Follow the yellow brick road! On the way back I cut down through Craigbrock Farm onto the A81 and turned right (north). Take the third turn on your left which will take you past Dumgoyach and onto the WHW back down to Milngavie.
From Milngavie train station it's the yellow road up to Mugdock past Mugdock Reservoir and Mugdock village itself and then down on the Old Mugdock Road to Strathblane. It's a great oxygentaing start!
In all my years of coming into the hills and fells I have always bypassed quite unknowingly the rather humble looking Dumfoyne in favour of its more illustrious and popular neighbour Dumgoyne. But no more. Today, I discovered the path leading up to Dumfoyne from Cantywheery Cottage, on the Campsie Dene 'road'. The access gate is about 20 metres or so past Cantywheery on the right. Being on a bicycle I have always missed this little corner as it swiftly turns to the left, but not today. Today, I saw it, tethered my Trek, and made a bolt for Dumfoyne, and what a beautiful bolt it was, through dry fields, and even a path winding up alongside the bucolic glen onto the bottom slopes of Dumfoyne.
From there, there a variety of ways you can do it. I simply chose to do as the crow does and go straight up. It's not quite vertical but may require all four limbs grabbing the earth at points. It's a little tougher going than Dumgoyne simply because it's a longer route, but that being said, it took me a gentle hour to get up and maybe half that to get back down.
What really amazed me was seeing Dumgoyne from this new angle. What a skull! I had previously seen it from the other end coming down from Earl's Seat, but nothing had prepared me for this parallax. Utterly incredible!
Fields of gold. Mid September. Beautiful!
Skulls in the sky! The holy mountain and the holy man ;)
The lumps and bumps of the upper slopes (Garloch hill, Clachertyfarlie Knowes)
The owners seem to have gone to great trouble in creating a little piece of heaven on earth... So, what's with the shipping container?
You can just see Killearn eking out down to the right
If ever there were a hill that could represent the underdog, the unrecognized and unrewarded, it is this little gem on the western corner of the Campsie Fells. At 426m it's only a metre shorter than its more famous neighbour but still demands discipline to get up it, and when you're up, commands views of its larger neighbour (which in my opinion makes it all the greater) as well as that of the Glasgow Valley and the Highlands to the north.
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