Bus Pass [and BPL, Don't] Go to Billycock Hill [but neither did the Famous Five]

Being a research-whisperer, and what with the wonders of the interweb, BPL discovered that Billycock Hill was in fact, an enormous ice-covered hill on the west coast of Graham Land in Antarctica.  So called as it is shaped like a billycock (bowler) hat.  Bus Pass was all for it, what with the penguins and husky-sledging, but BPL said there wasn’t a reliable bus service to Antarctica, so they’d have to find similar locally.  Bus Pass cast aspersions on blithering Blyton and doubted there could be a farm much less a secret air base on a bowler-hat-shaped ice hill anyway.  BPL explained, that unlike the Bus Pass adventures, pesky Enid was writing fiction and so allowances had to be made.  Those allowances were called ‘artistic license’, which was a good thing, as BPL needed to use one of those very licences for this week’s Bus Pass Adventures. 

What is sauce for the Enid is sauce for Bus Pass Adventures.

BPL suggested they catch the number 35 bus, towards Elgin, to the road for Boyndie Visitor Centre, where they sell cakes, coffees, trinkets, all things horticultural and wild bird food.  Then they could walk up the hill to the decommissioned RAF airfield, which was, ironically, over-shadowed by several enormous wind-turbine propellers, spoiling the view.  As Billycock Hill is taller than Ben Nevis, roughly equivalent to eleven Marilyns, or a Gordon atop a Munro, Bus Pass and BPL would go to a hill of 83m.  More a Toorie-with-a-pompom Hill, than a Billycock Hill.  However, it did have a farm nearby and a secret (artistic license-speak for ‘defunct’) airbase. 

“Roger, Wilco”, Bus Pass saluted, “Chocks away!”

They took off, after fuelling-up (cappuccino), and taxied gently up Toorie-with-a-pompom Hill, (Bus Pass making ta-poketa-poketa-poketa* sounds).  Then, groundspeed ‘toddle’ towards Whitehills, for the bus home. 

Mission accomplished.

Images for this journal have been posted on Insta @purplehaze_journal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowler_hat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Banff

http://www.boyndievisitorcentre.co.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_peaks_by_listing

*Credit: ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, James Thurber 1939 Short Story.

Credit: the interweb: “Billycock Hill (68°10′S 66°33′WCoordinates: 68°10′S 66°33′W) is a rounded, ice-covered hill in Antarctica, which rises to 1,630 metres (5,350 ft) and projects 180 metres (590 ft) above the surrounding ice sheet. It is situated close north of the head of Neny Glacier on the west coast of Graham Land. First surveyed by the United States Antarctic Service, 1939–41, it was re-surveyed in 1946 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, and named by them for its resemblance to a billycock hat”.