The Ogilvie Cairn - When we eventually found it.

Today's walk was to the Ogivie Cairn near Hawick. This was walk 15 from the Book "Walking in the Land of the Reivers. It looked a fairly easy route to find our way and we were assisted by two guide books, two GPS, and one OS map but we still got lost. Once again we must blame Tom as he was in charge of the Guide book. Unfortunately after half an hours walking we were hit by a tremendous snow storm and with the wind and snow in our faces it was not long before Tom's guide book was in tatters. We ended up doing a loop of about 5 miles instead of a 3 mile walk to the Ogilvie cairn. As you can see in the above photograph it was only when Bowman took over the job of guide that we hit the correct direction.

We eventually made it to the Ogilvie Cairn which has the following inscription on it.

The hill road to Roberton
Ale Water at our feet
and grey hills and blue hills
that melt away and meet
with cotton flowers that wave to us
and lone whaups that call
and over all the Border mist
the soft mist over all

let oil, nor steam, nor wings of dream deprive
of us our own
the wide world for a kingdom and the saddle
for a throne!

This is a memorial seat at the Ogilvie Cairn and two of the names on the inscription have Langholm connections namely Victor Tokely who was a Founder Member of Langholm Rotary Club from our Mother Club Hawick. The other local connection is Graham Murray who farmed in Ewes valley. Despite the couple of very heavy snow showers it was an excellent walk made interesting by our lack of ability to map read.