Tarras Water and its goats

And then it was Wednesday.
Today’s objectives were Arkleton Hill and Pike Fell, both hills rising on the West side of Tarras Water.
Tarras Water is just a little bit North of Langholm and is a reserve noted for the preservation of Hen Harriers, of which we saw none at all.
We parked initially by Tarass Lodge and reparked shortly afterwards in a little car park just up the dale. A sign would have prevented such faffing about – but nevertheless we marched off in an optimistic and cheerful mood up the valley of the water of Tarras. This is a very beautiful valley and you should have a look some time.
A few miles up this glen, we turned ff to climb the steep and tussocky Arkleton Hill. Nobody knows where the summit of this hill is.. The top is flattish and heatheryish and generally a bit bumpy. Frankly, the top could be anywhere and in the mist and cold that was Wednesday, we settled for the first bump we came across.
The sun just about came out at the far end of Arkleton – up to this it had been cold and windy and misty.
A very steep descent took us to the bottom of Pike Fell. The top of this is obviously the top, so no worries there.
What was just a little worrying was the feral goat we came across with a very newborn kid. This poor mum was in a clear panic at our approach and was torn between running away and seeing to her baby which was stumbling about pathetically trying to follow. We gave them a bit of space by as wide a diversion as was possible. I watched them join a small group of goats making their way across the moor. There were other goats with kids later in the walk.
We descended to the valley and followed it back to the start. Some of the pics are of a sheepfold in the Tarras Glen and it’s dead billy goat occupant. The goats here seem to be mainly black and white coloured. They’re a week or two ahead of the local sheep in terms of producing young. Presumably, they know what they’re doing here, but it seems a risky business since it always turns cold and snows when the first lambs come along. Maybe they’re just very tough.
This is a wild and remote little dale with just a few houses. There were what appeared to be scientists with science stuff doing science things. And their pet dogs which were enthusiastically friendly.
A short visit to the Langholm co-op and off-licence proved a waste of time as we both turned to kip early without drinking our beers….. This was about 11 miles and 1700 feet of climbing, so a bit of a relief from the previous day.I can’t understand why this fab area is so quiet from the walkers…..

Border HuMPing

I meant to do much more than this, but, in the end, an icy road up past Kielder, some slow traffic and pausing too long over the porridge meant I could only bag two of these fine little HuMPs just South of Hawick.

But, as Kevin Shakespeare once wrote in his brotehr's English homework book "There's many a man in England still at work who would think himself accursed that he was not here" Kevin;'s brother Eric used some of the phrase in his book about something or other. Or was it Bill?

Anyway, it were a fine and frosty day and just a bit icy on the tops.

First bag was Pike Fell, 400 metres - which sported a really cracking surprise view of the middle bit of Scotland when breasting the ridge. Some hills in the distance ? Lowthers possibly??) had snow on their tops.

Bag two was Penchrise Pen, a cone-shaped...er....cone, with a hill fort on top, in the shape of a motte and bailey, and two fortified settlements at the bottom, which stood out really well in the low sunshine.... and two lads banging fence posts in with a big fence-post banger-inner. A small version of this would be useful for tent pegs...

Me and superdawg lunched on the North side, out of the nithering gale wot was blowing straight out of the Reykyavick Asda Freezer section and right up me buffalo (yes, it was that cold)

As the sun set, we scooted off home to tell our mum all about what had happened.

Note for anybody stuck in traffic jams today - The A7 was completely empty as for miles and miles and miles today.... what fun....what a fab group of hills.

A HuMP, by the way, is a hill with 100 metre prominence.