Imagine the Ochils
‘Welcome to Clackmannanshire. More than you imagine’ reads the road sign as my partner, Heleyne, and I cross the border into Britain’s smallest historic county. I’m troubled. ‘More than you imagine’. Is that the same as ‘better than you think’ or, even more ominous, ‘not as bad as you’ve been led to believe’?
I don’t know much about Clackmannanshire, apart from the fact that the Ochils dominate the northern part of this county. That’s why we’re here, to take to the hills. I have no reason to imagine anything unpleasant, though now, having seen the county slogan, I’m worried.
The base for our five-night stay is The Woods Caravan Park, near the small town of Alva. From our pitch I’m able to look straight across the River Devon valley to the Ochil Hills and trace routes up into the glens that slice deeply into the steep, sometimes craggy, southern slopes of the group. What lay beyond those dark ravines? As I haven’t yet studied the map carefully, it’s probably ‘more than I imagine’.
Our first decent hillwalk in the Ochils actually starts in Perthshire and follows the Perthshire-Clackmannanshire border for several miles. We park the ‘van at the Woodland Trust’s Glen Sherup car park, just south of Gleneagles on the A823.
