank of the Meikle Bin.
The first section was nice steady walking, the fields aplenty with the ewes which the farmers will soon be busy lambing. As we climbed, heading in a North Westerly direction the hill was getting increasingly wet underfoot, probably one of the biggest surprises for people who have an initial outing on these hills, outwith the driest of spells in summer or prolonged hard frosts of deep winter. Unfortunately we have had a minor thaw over the last few days or our conditions would have made for drier walking.
Mother Nature wasn’t letting herself down today, the the Flora might be holding dear to it’s browns and washed out greens of winter. With exception of the yellow of small sections of the Gorse Bushes that are starting to bloom on the hill, and the stems of the earliest daffodils starting to break the surface here and there.
But the Fauna. Oh yes, the animals and birds were out in force. A lovely distraction of a small herd of Roe Deer, tore me away from cursing as we had went slightly higher than we should have and ended up bog hopping and tussock jumping for. A hare darted from it’s form, a small shallow it had scraped out under the dry stane dyke, as the crows harried the buzzards circling above us on the thermals rising on the front of the hill. Whilst closer to the ground there were plovers dancing around, flying just far enough in front to remain a safe distance yet keeping their sense of inquisitiveness. Later in the day, we’d see the cock pheasants prance about as they’d craw and exclaim their presence to any hen that cared to take heed.
Having relocated the track that would take us to our destination of choice, we climbed the last few feet to the the stone cairn that sits atop Knockybuckle, a small top at 500m just south of the summit of Cort-ma Law, and with a panoramic view that takes you from the Firth of Forth in the East, to the Galloway Hills in the South and to the Isle of Arran in the Clyde Estuary to the West.
A couple of minutes soaking in the views as the sun set on a hazy and rapidly cooling Central Belt of Scotland, before heading back down the track and making our way home as night set upon us and the night sky revealed her constellations through high wispy clouds.
All in all not a bad day, for the first day out post ‘isolation’