I came over the hill from The Fro starting point on the eastern side,
stopped amongst the rocks near the summit- lots of people up there as it was a
sunny Sunday lunchtime. I continued on down the western spur, past very dry
looking dew ponds, then stopped for lunch in a ruin just out of the photo
below at the upper right.
This is the western spur of the hill, looking down onto the ford across the
stream whose source is almost at the summit. This had some traffic whilst I
was here, but a tiny amount compared with the main routes onto the hill.
Usually you will meet no-one down here at all.
Above is the remains of a small building which was my shelter from the fairly
cold wind - spent an hour here.
Above is the view of the Sugarloaf summit from my tea stop
shelter. I could clearly hear the hoards on the summit from 3/4 mile away.
The ford is out of the photo lower right.
On the way home I found the verge on fire along one of my local backroads.
Wind was towards the camera, but the flames were advancing upwind as well as
down- the double row of trees on the far side were about to get scorched at the very least, and they go back for half a mile, so I stopped and had a go at it. 1 gal water doesn't go far. Then it was digging with an improvised spade along the entire back edge of the burnt area seen here.
This seemed to work, but the small trees on the right were beyond hope by then.
The fire was stopped downwind (right) by the field and track I'm standing on.
This must have been burning well all afternoon- and it isn't clear what started it, as
the undergrowth is all green here, and it's March not August.