Here starteth the hike-a-bike.
Found GR1 (Covenanters Grave) without any trouble and set up for the night. First time using a tarp and it's going to take some getting used to. It felt very low, and I've mentioned before the diffulty of finding a flat spot in the dark (it was dark, but the camera on the current phone is very good at hiding it).
Stove worked well with the new windshield, but the name of the beer haunted me the next day.
Slept fitfully (sleeping bag toboggan) and was woken at 6.30 by a skylark, which was confusing because that's my ringtone. Rolling, well walking, by 7.15 without coffee because the water in the bottles was frozen.
GR2 (Bawdy Moss) was nothing special. GR3 (Muckle Knock) was circumnavigated and GR4 (Cock bicycle) was hailed in passing. GR5 (Bavelaw Castle) was given a cursory nod at best.
Thing is, and no disrespect to John Lazarus, I'd asked for the Pentlands having not been seen on them much since the kids were born, and I'd forgotten that the Pentlands are best avoided in winter, being very wet. The other thing is that I learned to navigate on Dartmoor where it was often best to join two points with a straight line and height gain be damned. John had suggested I might like to zigzag...
It was 11.15 before I found a navigable track. The other way the Pentlands are like Dartmoor is that the North Moor was generally well-trodden and well-kent from 35 mile Ten Tors training while the South Moor turned out to be a trackless wasteland, and so it proved here. Tussocks. Oh I hate tussocks. And boggy bits, and heather up to your waist. It's enough to undo your shoelaces.
As soon as I was back on bits I knew it was lovely but I scratched GR6 (Allermuir Hill, 493m) because I needed to get home and not at all because it was 493m.
That's actually Castlelaw, of souterrain fame. Allermuir is behind it and even bigger and uglier. It also meant scratching GR7 (the Stewart Brewery), which I was sorry about.
Fun? Laughs hollowly. Yes, alright it was fun, of one kind or another. Lots of little fords like this one.
And some fences to climb over and bridges to negotiate. Went across this one like Danny Macaskill, you know, when he had that ear infection.
Mostly it was trying to follow sheep and deer tracks through the clumps of grass and heather, which got harder as the sun rose and then clouded over.
Excited by this but it was too wet to be ridden without doing damage.
Once on a proper track I was like the Chef in Apocalypse Now ("Never get out of the boat"). I soon messed that up.
Met these chaps.
Also saw two owls last night and heard a woodpecker today. By lunchtime (no lunch but plenty of snacks thanks to my girls: "What do you want for Christmas dad?" Bivvy snacks) the screen of the garmin was misting up like my brain, but everything else performed beautifully. I might try and knock off Allermuir and the Brewery on Tuesday afternoon, which I nominally have off for teaching evening classes.
Anyway, thanks to John for showing me parts of the Pentlands I'd never seen before. If I never see them again that's fine. Actually, there's bits that'll be just fine in summer - I'll have a look for more rude names. Thanks to Shaf too for setting it up. Remind me to for something a little more sensible/realistic next year, like a tour of mini golf courses.
