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Sunday 25 July – Glasgow to Milngavie
This was to be a walk in the park followed by a tramp through the fields. The Clyde Walkway connects to the Kelvin Walkway, providing a (more or less) seamless route from the centre of Glasgow to Milngavie, where the West Highland Way starts. I had cut the corner, so I walked West from Garnethill to pick up the Kelvin Walkway (it’s also a cycleway) in Kelvingrove Park.
First created by Paxton for the then Town Council in 1852, Kelvingrove is the best sort of civic park, a mixture of manicured lawns, recreation areas, and winding walks through the trees. The Victorian buildings of the University can be seen on the skyline.
I said I went for a walk in the park, but I didn’t just mean this one. The Kelvin lies in a gorge which has become a linear park several miles long. Good paths lead you beneath high bridges and, in two cases, aqueducts, grassy areas opening up where the gorge widens, sheer walls squeezing it where the valley grows narrow again. Consequently, I have no idea what the suburbs I passed through look like – an occasional church spire being the most I saw of most areas.
After about three miles of walking I reached Maryhill. But I was confused. I’ve watched Taggart, and I know that Maryhill is the “muddah” capital of Scotland – where were all the “muddahrers”? Then I realised – it was Sunday, and they were all in church or taking flowers to their white-haired old mums. I phoned my mum (the flowers were virtual).
Then things went haywire. I followed the path away from the river, knowing that it cuts across a bend in the Kelvin. A new, unmapped path to the left was signposted, So I followed it. I emerged in the grounds of the West Scotland Science Park. I could see the exit gate, through some temporary fencing surrounding a building site. No alternative route was signed or, as far as I could see, available.
Far above me, a man was sluicing out some roof gutters. He kindly stopped blasting water long enough to describe an escape route. I could see from the map that, by crossing the main road and walking along a side road, I should be able to reconnect with the Walkway. I was still in the science park – it had spread across the road - but soon I reached the spot where the Walkway signs should have been. No signs, but a path in the right place, which I followed.
Sure enough I soon got back to the river bank, which I followed out into the country. In places this path, still officially a cycleway, was very overgrown, difficult to walk through and certainly a nightmare for a cyclist. Of course my boots started to let water in again, but there was less wet grass than a week ago, so less water in the boots.
The site of the Antonine Wall, a failed attempt by the Romans to pacify more of Britain, seems to be just a line on the map. I could see no trace.
Later I crossed the river using the Prescott Bridge, erected by some Royal Engineers in memory of Jim Prescott, a bomb disposal expert who was killed during the Falklands Campaign, A plaque records these facts.
The path eventually emerged on the outskirts of Milngavie, continued through a town park, and finished at the pedestrianised High Street, where I found twin attractions – the start of the West Highland Way (the next business), and a Costa coffee shop, of immediate interest.
Saturday 24 July – Blantyre to Glasgow
No waterproofs again – two days in a row. My walk had hardly got underway before I diverted to visit the David Livingstone Centre at Blantyre. The National Trust for Scotland have incorporated Livingstone’s birthplace – a room in a tenement originally connected to Blantyre’s cotton mills – into a museum depicting his life and work as a missionary in Africa. It’s delightfully old-fashioned (genuine compliment intended).
For instance, as you walk along a darkened corridor, you press buttons to light up a succession of tableaux, each of which is a beautiful low-relief sculpture depicting an episode of his life, including the famous meeting with HM Stanley (“Doctor Livingstone, I presume.” “Er, no, he’s just popped out. Can you call again next week?”).
Maps and artefacts illustrate Livingstone’s travels, with dressing-up stuff for kids and things to look at and sometimes touch at a child’s eye level. It’s all very nicely done. Livingstone’s opposition to the slave trade is particularly well covered. His technique was cunning. He gathered up examples of the instruments of restraint and torture, and sent them back to England. One look at a set of iron manacles or a forked stick adapted to trap an African neck was bound to have its effect, and it did.
