King`s Seat and the Sidlaws.

Reasonable forecast all over the Scottish hill areas albeit with a wee bit of cloud.The only area holding out the promise of non stop sunshine was the Sidlaws between Perth and Dundee.So,up the A9 stopping in at St.Maddoes to resupply with fags and sausage rolls in stunning weather.In fact,it was so good we couldn`t wait to drive round to King`s Seat.We pulled off on the side road to Kilspindie and headed for Pole Hill ( NO196260 )which looked from the map as if it would be a cracker of a viewpoint.
We were delayed at the start of the road up on to the hill by a field of alpacas...strange looking creatures.Mind you,Dundee is just up the road and there`s lots of stange creatures there as well :)



Nice pheasant nearby as well...



Parked at the high point and had a brisk uphill walk to the summit of Pole Hill which sported a fine looking trig point as a bonus :) The views were extensive to the north and west,the Cairngorms and Schiehallion particularly prominent, but we had to walk over to the edge of the escarpment at the old hill fort to really get the best of it.Perched above the Carse of Gowrie we hung around for ages looking over to Fife and beyond and out to the North Sea.Not a breath of wind either...

Alex at the summit of Pole Hill....



We then drove round to Collace and took the path up to Dunsinane Hill.This is a cracker of an old hill fort and well worth a visit.Off to the north west we headed....

Leaving Dunsinane with Black Hill ahead...



Looks like there may be some climbing on this crag as Bob spotted some belay stakes at the top.

Looking back to the lines of Dunsinane hill fort from the slopes of Black Hill...



We stopped for lunch at the col between Black Hill and King`s Seat and took loads of photos for Bob`s sister in the Australian outback to show her what the colour green looked like.Managed a pose myself.......no heid in the clouds as usual puns please....



Dawdled along to the King`s Seat summit for another rest...lovely trig point here :)



Took a descending traverse from the summit towards the farm at Balmalcolm and from there walked along the edge of the forest and back to the car.Bob suggested that we then go to Dundee for a quick trip up the Law as it was such anice day.We drove round the back roads via Lundie where there looked like some good cycling country and on downhill to Dundee.Drove up to the bottom car park and walked up the rest.I managed to fight my way through the hordes of sunbathing jakeys to bag the trig point whilst Bob got talking,or rather listening to,an auld guy over at the railings.The auld guy thought of himself as the fount of all knowledge about Dundee but Bob soon had him foxed with questions about housing schemes and the like.It ended up with Bob telling the auld guy about the history of Dundee :)

Auld Guy did come up with some interesting titbits.Apparently when the original Tay Rail bridge collapsed the engineer ,a Mr.Botch,received the blame for not ensuring the piers that supported the bridge were strong enough to do the job.This gave rise ever after to the term "a botched job".

Couple of pics from the top of Dundee Law...





Cracking day on the hill and otherwise too.Only spoiled by failure to find the wee side road on the Carse of Gowrie that would have bagged me the 10 metre high trig point which lives down there... :)

Wee video from King`s Seat....what sounds like wind is actaully my finger on the microphone.I`ve a lot to learn..!!