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

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And so this book extends itself south as far as the England–Scotland border, and runs north to Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Cheviots are approached from their Scottish side, including The Cheviot itself, which is a hill in England. (‘Pending reconquest’, as a Scottish Nationalist might say.)

Real remoteness

Loch Enoch, Rhinns of Kells from Redstone Rig (Walk 5)

The Southern Uplands have more real remoteness than anywhere south of the Highland Line. From Nithsdale or Eskdale or Ettrick, walkers can venture into the hills for 20km or more before the next lonely glen with its little white farmhouses and silver river. Some hills around the edges have paths formed by previous visitors, and the Pentlands are positively convivial. But in the Southern Upland heartlands, those 20km could be covered without meeting anybody else at all.

Old paths or modern grouse-shooters’ tracks lead up to the airy tops. Here walkers can cover an awful lot of ground up among the cloudberry and under the open sky and the skylarks. The going is fast and grassy, across a couple, or six, or a dozen of the rounded hills.