There is an explorers’ garden, lush and mysterious, and a visitor centre, where coffee and something was taken. Then I went for a walk.
I picked up the Clyde Walkway a few yards from the centre (the Walkway had resumed good behaviour after yesterday’s lapse). The cotton mills do not survive, but the weir remains, with a bridge across it taking me back to the right bank of the river Both banks are thickly wooded, and the path climbs and dips through the trees to find a route along what has again become a steep-sided valley. After a mile I climbed more steeply to pass below the ramparts of Bothwell Castle.
Scotland’s largest 13th Century Castle, Bothwell was built by the Moray family, and besieged by Edward I during the Wars of Independence. It was rebuilt later by the Black Douglases (good name). What remains looked very impressive against a glowering sky (no sun today, despite the lack of rain).
In another mile there was a lengthy diversion away from the river. A very nice chap at the David Livingstone Centre had advised me to take a train past this diversion, but he took it in good part when I explained that it would be against the “rules”. He had been concerned about a main road, but I was lucky and caught it at a quiet time, and for the rest the route was perfectly pleasant, although not exactly as shown on the map (surprise!). For a short while I was walking along, not the Clyde but a tributary called the Rotten Calder – I found out that the Rotten Burn and Calder Water combine under this name, but I didn’t find a derivation for Rotten (although I didn’t look very hard).
Back by the Clyde, I passed an aerial ropeway across the river. It’s on the map, but there were no Tarzans about today. I was now walking through pleasant meadows on a dirt path, but soon the National Cycle Network’s Route 75 swept in from the South. Path and cycleway were one for the remainder of the journey into Glasgow, so good surfaces were expected and delivered.
I walked beneath the Missing Link, not as hazardous as it sounds. This is not some half-man, half-ape stalking the outskirts of the city, rather it is the closure of a gap between the M74 (aka A74(M), which I had been shadowing for a week) and Glasgow’s own domestic motorway, the M8. What I walked under was the part crossing the river, the Auchenshuggle Bridge. You can’t imagine how pleased I was to be given an excuse to write Auchenshuggle. So, more motorway – what joy.
Meandering followed. Not just me – river, path and I all twisted and turned through some very tight loops, until the way was blocked by building work. The diversion lay through the steets of Dalmarnock. There is a lot of derelict land here, some tenements abandoned and some surprisingly still occupied. They may be little palaces inside, but outside they are dire.
A sign of hope was literally a sign, announcing the construction of the Athletes’ Village for the 2014 Commonwealth Games on one of the cleared sites.
Back at the river, I was walking past a partly-decayed landing stage, when I noticed that it was equipped with a scaffolding-and-plastic shelter, a saggy picnic chair, and a bench. I sat on the bench for another late lunch. As I was finishing, a fisherman cycled up. I asked him if I’d pinched his spot. “Nae bother – there’s plenty of room, pal.” He hollered a greeting to a chum further down the river, and started fishing. I resumed my walk.
The map showed that I was now well into the city, surrounded by housing and commercial buildings, but the riverside was mostly still wooded and apparently rural, with occasional urban interruptions. A large sewage works was completely hidden by a high concrete wall which has been the canvas for hundreds of graffiti artists, or one very versatile and industrious one. I started to walk under a succession of handsome bridges, road and rail. A plaque on a wall explained which was which.
Friday 23 July – Lanark to Blantyre
This was a great day with a slightly bad ending. The Clyde Walkway, from Lanark to Strathclyde Country Park is a marvel (beyond that it loses its lustre, but more of that later). It’s not technically challenging or difficult to follow, and that’s really the point of it. It is designed to Clydesiders and visitors with a chance for a good walk in beautiful surroundings.
After the drama of the Falls of Clyde, above Lanark, The river settles itself down, flowing more smoothly (with occasional chuckly bits) between rolling hills. After the main road bridge out of Lanark, there is some pavement walking before the Walkway crosses Stonebyres Weir to the North (right) bank of the Clyde, which it follows for several miles. This is a good idea. All the housing and commerce hugs the main road on the South bank, leaving the North bank tranquil. There are no towns and few villages, only the occasional bridging-point providing any disturbance.
