Читать книгу Walking in the Southern Uplands. 44 best hill days in southern Scotland онлайн

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Across on the south side of the Tweed valley, the Cheviots of the Anglo-Scottish border are linked with the main Southern Uplands by a common harsh history of the Border cattle-thieving times. And that history reflects a common geography of sheltered, fertile glens, self contained below wide miles of empty hill – ideal for cattle-raiders’ ponies. This border range makes up the book’s Section 6.

In between the two, the Tweed itself has a couple of quite different summits. The small volcanic lumps of Eildon and Rubers Law (both Section 4) have their own special atmosphere, steep and stony above the wide valley with its great river. And the so-called Scottish Lowlands, north of that faultline scarp, have similar wee treats – Tinto (Section 3) and North Berwick Law and the pokey-up Pentlands at the very edge of Edinburgh (all in Section 5). These add-on hills are pleasing in themselves, and even more so as a contrast with the big, but gently grassy, main range. Without such volcanic oddities as Arthur’s Seat (at the end of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile) or Ailsa Craig (several miles out to sea in the Firth of Clyde), the Southern Uplands would retain their massive grandeur but lose something of the fun.