Ochil Hills

MY CARD READER WORKS! Yay! So now I can discuss the amazing experience that was my hiking yesterday. So I found out that mountain part of a series of "hills" called the Ochil Hills. There are two peaks up there actually and I went to both. The tallest on is 421 meters tall. So I started out on campus following a path up the hill through the woods. I didnt really know where I was going but eventually I came to a door in the wall that surrounds the campus grounds.

Beyond that is a road. It took me a while to figure out you are supposed to follow the road. So once I figured that out I went up it about a half mile and found this little parking lot (or "car park") on the side of the road. (These roads could only hold one car at a time btw). I was surprised to see that the entire Ochil Hills is actually privately owned pastures that have been opened up for public hiking. So the entire trip I had sheep staring at me. I went through a gate in the fence and began my trek. So it didnt take me long to realize how stunningly beautiful it was up there.This photo is a view at the lowest I took a photo.

The path was pretty intense. At places it got very narrow like in this photo and in other places it was wide and grassy. It was almost always uphill at a very steep angle and at some places almost straight up. I was very winded. I didnt care, however, because of how amazing it was. I could see for hundreds and hundreds of miles to the high highlands where the mountains dwarf any I have ever seen.

Everything was so large and green my eyes felt overwhelmed with how much I was actually seeing. My photos don't even compare with the scale and grandeur of it all. I had been planning on just wondering around the first time and going for the top another day, but once I got up there I was determined to make it. So i kept going. These are a few photos of the scenes I encountered.

I saw many other people up there...many other people. Most of them were at least in their 50s. I felt very pathetic as none of them were out of breath and were so much older than me. Some people ran to the top of the mountain and down! Anyways I eventually did make it to the top of the mountain and was overwhelmed by everything I saw. On the other side of the mountain, which I couldnt see up till then, was another mountain, even taller. It was completely bare of humanity and covered in grass. It was so large the sheep were little specs barely visible and the lone shack on the bottom of the hill looked like a toy house.

Again my camera fails at actually capturing how large everything was. Apart from being so beautiful up there it was also freezing. The wind was whipping me around so I look for a nice place to sit. I actually found the perfect place where the rocks formed a chair a bit below the top ledge. I made my way down there and sat there for a while, absorbing it all....and taking photos of myself doing it :D

 The cliffs on the way down were pretty impressive. You can't see but there are a few sheep on this cliff.

 I eventually got up and left and made my way down to the second peek, which is actually the one that is visible from campus and that I photographed before. There were two cairn, man-made piles of rocks, on the top of that one. I wasnt sure if they were ancient or modern but I decided to contribute. I scurried down the side of the ledge like 6 feet and grabbed a large rock and carried it back to the top to place it on one of the cairns. All the while I was in the company of my sheep friend who only looked at me if I moved.

 This next photo is a photo of the university to try and give an idea of how far I had walked to get to where I was.

I decided to not go down the way I came up, which ended to be an amazing decision. I ran into two other study abroad students and pointed them in the direction of the peak, but after I ran into them I ran into something even more amazing. It was a foundation situated in front of this amazingly old tree. I had no idea what it was but it was awfully large. I walked around inside of it and tried to imagine what it used to look like. 

Well it wanst till after I got back and did some research that I found out what it was. It was the ruins of an ancient Pictish fort built to fight the Romans in the pre 1000 AD years. It is particularly of the Maeatae Picts. For those of you who don't know, the Picts were the ancient Scots. They were the ones who were covered in blue tattoos and forced the Romans to build Hadrian's wall. After I found this out I could not believe what I had been standing in and did not know. I am going to go back to this fort and take in every detail I can. These remains are the true pull of Scotland for me, a large part of the reason I wanted to come. The history, the ancient history, of Scotland is what fascinates me the most apart from the land itself and this is my first link to it. In a city so wrapped up in the medieval times this is the one place I can stand in and feel the ancient past around me.


After that nothing really interesting happened. I went into the woods for a while, trying to find the cliff covered in purple flowers in vain. I am pretty sure I was on the right trail but I was just so tired and hungry at that point I decided to just turn around and try again another day. The trip back to the school was quick and when I got back I was exhausted, but looking up at the mountain I immediately wanted to return and I am sure I will, many many times, in my stay here.