Hey Blog! Cast your mind back to two weeks ago, on Tuesday. I briefly passed over a hill climb to the top of Dumyat, and also told you I would cover it this week. Here we go…
Dumyat is a mountain in Scotland. It is part of the Ochil Hills, standing at their southern end, and was the source of inspiration for author Rennie McOwan’s novel Light on Dumyat. It’s one of my favourite books, so naturally when we were visiting nearby, I wanted to go and see it. Dumyat is 418m high, so it was going to be a pretty long climb.
Light on Dumyat is a children’s book. Its plot is in some ways similar to Swallows and Amazons, but instead, Scottish and land-based rather than nautical. As the first in the Clan series, it introduces the main characters: Gavin, from London, come to stay with his Aunt and Uncle; Clare, leader of the Clan and oldest of her siblings; Michael, middle of the three Clan members; and youngest member Mot, really Tom (left handed, he wrote his name backwards once and it stuck). The Clan are imaginative, interested in any Scottish history, and adapt expert at secrecy in woods and on the hills.
Gavin sets off from London to Stirling when his summer holiday is cancelled, thinking that Scotland is going to be ‘rather tame’ (how wrong he is!). Armed with a box of equipment for hiking and birdwatching, soon after arriving a mysterious light shows itself on the hill named Dumyat, and next morning he explores for its source. All he finds is a sheltered valley and a trail of polished rock. But scratching away at a mossy rock reveals a door into a cave, kitted out with bows-and-arrows, tartan sashes, and boxes containing cutlery and crockery. But the prize find is a silver dirk (Scottish dagger) with a cairngorm stone in its pommel and fancy silverwork…
And for the rest you’ll have to read the book! Let’s just say it includes silverware, burglars, woodcraft, and an initiation test. Oh, and some Morse Code and close-range archery.
Inspired by the book, I asked whether we could go and climb the hill. The answer was YES. So at lunchtime we set out to climb the hill.
It took a little longer than I anticipated. First we had to walk along the Jubilee Path, before turning off at the church where we saw steeplejacks – on a steeple. I know that sounds weird, but actually we don’t often see them in their natural habitat any more. After that, we had to cross a small burn (not a fire, a stream: it’s the Scottish name). Then we went through the wood which must have bears as there were great big claw marks on the trees – watch out! It was here that my legs began to whisper stop, but soon we came to a place called Witches’ Craig, where, legend has it, in the 18th century, some witches danced with the Devil to cast a spell. It seems they’ve been there more recently, as there are some firepits with charred ashes. I wonder what spell they were trying to cast this time! From here you could see both the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle, the latter of which I visited last time we were in Scotland. It strategically overlooks the site of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn, a major defeat for the English and major victory for the Scottish. We could also see the river Forth snaking its way across the landscape, and the bridges like punctuation marks on the sentence of the river. Then we passed through a rhododendron tunnel to open moorland, and we could almost see the summit.
This landscape was mainly heather and tough grass. We followed the stony path north until we came to a cut right to Castle Law. Here I ought to explain the etymology of Dumyat. If you say it slowly you’ll arrive at Dum-eate. Change a few letters around and you get Dun Maeatae – the Dun (hillfort) of the Maeatae tribe. This was a large fortification, but there’s not much to see now, only the view the Picts saw and the birds they heard (and the pain of walking up there they endured). We thence travelled in a North-Westerly direction towards Dumyat proper, the full height of the hill. Looking down from the summit we could see most of the Forth valley and the surrounding Ochils. I climbed the little mound on which the beacon sits and added a white quartz pebble on the top.
Nothing much happened on the walk down, and unfortunately, I didn’t find the Clan’s cave. Hopefully I can go back up there again one day and continue searching!