Making a mountain out of Moorbrock Hill

Hill: Moorbrock Hill….Point on the moor
Category: Donald
Height: 650m
There is the odd day when you are struggling up a hill that you wonder why you just did not stay in bed. Today was one such day but I have to say the views from the top more than made up for my struggles.
Working my way through my short walk winter list I decided to tick off the Donald of Moorbrock Hill. I was looking at it the other day from Windy Standard and hopefully there would be a lot fewer turbines on view today from this angle.

I should have started along beyond the cars

The walk began for me near the traditional start at the cottage of Craigengillan. There were no parking signs all around so I drove along to a passing place and parked up there. I know, not allowed, but it was big and another person done the same.
Crisp beautiful blue sky morning the nearside grass still covered in frost.
Walked back up past the cottages and headed up already getting a good view of the objective. First bad sign, I switched on my GPS and somewhere between my last walk and today I had reset the factory settings. Grumbling away I managed to find the route on it, opened it to find the track I should have been on was about 200 metres to my right, through a forest, what the heck. From past readings of the route I had Craigengillan cottages as the start but it is not any more.

Gate to ATV track

However, it looked like it would be closer to cut across the terrain nearer the estate buildings so on I went. There are big deer fences around and I thought I might be scaling at least one of them. Thankfully I saw an ATV track crossing a field and the big gate at the end was not locked, phew.
Spoke to the ghillie at the buildings and he confirmed my way was the old route superseded by the new estate road. Nice bloke, had an informative chat and was on my way.

Track petering out gap I was heading for ahead

After chatting I followed a track round some buildings heading towards the gap between Beninner and Green Hill which was ahead in the distance. 

Shortest way through these trees

Another wrong decision as the track petered out, disappeared into a deer shooting area, then a tree plantation. Once again dug out the GPS I should have followed the track away from the hills!!

It was a lot darker than snap shows

Rather than backtrack I went through the tussocky stuff, then the woods, more rubbish terrain then met the track again. It was a beautiful day, I had not really done much ascent but my legs were gubbed and they stayed like that all day, biorhythms or something!!

Turn behind Green Hill

I decided to simply follow the track around Green Hill and up to Moorbrock, nae cross country for me today.
The amount of shooting hides dotted around was amazing considering it is just one guys playground. 

Roe deer

I saw many deer, all roes around here, I wonder if they are fed like the birds to keep them local?

Polliferie burn

When I reached the crags there were excellent views below of the meandering Polliferie burn and one of the trout pools the owner has built, red deer grazing beside it, 
Next bummer my camera was bleeping away, message ‘change the SD card‘. Yes I did have a spare, and yes it was at the bottom of the rucksack so everything out. For some reason the camera did not like this new SD card and refused to play ball, no more spares so more curses.

Carsphairn & Beninner

Still spent time looking around, of course there were a few turbines but not a lot. The Lowthers and Durisdeer hills. The Solway glistening and all the Galloway hills. The big hulk of Carsphairn behind and of course Windy Standard. Stunning views.
On my way down I spotted a figure coming down the grass of Beninner, wonder where he/she came from?
A simple case of following the correct track back to the estate buildings for another chat then the new road back to the car. A cyclist flew past , Beninner man? 

Moorbrock Hill & estate

Looking back this really is a glorious spot, the foreign owner is a lucky man. Despite the body being out of sorts and my other mishaps it was a one beautiful day and excellent views, glad I did it.

Wildlife: Buzzard, Snipe, Raven, Red & Roe deer.
Time: 3.16
Ascent: 504m
Distance: 12.3km