11th May 2013 |
 Photomap |
| Eleven runners and two dogs
assembled at the car park by Lamington Kirk for
the run. The weather forecast was horrible -
heavy showers all day - but a search on the Internet
had found a better forecast, light rain earlier
then drying up, so we took that one instead.
The run started through the village and woods
then out onto a grassy green road over the hills
to Cowgill Loch. Further on we had half a mile
of road before turning off to the path up Cowgill
Rig. Beside the road was an unusual valley, very
wide and flat at the bottom with a burn meandering
through it. The leaders were so engrossed that
they missed the turning for the path and had
to be called back. After an initial steep climb the path wound for miles over the hills above the Cowgill reservoirs, with Bill valiantly bringing up the rear. As we came down to the head of Cowgill Upper Reservoir I had wanted to divert to the ruin of Windgate House for lunch but the general consensus was that it was too cold and windy to stop. We continued for a mile and a half up the dramatically deep gorge of Duncan Gill. In several places the track had been washed away by storm damage. Pangs of hunger were beginning to appear; we tried to interest Mike in a dead sheep on the other side of the valley but he was too engrossed in a Cornish pasty to notice. Higher up, the leaders were getting cold waiting for the lunchers so Kate and Dave ran back down through the heather to the zig-zag below to warm up and catch us up again. |
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| At
the head of the valley we came out onto the
open hillside and could see an extensive wind
farm nearby. We ran over the hills of Whitelaw
Brae and Hardrig Head and the intervening col
with the curious name of Deil's Barn Door.
After that the path disappeared for a while
so we heather-bashed down until we picked up
the path for Easkgill Rig. A long grassy descent
brought us down to the start of a road at Bleakfield
and we finished the final mile on a quiet country
road. Back at the car park, Kate caused much
excitement by showing us her special stretching
technique. I declined to try it myself for
fear of never getting disentangled again. A
good day out was had by all. Nigel Rose |
 An artist’s impression of what our day should have looked like |