The Fife Lomond Hills

The Fife Lomond Hills are a range of hills in central Scotland. West Lomond is the highest summit. Climbing these hills gives a great view over central Fife.

I love Scotland.

Sure, it has it’s ups and downs like any other place or just as life does itself.

But I’m a firm believer that if you can try to see past all that and look for the good of what you have in front of you and around you, then you may be pleasantly surprised.

Walking always helps to clear my mind, especially when changes are happening, and this walk through the Fife Lomond Hills with Lynne was just the ticket!

The Fife Lomond Hills

It was about mid-morning when we arrived and parked at East Lomond Mast Car Park.

We tracked our progress throughout the day in the Fife Lomond Hills with the Endomondo App .

I was trialling it and it was pretty good in recording our progress and giving all the times, calories burnt and distance details of the day.

Those details are under the photographs below.

Throughout the day there were so many different shades of sky. One minute bright sunshine, the next dark grey, threatening clouds…. it was amazing to be out seeing all those changing colours.

Lynne bought a pair of brand new boots recently.

That was just after the Munro climbing I featured before.

She found out on Ben Lomond that you really do need proper footwear for this game!

We started towards West Lomond on an old limekiln track.

There is an entrance hidden via a gate on the left to some old Limekiln ruins.

Stone was quarried in this area hundreds of years ago and transported on tracks like this to produce lime in these limekilns.

West Lomond (our first hill) is in the distance.

We decided to walk and climb this hill first.

Then on our return climb the hill nearest to the the car park. East Lomond Hill.

As we walk further along the limekiln track and turn around a view back of East Lomond (Falkland Hill) is seen here.

It’s about an hours walk from the car park at East Lomond to West Lomond, but the gradient is quite gentle so you do quite a bit of the climb in that hour.

The scenery today is stunning autumnal North Fife countryside.

Here you can see Lynne striding ahead to West Lomond.

Giving those new boots their proper run in!

Usually I’m the one doing all the photographing.

I suppose I had to allow Lynne to take my precious camera once.

Just to show I was actually there!

Looking back again.

We’ve covered quite a few miles now from where we started.

Lynne was really keen and was unusually striding ahead.

Probably bored of hearing my walking / hill walking tales for the 100th time!

Or maybe the fact I’ve taken about 40 pictures on our walk so far?

Looking North towards West Kilgour and Falkland Estate.

It was here we had a welcome stop for lunch.

It was only a short stop as the wind was quite chilly to sit about for any longer.

The sky got darker one minute and then could be really bright again the next.

There was such a contrast of so many colours, every picture looks different.

Compare this one above to the one below!

It’s hard to believe that the weather is still quite warm for the time of year.

We had an average of 12 degrees C during the day.

Normally for this time of year it should be a good 5 degrees colder. It just felt really cold as there was a blustery wind.

Now climbing West Lomond and looking back on East Lomond.

You can see another mine for stone there for the limekilns.

The sun shone at one point just in one place over Falkland Estate.

Like a halo shining down from above.

I’m not sure if the photograph captures how entrancing that was….

First climbing trials for Lynne’s the new boots!

Lynne is very glad that the top is in sight.

Her new boots are getting all muddy!

View from the top of West Lomond.

I wasn’t allowed to publish the picture of Lynne at the top due to her hair being blown about…….

That’s us being done on West Lomond.

Now at the bottom again it’s time to trek back and head up East Lomond!

This old marker beside the track reads “WR 1818” it’s pretty weather worn.

I researched it and read on somebody else’s blog that back in the day, Sir William Rae, a King’s Commissioner, had the job of surveying this land.

By an act of Parliament in 1815.

So this is a marker post from that time nearly 200 years ago!

Final climb up East Lomond.

Another muddy scramble for Lynne who by now has accepted that new boots are meant to get muddy!!

And I do finally get a “thumbs up” from Lynne at the top of East Lomond (Falkland Hill)!

You can see the North Sea in the background and St. Andrews is behind the distant hill.

So, according to the Endomondo App, we walked a total of 8.34 miles in just under 4 hours. And a total of 900 calories burnt.

Considering that’s what the treadmill tells me I burn when I run for an hour, calorie wise, I think that’s pretty good going!

This was a really enjoyable day out for both Lynne and I. We both worked up our appetites doing this walk and when we got back to Glasgow we enjoyed a steaming hot bowl of mussels with crusty bread. Awesome! 🙂

Hope you enjoyed reading and seeing the pictures!