LEJOG Day 68: Carlops to Riccarton

Weather: Cloudy, then drizzle, then rain

Distance covered today: 21.0km (12.5mi)

Last night's B&B: Alan Ramsay Hotel (£47.50)

Cumulative distance: 1360.5km (845.4mi)/ % Complete: 71.1%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 68 (click!)

The first objective of the day was to get across the Pentland Hills.  The weather forecast was not encouraging and I was concerned about a low cloud base and unclear paths. The forecast suggested the weather would close in as the morning wore on, so I was at pains to leave as early as possible. I did though need to have breakfast as there would be nowhere to get anything to eat for the first half of the walk and I had exhausted all my reserve supplies of nibbles. I sat alone in the dining room waiting for the staff to show up! They were late, and then they took ages to get their act together, so having been awake and raring to go at 5.00am, I only managed to get away at a rather frustrating 09:00.

I set about choosing the right path to get to the top of the Pentland Hills. I had taken loads of local advice yesterday, but it was not conclusive. Everyone had an opinion, but no-one had actually completed the leg to the towns on the other side, which is not entirely surprising. As local residents, they preferred to choose circular routes that would take them back home. They were all adamant though, that the path was well defined and way-marked. I set off on an immediate steep ascent without any issues, through beautiful countryside. Before long though, the path became confused with a number of animal tracks leading off in different directions. Inevitably I chose the wrong one and eventually wound up at an electrified fence with no style or gate.  I tried to use my metal walking poles to test whether the fence was live, but eventually just tested it with my hand and was relieved to find that it wasn’t live!   I found a place to jump the fence and went on my way, only for the whole process to be repeated once again.  This time, I had to contend with barbed wire and an electrified fence, but in due course I found my way across.

Eventually, I was high enough to be above the animal fields, and the path definition steadily improved. Now my problem was bog! I shouldn’t have been surprised. The moors looked very similar to those that I had encountered on the Pennine Way. My progress was very slow. I was determined not to get immersed in mud and water, so I proceeded carefully. I am gradually beginning to recognise the grasses of the bogs. Some grasses always seem to be associated with solid underpinnings, especially the grass with the white pom-pom flower heads, whereas others are decidedly iffy!  This helps in plotting a course through uncharted territory, but when following a path, you just have to take the rough with the smooth, and go carefully!

I reached the summit without further incident and was rewarded with the most glorious of vistas. The rain was still holding off and the visibility was fair with a reasonably high cloud base. To my right and towards the north-east, I could see the Firth of Forth. To my left and towards the north-west I got my first glimpse of what I am reasonably certain are the West Highlands, about four or five days march away in the distance. I had also moved out of the Borders County into what I think is Midlothian. I could see below me the whole Edinburgh-Glasgow Lowland Plain and I had a sense of yet another chapter of my journey opening.

The way down the other side of the Pentland Hills was uneventful. The path was well marked and soon turned into a track, which sometimes over the boggy bits consisted of transverse logs, not all that easy to walk on, but a lot easier than the bogs themselves!  Farmland returned and before long I was on the edge of Edinburgh’s affluent suburbs. By now it was raining steadily and the cloud base completely obscured the hills over which I had so recently trundled. I had lunch amongst a bunch of school kids in a Co-op next to a school, under the careful gaze of a posse of security officers, but yet again I had forgotten my walking polls next to the till as I had paid. A kindly old lady spotted me sitting on a pile of fertilizer pockets chewing a sandwich amongst the kids, and I was reunited with my invaluable poles! You would have thought that I would have learned by now!

My post-prandial exercise was to walk along on yet another disused railway line along the edge of the Leith River, until turning northwards towards my rather unusual lodging for the night, the student accommodation at Heriot Watt University.  I have just had an economic and suitably tasteless supper in the main administration dining room along with a large group of students, and the only thing that I could see that they had in common was that not a single one of them was English-speaking, let alone Scottish!  It is of course university vac, so the main body of students will be well away, but still, I was surprised. Surely at the very least there should be a few local graduate students and researchers around?

I can’t help wondering where all the innovation, design and sophisticated marketing are going to come from if we continue to be so complacent about education in this country. The squabble over university fees for me misses the point. It’s about who pays for education, the recipients or the beneficiaries and the answer is simple; both should pay. But the real question in a fast changing world is how can Britain make an epochal, step change in the quality and output of most of its learning institutions and how can it shake its young people out of their complacency that the state will provide? The steady migration of high value and innovative activity eastwards is only accelerating. I remember seeing “red” Chinese in Teddington when we lived there in the mid-80s. They travelled in groups and could speak no English, but they were already studying how the British added value. I saw a number of Chinese students today in Heriot-Watt University (the eight oldest educational establishment in the UK!), and they conversed in sophisticated English. I suspect they were not studying British technology. They are probably aware that Chinese technology is already seizing the high ground. They are probably doing what the Americans did before them; treating Britain as a theme-park of the past and attending Shakespeare productions.

That will not employ the masses who no longer have the traditional jobs in the great industrial hinterland that I will be visiting over the next few days.  It will be interesting to see what they are doing now….

Kilts visiting my B&B for drinks last night!

Imagine having a full-scale natural waterfall in your front garden!

Looking down at the Scroggy Brae from the path above Carlops

Looking back at the Cloich Hills, my obstacles on the last leg

A black butterfly for Julian. It had white tipped wings. It wouldn't sit still for the photo-shoot so I couldn't get closer!

The Fairliehope Burn down a vertical slope, topped by purple heather

A reservoir near the top of the pass, with thousands of unidentified white birds making an awful din

Back into the bog!

The white pom-pom grasses signify sure, grassy footing

A proper Scottish thistle!

The Scottish equivalent of the granite slabs of the Pennine Way; transverse wooden logs

That tiny white sliver half-way up the picture is the Firth of Forth

And the mountains in the distance are, I believe, the West Highlands, at full zoom!

He used to be White-Van-Man until he saw red! The adjustment was certainly expertly done!

The disused railway along the River Leith

And finally, my unusual B&B for the night!