Meikle Balloch Hill, just outside Keith

First one of these. Before anything else, my rule, and I’ll say it every time: always go back down the way you came up.

Meikle Balloch sits just outside Keith. It’s 366 metres, so nothing that’ll frighten anybody, and I picked it for exactly that reason — this was hill number one. First walk of the round, first walk report, and the first real run out for the app. I built the thing, so if it sent me up the wrong track there’d be nobody to blame.

It routed me to the Balloch car park through Maps, no guessing at the turn-off, so we were off to a decent start. Chase came too, as he does every walk.

The route

From the car park, walk to the top of the sandy road and stay left. Carry on until you get to a bend, where a footpath pulls up to the right.

Walk for around three to five minutes and you’ll see a footpath veering off into the woods to the right. Head up there.

This is where the hill gets more challenging. It’s a steady climb from that point up. Around the 600 metre mark on the countdown — that’s the app counting down the distance to the summit, not the height — it gets steeper and harder going. Still very doable for a beginner walker, though you might need to stop a couple of times. Then the trees thin out onto a gravel path, and the heather was out, purple across the whole top of the hill.

The top

There’s a trig point up there and a 360 view of the whole area — Keith sitting below you, the farmland squared off green and gold in every direction, and hills on the skyline whichever way you turn. For 366 metres you get a lot of Moray for your money. The wind picked up a bit near the top but nothing drastic.

Me and Chase stopped for fifteen minutes with a drink and a treat.

And this is the bit where the rule matters. There are three or four other paths leading away from the summit, and every one of them looks like a fine idea when you’re stood up there with the whole place in front of you. Where they go, I couldn’t tell you. I went back down the way I came up.

Worth knowing

The part that’ll make you work is the climb from where the footpath goes into the woods. It’s short but steady, and if you need to stop a couple of times on the way up then stop. Everything before it is easy going on a forest track, and everything after it is heather and views.

The times at the top of the page are mine. If you’re new to this, give yourself longer and don’t think twice about it.

For a hill this size you get a lot back — a trig point, the whole area laid out in front of you, and you’re home in time for your tea.