Lost in the hills! (well sort of)

Baz cycles up a part of the track that was washed away with the recent heavy rains.

This is where we realised we were about a mile and a half from where we should have been!

Baz searching for a crossing point!

He eventually settled for this bit.

Me, nearly up to my knees getting over!

Not the greatest of starts for me this morning , I must have set the alarm wrong and thought it was a bit on the dark side only to discover it was only 4am. However I was ready for Baz in plenty time for our planned 6am start and after last nights rain at least it was dry this morning. The heavy rain of the last week has gouged out parts of the track on the way up into  the Pentlands and also made some of the grassy sections a bit on the soft side. Baz suggested we try a new route today after we skirted the side of West Kip, so we went down by Eastside Farm onto the A702 and cycled back along to Silverburn where he said there was track back up over the top of the Pentlands again. The first 50 yards of the track were flooded so the feet got well and truly soaked there and after a couple of steep climbs, which Baz to his credit managed to clean we made our mistake. The track divided and I insisted we go right, bad choice!! The route we took  seemed to consist mainly of sheep tracks and there was a fair bit of pushing involved. The fun of mountain biking is discovering new tracks and even though I wouldn't do this particular route again there was the satisfaction of doing something different. (Well we told ourselves that anyway).
To get back eventually onto the return track we had to come down through heather which did its best to remove the skin from our shins and then cross the river at the bottom which thankfully had gone down a bit from the previous few days. (But was still bloody cold!)
28.5 miles today and probably a mile and a half of that was pushing through heather and bracken!