The actual path varied from compacted earth to fully-engineered shale on hardcore, and was almost universally good to walk on. Just before the bridge at Crossford, a narrow-gauge railway appeared by the path, at one point passing through a strange rustic hut affair. A dog-walker provided the explanation. At Christmas the railway was used for trips to Santa’s Grotto (the hut). It is part of a leisure complex called Valley International Park.
By agreement, the path has been taken across some back gardens (big ones); we are asked to keep to the path, not peer over the fence, and not pick our noses (I might have got carried away there).
Unseen by me, above the path is a monument marking the birthplace of General Roy, father of the Ordnance Survey – I knew it was there, because the OS map told me. A Scottish engineer and surveyor, Roy was hired by George II to map the Scottish Highlands, so that the highlanders could be better supplied with the comforts of life. Of course I made that bit up – the aim was to make clan-bashing more efficient. But hey! He gave us the maps, so he wasn’t all bad.
Mauldslie Bridge, is a splendid affair, with an arch and a lodge on the other side of the river. It used to serve a castle of the same name, now defunct. A potentially nasty disturbance of a walker’s peace came when the path emerged at the junction of two busy roads, but as traffic was at a standstill, I sauntered through it and resumed my peaceful walk. I spotted my first tower blocks, rising rather impressively over the trees, distance lending them a certain charm they probably don’t have close to.
While the river loops around a double headland, split by a side valley, the path goes over it. A short but brutal climb is followed by a sharp descent, another stiff climb, and a final plunge. The dog-walkers coming the other way were puffing and cursing after about twenty yards of climb. I sympathised, but I didn't divulge what was to come - I didn't want to spoil their fun!
The path sticks closely to the riverbank as it passes through Baron’s Haugh Nature Reserve. It is ironic that the majestic waterway, the Clyde, lies just to the left of the path, while the attention of many of the birds, and all of the birdwatchers, is concentrated on some scruffy puddles on the right.
I now walked through an actual place for the first time – the outskirts of Motherwell – but you wouldn’t know it without the map to tell you. As a railway bridge passes far above, river and path wend their leafy way, only occasional glimpses of houses and a graveyard revealing that I wasn’t still in the country. Even a huge motorway interchange, just a few yards away, was invisible if not inaudible.
Passing under a main road, I entered Strathclyde Country Park. Run by North Lanarkshire Council, the dominant feature of the park is a large lake (Strathclyde Loch). A watersports centre at the lakeside has a cafeteria, which I used for a late lunch. I think this lake must have been part of, or at least communicated with, the Clyde in times past, as the map shows the site of a Roman port on the far side.
For a mile and a half, the path follows a wide grassy strip of land between river and lake, along which families were processing on foot or on bikes in the now-strong sunshine.
As I left the park, things fell apart. The Clyde Walkway signs petered out, leaving me to cross a hotel car park and follow the route marked on the map. This route consisted of a busy road, a busier roundabout, an overgrown path and a badly-vandalised boardwalk near the river. I then had to cross another busy road, and make my way through an industrial estate to… nothing, no sign of any path, just high fences and dead ends.
I only had another half mile to go to Blantyre Station, so I gave up on the footpath and did it by road. The promoters of the Clyde Walkway have done some really good work (with more to come the next day) but this bit was rubbish.
Thursday 22 July – Abington to Lanark
A service-area life could get addictive. Decent room, very nice staff, filling supper and WHSmith a few paces away, and breakfast brought to your door – what more do you need?
But I tore myself away and gritted my teeth for two to three miles of necessary main-road walking. Actually it was OK. The A702 had wide verges, and the A73 wasn’t busy. At Roberton, I turned left (West) on to a lane which took me up on to the moors just below Roberton Law (hill). Tarmac walking it remained, but of the best. The weather was dull but dry. The lane meandered across the moors, with distant views of other hills, including the ones to come.
