Taking the high roads

It cannot be denied that the banks of Loch Lomond are very bonny indeed. As you head up out of Glasgow to the highlands of Scotland, the road along the side of the loch is a taste of things to come. A combination of muted browns, burnt oranges and the deep plum of the silver birch branches reflected in the blue of the water.

As you climb towards the mountains, the rocky outcrops still cradle snow in their clefts and on their northern slopes, even though the temperature is scratching tentatively at the twenties, and T shirts and hairy legs are the order of the day.

The road twists and winds around and sudden vistas open up before you that literally take your breath away. The scenery exudes majesty and grandeur and there is a sense that we are merely supplicants visiting the halls of the Mountain King. The broad valley of Glencoe sweeps up to either side in towering walls of granite and the road is an alien line, on which cars scurry like cockroaches, a buzzing irrelevance in the immutable landscape.

Two days later, I am fulfilling a desire I have had for twenty years or more. I take the train from Carlisle to Settle through the high moorlands of North West England. Here the grandeur is of a different order. Formed by glaciers, the long flat tops and rounded sides, flow in long and lazy waves around you. They are punctuated by deep green valleys in which dry stone walls meander with the sheep. We reach the highest station in England and I look down the steep fell-side to the River Dent sparkling, hundreds of feet below me  in the sun.

Rattling across the Ribblehead Viaduct we reach Horton-in-Ribblesdale and the rocky promontory of Pen-y-Ghent stands so familiarly proud above the railway line. We stop at Settle and the train fills with walkers clutching rucksacks and waterproofs. Indeed, it was a grand day for tramping the fells.