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It was great to join in the Eskapade this year. Last time I took part must have been over 10 years ago. Only got as far as Roslin this time, but I had a lunch date ;o) Thanks to Willie for organising and for all the unofficial sweepers at the back to keep me company.
Margaret Forrest
After the big regroup at Penicuik, and a munch of a few bacon rolls, a few of us decided to head off a bit earlier and make an attempt at getting to the Bore Stane before it got too dark. Alistair and Chris came along for the fun (Harmeny lads, maybe?), as did Alan (Tinto), along with the more familiar faces of Des (club unknown), Olly, Graham, Gregor and myself. From Penicuik to Carlops was a bit of a problem as we didn’t have Willie to guide as along. At the time I said that I wished we could get inside the head of Mr Gibson to extract the route….but Des did point out that Willie’s brain is a dangerous place to be, and you never know what you might find in there. Wise words. So Gregor, Des and myself tried to reconstruct the route from Graham’s too-small-to-be-useful map and our collective memory from previous years. Some scrambling, lots of splodging, and a little bit of river jumping took us to Carlops in good time. Light was already failing, and a subset of Des, Olly, Graham and I continued on up the burn to the reservoir. Horrendous splodging ensued, with more mud than I ever care to see again. Once at the reservoir the track improved and we continued to the (very unremarkable) Bore Stane, in pitch darkness, driving rain and wind. Here I thought that it may be nice if we all took a sip of the water from the source of the river Esk, a fitting toast to celebrate the glorious day we had ascending along the river’s banks…but Graham was already doing a pee in it, so we didn’t. From here we went our separate ways, Graham and Olly trotted back to Colinton, and Des and I returned to Carlops. Special mention to Des who returned along a very dark, splodgy, ankle-snappy path to Carlops without a headtorch. Very impressive! Massive thanks to Willie for organising the day! Cheers!
Jim Hardie