I am back in London after my adventures in the Scottish/English border country, having bagged 8 more Marilyns, leaving 30 to do to reach the Hall of Fame entry level of 600.

A lot of credit for this goes to Graham Nash who arrived in Langholm on my third day, with mountain bikes so we could more easily access the tops via forest paths and roads.

Few of the tops have paths so at times the underfoot conditions were  tough.

The overall rewards were great with a real sense of satisfaction.  In total I had 3 days on my own and one with Graham during which time I saw no-one else on empty  hills only 40 miles from the crowded Lake District!  All hills were in Scotland with the exception of Peel Fell (pictured below) which is on the border and which was approached from the English side.

In total on this excellent trip I walked 48k, off road mountain biked a further 22k and ascended approximately 10,250 ft.  

I climbed 6 hills in the Scottish Border Country today and saw nobody. Indeed at times the hills were almost pathless as was the case on Cauldcleauch Head (pictured) 619 meters or 2031 feet.

In contrast a picture was published on Facebook today showing a long queue of hillwalkers on Snowdon waiting to access the summit!

My current target is to climb at least 600 of the 1557 Marilyns in the UK.  Marilyns are hills with a drop of at least a 500 hundred feet on all sides. To date I have climbed 562.

There is a whole range of difficulty in climbing individual Marilyns.  They range from easy ones such as are found in leafy Surrey, to the almost impossible on the Islands of St Kilda. Although my 600 target is relatively modest, there are tough challenges ahead as a lot of the easier ones have been climbed. My focus now is on more distant and remote hills. I am building up to a 26 day trip in May to the Far North of Scotland, which will involve Mountain biking and hillwalking.  Tomorrow I continue my build up to May with a 4 day trip to the Scottish Border Country.

I have been working hard on improving my fitness. I don't like Gyms so my exercise is taken in the outdoors.  Living in Central London presents a challenge.  My solution is to focus on repeated ascents of local (low) hills plus mountain biking on Hampstead Heath.  I will soon find out how fit I am!

Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales

The next big adventure is only 50 days away.  I am planning a 25 day hillwalking trip to the Scottish Highlands.  Most of the time will be spent in the far northern counties of Sutherland and Caithness.

Although I anticipate a few days of enforced rest due to bad weather, my planning is on the basis that I am fit enough to walk and climb every day.

At present I am training hard and also focusing on the detail of the trip from kit to routes.  On some days the training is glorious as can be seen by yesterday's picture on Leith Hill.