Being a self-appointed Lazy Gal, I am all about big views with as little effort as possible.
Luckily, I know of a few ways to get big views with virtually no effort at all (I’ll likely cover this at a later date) but let’s face it, sometimes a little bit of effort makes you feel a bit more deserving of the view at the end.
And so, with that in mind, let’s have a wee chat about Kinnoull Hill.
Situated in the city of Perth, it’s somewhere I can’t currently visit sadly (which is a shame as I do love Perth), and I actually only walked up it for the first time a couple of weeks before the original lockdown. But it’s definitely one I want to do again because the views are worth it . . . and I wasn’t too exhausted from the walk!
Now, if you look at one of the walking pages it will probably tell you to start in the city centre itself, but this is me, so we found a car park a bit up the hill, meaning we were “lifting from a lifted position” to quote Jane Fonda. (I mean, she was talking about a leg lift exercise but it still works in this context also.) From there this took us up a small set of stairs and into some hilly woodland.
I’ll admit, at this point I thought I literally had a two minute walk to the top and that would be it. It was somewhat more than that, and therefore I was a bit moany (the poor fella). In actuality it probably took around 15-20 minutes and actually the going was relatively easy (I believe there are harder routes to the top but let’s face it, if there’s an easy option I’m going for that one).
We just basically went straight up, took some photos of the views and then came back down and that was more than enough for me that day (bearing in mind I had not planned to walk much at all that day – I’m trying to get better than this) but from what I’ve read you can turn it into a much longer walk as well as visit a folly. Maybe next time I’ll do that, I’m getting a bit better at walking now since it’s all we can bloody do during lockdown!
The views were pretty amazing, so it’s definitely worth the small effort of the walk, especially if you do it the lazier way. I’ve had a look into where we parked and I believe it was the Quarry car park (don’t quote me on that but I’m pretty sure!) but from checking comments on Trip Advisor I think there is at least one other car park on the hill which means you don’t need to do the full walk from the city centre if you really don’t want to.
One thing to bear in mind though… the hill has some steep drops! But as long as you stay away from the edge you should be fine. I don’t have a good head for heights and I was okay so you can take my word for that.
Do you have a favourite hill where you get great views without too strenuous a climb? I’d love to know more if you do!
The Lazy Gal's Guide to Scotland 