The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Beauty of the Highlands but closer to home
Robin discovers wild countryside on his doorstep, in the stunning “green lung” of the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh
It’s that time of year again when a trip deep into the Highlands tempts less with dark nights and the ever present risk of snow. If only there was somewhere you could enjoy a break in the hilly wilds that is more accessible. There is. Welcome to the Pentland Hills, Edinburgh’s often forgotten bucolic escape, which is ideal in winter. Living on the outskirts of the city, as I do, I have long been a fan of the Pentland Hills, or the Pentlands, as they are often known locally. This hilly oasis has a real majesty, rising up in a rugged spine of peaks to the city’s south.
Much of it is protected as part of the Pentland Hills Regional Park (www. pentlandhills.org). It well deserves its accolade of being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and one of the comments I often get from friends I take is ‘this could be the Highlands’. It could with its hills, glens and lochs.
Winter is a great time to book a break to the Pentlands. In summer the trails can be quite busy, but winter is a lot more relaxed. It’s a good time too for spotting the bountiful birds of prey, who will be out hunting for scarcer food sources. If there is a dusting of snow the park’s red deer are also much easier to spot.
You can tackle the Pentlands as a day trip. For this I recommend parking at or near the Flotterstone Inn. From here you can strike off up Turnhouse Hill. It’s a steep heft up this 579m peak but, when you reach the summit, you’ll instantly see what I love about the Pentlands as a wildscape of hills unfurls all around, as well as lochs and a broad swathe of the Lothians down towards the Borders.
You can just flee back to the Flotterstone for a pint or a coffee, but I recommend first taking in Carnethy Hill too, before heading down to the Loganlea Reservoir. From here it’s a long, easy stroll on a solid track all the way along the Loganlea Burn and the Glencorse Reservoir back to the inn, taking in the hills, birds of prey and lochs as you go.
A day trip will give you an alluring snapshot of what the Pentlands offer, but I thoroughly recommend staying over if you can. On my latest visit I chose Eastside Cottages (www. eastsidecottages.co.uk).
This quartet of luxurious stone cottages is built around a working sheep farm and boasts lashings of character to back up décor that real thought has gone into.
My girls loved the fact that we could see rugged hill sheep just outside the window from the Byre Cottage (a brilliantly refashioned old cow shed) and also have the occasional horse or pony amble by. The owners have their own four-legged friends with stables on site and the welcome notes say you are free to wander around the farm.
As we had my two girls, Tara and Emma, with us, as well as their wee pal Amelia, we appreciated the big kitchen diner at the Byre Cottage and the living room upstairs with its cosy wood-burning stove. As a chill had set in for the weekend the underfloor heating came in handy – I was impressed it is powered by the wind turbine outside.
Eastside Cottages made for the ideal base for exploring the Pentlands. Walking is one of the great highlights of the area – with 100km of waymarked trails – and we set off right from our cottage to tackle a couple of the hills. I’ve been up most of them, but not East and West Kip, which handily rise up in front of Eastside. We were soon up on a ridge and then sat on the summit gazing back towards the Forth bridges in our hometown of South Queensferry.
After a hill walk that also opened up views of North Berwick and Edinburgh
we retreated back down to the Byre.
With the wood-burning stove lit it was time to pop our foodie goodies from Cook (www.cookfood.net) in the oven. These guys from Morningside in Edinburgh specialise in delivering homemade food for you to heat up, which worked perfectly.
We tucked into a hearty pasta bake followed by proper sticky toffee pudding. As we’d forgotten to bring ice cream the lovely owners furnished us with some – Eastside is that sort of place. It’s family-run and family-friendly. It would be great for cosy couples too and groups of friends taking a few cottages.
If you want to cook up your own feast the kitchen is well equipped. A Tesco supermarket lies a few miles away and for a real treat you can pick up some goodies at WTS Forsyth’s in Peebles, a superb family butcher. Look out too for a very local farmers’ market in Penicuik on the first Friday of every month from 10am.
For eating out there is the Old Bakehouse in West Linton, the Paper Mill in Lasswade and, an old favourite of ours, the Sun Inn near Dalkeith, an award winning gastro pub style eatery.
For pub grub we’ve found the aforementioned Flotterstone can be patchy, but its portions are usually generous, which is handy after a hill walk.
One place we’d not discovered before, that we visited this time on the recommendation of Jenny at Eastside, was the Secret Herb Garden. This 7.5acre herb nursery boasts a lovely café as well as a shop stocked with vintage furniture if you want something really special to take home. You can explore their gardens too.
The girls thought this quirky oasis glorious fun – it was, the antithesis of soft play centres and they loved the bug catching kit they picked up.
The next morning we decided to branch out and explore the area’s rich history. Castlelaw Hill Fort put us instantly in touch with our Iron Age hill fort ancestors. It sits on an impressive defensive site, which is woven around a trio of ringed ramparts and ditches, with an earth house to explore.
The girls were amazed to imagine people eking out a living right on this spot thousands of years ago and they were intrigued that Roman artefacts have been found here too. Today the army uses the area around the hill so make sure never to wander around their site when it’s in use.
There is plenty more to explore nearby and if you are not from Edinburgh the Pentland Hills actually make for a really handy base, being such a short drive away from the city, with a decent bus connection too with the bottom of the farm track at Eastside. Rosslyn Chapel also lies within easy reach for history buffs and fans of the Da Vinci Code book and film.
Back in the Pentland Hills proper it’s not just all about walking. The trails here – which were originally forged by drovers herding their cattle over the hill passes to market – are ideal for horse riding and mountain biking too. My girls have been out pony trekking in the Pentlands Hills with the people at Swanston Farm and enjoyed ambling around the trails.
If fishing is more your thing you can take or hire a rod and enjoy a session at Glencorse Reservoir. The prized catch here is trout. We didn’t get the chance, but landing a fresh trout and cooking it up for supper at Eastside would have been ideal and not an experience you’d imagine so close to Edinburgh.
If the thought of hefting off far into the Highlands in the dark months doesn’t tempt why not opt for a much more accessible break in the Pentland Hills on the outskirts of Edinburgh? This green lung is glorious fun to explore on two feet, two wheels or even four legs and looks glorious too in winter.
www.visitscotland.com