Our hometown of Falkirk is fortunate in only being a very short drive away from Carron valley, the water supply for the town. The biggest benefit, however, is that the 15 minute drive takes you very quickly from an urban environment to one which is much more reminiscent of the Highlands. The contrast is amazing. The road also takes you over the hills to villages like Milton of Campsie where you can stop off at places like the Fells Coffee House. For a rather peculiar reason it is a very popular rendezvous for cyclists.
The backdrop to the café is provided by the Campsie Fells range of hills. No way can these relatively modest hills be compared to the Himalayas but recently they have become a popular venue f
or the cycling sport of Everesting. If you, like us, are unfamiliar with the sport, let us explain. The nearby Tak-ma-Doon road tops out at 322 metres above sea level, is just over 2.5 miles long with an average gradient of 6.2%. “Everesting” is a term that describes riding the hill repeatedly to reach a total ascent equal to that of Mount Everest.
The challenge means ascending and descending the Task-ma-Doon road 34 times non stop. It normally takes in excess of 16 hours to complete. A punishing event even for the young and fit. The Fells Coffee House caters to this cycling fraternity. As well as coffee and cakes it keeps a full range of spare inner tubes and other cycle maintenance equipment. Sconing, rather than Everesting is more our thing … we drove. And on this beautiful day it was perfect.
Sourcing
The Fells has a welcoming feel about it. They do all the usual stuff you would expect from a café like this and, of course, scones. 
We ordered a fruit scone which unfortunately came with English clotted cream and Italian jam. This place was fairly obviously well run so why they don’t access more locally produced produce we cannot understand. Having said that everything was delicious. Pretty close to a topscone.
Wild West
At the moment, the world outside Milton of Campsie feels a bit like the Wild West. The US has accidentally downed one of its own £50 million fighter planes and Russia has done the same with a passenger airliner. We’ll just drive back over the Tak-Ma-Doon and hope we don’t get hit by anything falling out of the sky!
G66 8BQ tel: 01360 316 421. Fells Coffee
///quail.cabbage.jolt
Thanks for all the visits, scones and blogs this year Billy & Pat. I’ve enjoyed them all.
Hope you had a lovely Christmas and will have a great and healthy New Year.
Love Irené
Thanks Irené and the same to you and yours
Well I have never heard of Everesting.I suppose it gives the cyclists an objective but must be a bit boring to go up and down the same bit of road all the time.Can quite understand why they like to have a break at this nice café.
To be fair, in most cycling events they only see their own front wheel and the bit of road immediately in front so, scenically it probably doesn’t make any difference where they do it.
Everesting sounds tiring! Sconing much better, xxx
Absolutely!
We had a nice wee trip through the Carron valley and enjoyed our scone here at The Fells. Really pleased we were not having to cycle the Tak Ma Doon Road, the car is much more relaxing.