This is a the view from the top of the West Lomond looking over to Loch Leven. Confusingly the Lomond hills aren’t anything to do with Loch Lomond which is in the west of Scotland where the scenery is altogether much more spectacular.

Friday was a lovely blue sky day so we decided to go on our first hill walk of the year and chose the West Lomond hill near the village of Falkland in Fife. Usually both of the Lomonds are incredibly busy, in fact the first time I walked up them there were hoards of people going up and down which was a strange experience for me. I prefer hill walking to be fairly solitary with just a few people visible in the distance. Here is the West Lomond, it’s just as well that you can’t here us peching and panting our way uphill!

I had my wish this time and on the whole walk we only saw four other people. The hills are full of ground nesting birds at this time of the year and the whole place was full of larks singing very high up in the sky.

If you veer off the track to the right you can see a large green mound which is called Maiden Castle. It’s the remains of an Iron Age settlement and although it’s really just a big mound of grass it’s nice to have a walk to the top of it and imagine what it must have been like all those years ago. The mounds in the next picture are where the entrance is supposed to have been.

Just to prove that we did actually make it to the top of West Lomond here is a photo of yours truly standing by the Ordnance Survey marker, the shades were as much about keeping the wind out of my eyes as the sun.

So that was the good part of the day. The bad part was being stuck in Edinburgh airport waiting to pick my brother up and his flight being delayed for over four hours. Now I remember why I don’t like travelling!