When you look at it on the map, it doesn’t look much of a challenge, in fact, it looks quite easy. Just a couple of zones on top of a shale bing, that’s basically a small hill made from the waste material left over from shale oil production. Distance to traverse a little over one kilometre and an ascent of about 160m overall. Hardly Munro bagging territory. Aerial views show plenty of paths and easy enough to reach from Broxburn. How hard can it be?
Back on Turf Blog 21-02-23, almost exactly two years to the day, I mentioned an idea for another un-official turf medal called Bing Bagging. This involves taking turf zones found on shale bings and I created medals for 5, 10, 15 and 20 zones, the latter two probably a little on the optimistic side considering how few bings are still in existence and also have turf zones on them.
Bing Bagging 5 – take 5 zones located on bings.
Since then, I’ve managed to take three such bing-located zones locally here in Midlothian and East Lothian, namely, ArnistonBing in Gorebridge, Battlepoint in Prestonpans and RamsayBing in Loanhead, leaving another two to find for the Bing Bagging 5 medal. Today I’ve finally got round to completing that medal by adding GreendykeBing and BroxburnBing, both found in Broxburn, West Lothian.
I didn’t travel all the way to Broxburn for just two zones on the bings, I also wanted to clear the entire town as all the zones were unique to me. My plan was to park the car just off East Main Street, head up to the bings via the industrial estate, thus getting the most challenging zones taken while still fresh, then head west along the north side of the town, returning back along the south side. I did have the thought of continuing to Dechmont, mainly for a zone called UFOIncident, that I wanted to visit. However, left that for another day, along with some of the 180 zones in Livingstone.
The ascent to zones GreendykeBing and BroxburnBing was hard work. First of all, I had the Brompton, about the most unsuitable bicycle in the Universe for tackling shale bings. The small wheels and single speed gearing, just could not cope with the conditions, namely huge puddles, sticky black mud, precipitous slopes of soggy loose shale and a biting cold westerly wind. But on the plus side, it was easy to hook the saddle on a shoulder and carry the bike up with me. Did manage some riding on the relatively flat tops.
I didn’t find turfing Broxburn very interesting. None of the 47 zones I took had much in the way of interest, other and perhaps a few at church sites. I should say that heading west through Broxburn is uphill all the way and a strong headwind added to the effort required. Mind you, the zones along the Union Canal were probably the most scenic, at least when the sun was shining. I found the place mostly very grim and rather depressing. Other than the bings which were glowing brick red in the sunlight. But perhaps that’s just my mood at the time. Bye for now.
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