I’ve never been to Canada, but when I do I hope it’s as lovely as Montreal in Perthshire in the sun. Yes, that’s right, Montreal in Perthshire. It’s no metropolis but rather is an old croft near Harrietfield with the same name as the largest city in Quebec.

And yet for such a lovely area, today would be a day of groans… but more of that later.

I was here for a grid square journey, my occasional navigation skills practise where I journey around an OS map 1km grid square.

Here’s what it’s all about and how it started … https://challengekev.blog/2020/05/30/grid-square-journeys-no-1-no-1114/

While looking at maps for an appropriate square, this square stood out for two reasons. The abandoned farm appealed to the historian in me and my love of old ruins. The name also piqued my interest and I can see this leading to a new focus on grid square journeys around places with vaguely famous foreign place names e.g. a wander around California near Falkirk. Here is the square in question.

Being a very rural area parking was maybe going to be something to think about. After spotting Logiealmond Primary School just down the road on the map, I thought that would be the answer. And I set off in the sunshine, driving along the narrow roads of Glen Almond.

This is where the first of my groans come into my story. I was about 400m from the school when I came to the bridge at Castlemalloch. And here was what I found.

Yes. The school is just a short distance past those signs. Not necessarily a biggy in the grand scheme of things but it did mean an extra 15 minutes of driving to get to the other side of the bridge and park up at the school. Once parked in the bosom of the school grounds, I changed into my boots and down the road.

This is where the second of my groans comes into play. The most obvious way to get to Montreal and the surrounding square from the main road was to follow a particular farm road into the hills. And the farm was called, as you can see at the bottom of the map, Groan Farm. An interesting choice of moniker indeed.

I walked up the dirt track from the road, chatting briefly to someone as I passed the farm. No groans to be had here I’m glad to say.

Arriving at the start point, it was clear that completing the full square would be near impossible as the wooded area at the south east corner was a wooded enclosure with tightly packed trees and full of gorse.

I didn’t see much space for a broad 6ft+ person to squeeze through without receiving a 1000 little puncture wounds from the gorse and trees. Take a look at the picture below to get an idea of how it looked. With that in mind I decided to travel anti-clockwise. I had a snack of apples and chocolate.

The initial going was easy. Some grass and a few thistles.

This changed after a couple of hundred metres and the going became wet and tussocky with lots of deep holes in the ground, proper potential ankle breakers. The hamstrings were definitely getting a good workout. The heather was also the cause of my third groan, one that lasted a fair bit of the way round.

I scratched my leg after falling on the rocks around the Falls of Dochart last week, around my shin. And every step, in shorts, through the deep heather scratched against the healing scabs and skin and it was pretty groan-inducing.

I usually take two phones with me on these missions. My phone for taking notes as I go, timing etc. And my old iPhone 6 for tracking the route. I start the tracker off at the beginning of the mission and won’t look at it again until the final step has been taken. After the first leg of todays journey I was feeling confident. Where I was on the land seemed to tie in with where I should have been on the map. But I wouldn’t know for sure until I’d completed the square. I set off on leg two, ready for more scratching of scabs as well as plenty of sunshine and warmth.

The blueberries were ready and tasty.

Here’s how deep or spongy the terrain was. You can just make out my knees but nothing lower.

I wonder what slept here last night?

Lots of ground nesting birds around. And lots of hatched eggs.

By the time I got near the end of the eastern edge of the square, near the woodland, I had an inkling I was a bit off course but wasn’t sure. I felt a bit too far along the wall but I carried on as if I was blinded by fog and stuck to my route.

The woodland looked just as bad from the other side so I hand railed my way round back to the start.

More snacks followed the finish of the grid square journey. And I stopped my tracker. But I couldn’t resist a look around the old Montreal ruins so I walked over munching some ready salted sticks.

I couldn’t find much online about the building or farm. There isn’t much left. Some piles of shieling stones, the remaining stones of the house and a willow tree that stands in the crumbling walls, marking the house like a gravestone.

On my way back to the van, the hedgerows were bursting with raspberries and they were just asking to be picked. Of course I obliged.

Back at the van, I removed my boots and took a look at my track. Here’s how it looked.

And here were my stats.

Each section is a single straight line, starting with a description of the line on the first row. The first entry for each second row is the bearing. The second is the distance. The third entry is an assessment of the type of ground. The fourth is the number of double steps. The fifth is the estimated time (and actual time in brackets).

You can see on the first, third and fourth lines from the start (anti-clockwise) where I had to deviate to avoid gorse. Little triangles where I tried to count how many steps I went offline so I could count them back online. You can see on the third and fourth lines they were small deviations. But the first line involved a lot of gorse so a much bigger deviation can be seen and I didn’t allow enough recover steps after. This may partly explain my drifting too far north on line two and consequently further round the square.

There was no way of completing the full square with the thickness of the wood in the south east corner. And the handrail was straightforward. And shorter distances are easier to navigate.

Line three is way too long. Must have had a burst of energy and walked some big steps! Especially considering the terrain which was not great for walking on. It was like trekking in deep snow in places. Wet, big bumps and lots of tall grasses and heather.

I’m fairly happy overall though. I thought I’d gone a long way off line on line four but I wasn’t that far off after reviewing the final track.

It was indeed a day of groans of various kinds. But it was also a brilliant days hill walking in the (Canadian) sunshine. Next stop California.