rainbows in curved air (or curves in rainbowed air)

Hill-walking without the aid of a GPS or a Laptop

Okay what is it people say, what’s the cliché? : 3^rd time lucky. Well not for this humble writer.

Parked again at Overtoun House, avoiding all the suicidal canines. Another theory came to me: a suicide pact between the dog-owner & the mutt. You can see the Erskine Bridge from the bridge at Overtoun House. The owner jumps from the Erskine Bridge while simultaneously, the dogs leaps from the Overtoun Bridge. I am sure I am right!

Set off to follow the same route as before, on towards Loch Humprey. Déjà vu all over the place as the snow starts falling again right on cue. However this time it does not land & I am not in ‘white out’ conditions.

I was shocked at the sheer amount of wind damage. Whole fences had disappeared & huge trees had come down, blocking the path. This gave me added interest & danger as I had to climb over walls to avoid fallen trees & other obstacles.

The path does not follow route 1 straight up, rather it winds back & forth you feel disorientated as you seem to double back all the time. Odd.

Soon, I was in unknown territory, but the views were superb. I came across so many signposts for ‘The Craggs’ that I felt I had to check it out. I am reminded of when I ‘conned’ my kids into visiting ‘Bam Bam’ in the Saudi desert. As it was mentioned on the maps, I told my children, it was a bit like ‘Disneyland’. In actual fact all it was was a signpost in the middle of the desert for what may or may not have been a town sometime in the past.

Anyway ‘The Craggs’ were like this hundreds of signposts to nothing special.

After an endless forest walk upwards through the snow, I came to a loch, not the one I expected, but this was the Black Linn. I also discovered a couple of others named Greenlands Nos 1 & 2. This was approaching that magic light time of day when the shadows get longer & the lochs looked picture-postcard, gorgeous.

I was now exhausted, I had walked for about three hours, light was getting scarce, time to race back down.