Friday
The Dog Rambler E-diary
top 25
November 2011
Walk
A wintry Deepsyke Forest
Length
6.2 miles
Dogs on walk
Cyrano, Darcy, Dylan, Finlay, Maggie, Otis, Tim
Heathery, grassy, reedy, wet, muddy and soggy with almost indiscernible paths that is Deepsyke Forest. The dogs loved it. The ground underfoot was one giant sponge. Not too surprising as the forest in planted on high boggy moorland nearly 1,000 feet up. Very deceptive as it feels quite low with the Pentland Hills to the north west still looking high. Today wintry conditions hit us. Almost a year to the day when the snow fall came and set in until the new year, today it snowed. Very wet and it did not lay but is was white and big and definitely snow. Not for long but it came in two big flurries lasting about twenty minutes between them. It in no way disconcerted the dogs. As I said they loved the forest with its wide firebreaks through which we travelled. The lack of good paths seeing them roam off into the thick, heavy with water, grass and through the reeds standing to attention guarding the deeper bogs. It was Darcy who had the most mischief in him. Otis was his first victim, chasing this way and that to try and escape his clutches. Of course Tim, not a dog who can be left out of anything, was around their ankles and as Otis made his getaway Darcy turned his attention to a delighted Tim. But not satisfied with that he also harassed Dylan who at first was a little less than keen. But
then must have thought why not and teamed up with Darcy to set about Otis again. This meant Dylan sacrificing his place at the front to Finlay. No longer cream as he sought out every bog he could. There were many. Maggie was taking things a little easy today but not lagging behind as she often does in these moods. With her hips swinging and her tail pendulum like she sashayed her way between the boys. Cyrano was in and out of the trees, picking up scents from all over. Occasionally drawing one or two of the others with him. But he never went far and would soon appear further along the track. In the low light of the wintry sky the pine trees were very dark it was difficult to tell their colour. Scattered amongst them bare, skeletal birch trees stretched their bony finger like branches into the cold air. Some with a covering of lime green lichen so thick it looked an eerie new growth of strange leaves. We wound about along fire breaks occasionally finding one of the very few good tracks in the forest. It was a real test for my fairly new boots, as each step splodged into water, as the spongy ground gave up its elixir. Then ahead of the distinctive bobbing of white rumps gave away several deer leaving an open area of ground to take cover from us in the trees. The dogs had not seen them but had picked up their scent. But which way had it come from and where had they gone? The dogs set off in different directions, sniffing almost licking, at the air. If any of them showed a sign of going too far I called them and they loped back without complaint. The deer gone it was back to chasing each other as we continued to wind our way around the forest, somehow ending back up the same track when I thought we about to reach another one. Then I realised as we had come out of a different fire break we had turned too soon for the one I wanted. The firebreak had taken us right to the edge of forest where it joins a reopened quarry area. A black lunar landscape with a very bumpy narrow gauge railway of small goods carriages travelling around. Nothing working today. I managed to keep Finlay out of it where some really filthy looking puddles had caught his attention. We got back onto a good track which led us back the road but not the car. It was further along the road because despite the poor weather this parking spot had been full earlier. We crossed the road which dissects the forest and continued on a path on the other side. It
swung round through the trees to pass an old fort like tower, which was part of the construction process for the water pipes serving Edinburgh, and back to the road and the car. Nick
Photo slideshow from the walk
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