I feel like this post has been years in the making. As much as we love all of the walks we go on, there was always an ulterior motive to them. One day, we wanted to take the kids up a hill. We live in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, so the opportunities are there, but a hill climb felt too far of a step for our 7, 4 and 3 year olds...until now.
This weekend, we took the kids up to the Highland Fault at Braeval (sounds super impressive, but its just a stone's throw from the house - important to stop any after walk naps). Its a climb of about 230m, so not terribly high, but enough to be a steady climb for little legs.
My kids like to walk, but that's not to say it doesn't take a fair amount of patience and persuasion to get them to go for a decent hike. We absolutely can't have competitive "whoever gets to the X first" type games, so we do a lot of treasure hunts, singing and snack breaks to get us through.
This walk, while not hugely steep, was our first upward trek with all 3 and not without its share of challenges - midges, hungry bellies and tired feet were a problem on the 3 hour hike, but lots of snacks, Skin So Soft and cuddles got us to the top.
The top looks out over the Menteith hills and on a clear day (which it was not), you would be able to see the bigger hills in the Trossachs behind.
We arrived back to the car park, remarkably, all happy and in good spirits. Ellis even asked if he could climb Ben Lomond next.