Three miles on, I came to the foot of the Tinto Hills. Tinto itself is about 1400 feet high, and is marked on the map with a viewpoint symbol. Walking Scotland says that “in good weather it provides excellent views through 360°”. By good weather they mean not when there’s a cloud wrapped magnetically around the summit, as there was today. My way was not to the top, but up a track to a pass at maybe half the height of the hill. The map shows disused quarries, but it looked as though one was still in use or had been reopened, which accounted for the good repair of the track. After said quarry, the track became a green path as it descended.
The River Clyde, meanwhile, was describing a wide arc around these hills. I would meet it again later. North of the Tinto Hills, more quiet lanes through gentle farmland took me to Carmichael, a pleasant linear village. I chatted to a builder, exchanging plans on walking the West Highland Way. He is planning to do it a fortnight before me. But his niceness was just a ruse to lull me into a false sense of ease, as would become clear.
The churchyard looked like a good place for lunch, until I put my hand on the gate and found out the hard way that it had just been painted. My thoughts were far from godly as I stalked off along the road. I knew without a doubt that they were out to get me when I made a second attempt at a lunch stop. I went through an open gate, and settled myself in a field, my back to the drystone wall. On the other side of the wall, two vehicles drove wide to pass each other on the road, the one nearest me running through a puddle. Most of the contents flew in the air, over the wall, and over the top of me. Only a few drops actually fell on me, but I got the message. I finished my sandwich and nana, and cast the dust of Carmichael from my heels.
A couple of miles further on, I got talking to a chap working for a company which (the Internet tells me) manufactures temporary tracks to lay across fields. We did not discuss the company’s products. Seeing the rucksack he asked me the usual (from and to), and told me that “the wee lassie in the office” had just had to abort a walk along the West Highland Way, because her feet let her down. I gingerly felt the blister on one of my big toes, and smiled sweetly.
A small disaster then occurred. My plan was to cut down a lane to the banks of the Clyde (now approaching from my right), and cross it on the weir footbridge above the Falls of Clyde. Except that it was closed for repairs. The bridge was fenced off, and people were hard at work, so there was no chance of slipping across unnoticed. So it was a 3½ mile walk to the next bridge, and then a mile back into Lanark. Not a tragedy, and in fact it turned out to be one of the best bits of walking in the whole week.
The path was mostly high above the river as it squeezed through a gorge, a succession of spectacular waterfalls and rapids providing some great photo-ops. The raw power of a large body of water thrusting itself through a narrow gap is surprising, shocking even, how ever many times I see it. This diversion did mean that all I saw of New Lanark (on the other bank) was a few glimpses of the handsome buildings through the trees.
This 18th Century village of cotton mills is a World Heritage Site. I would certainly have paid it a visit if my plans hadn’t been forcibly changed. (The same evening, I heard on the telly that the Forth Railway Bridge had been proposed as a World Heritage Site, but this was being opposed by Network Rail, afraid that it would prevent them running it efficiently as a working railway bridge. I could see their point.)
From the bridge, an old one next to the modern road bridge, I made my way by paths and quiet roads through the suburbs of Lanark to my b&b, just by a delightful park.
After supper (Wetherspoons, where else?) I went exploring Lanark, finishing up at the ruins of St Kentigern’s Church. Dating from the 15th Century, the row of arches which remains (added to a 12th Century building) had to be rebuilt in the 1950s when it collapsed during a storm. Today some of the arches are supported by wooden frames. Behind the church, the town cemetery is dominated by an Art Nouveau-style chapel, looking stunning as it caught the evening sunshine, set against a mackerel sky. Sadly, one semi-circular window was boarded up, and the rest of the fabric is clearly in need of a bit of tlc.
Wednesday 21 July – Moffat to Abington.
Although I was still on a nodding acquaintanceship with the Annandale Way, today’s walk mostly came out of a book – perhaps that should be the book. Scottish Hill Tracks is the bible for those seeking these often elusive paths, many of them ancient transport routes, through the passes and across the high places. It is a book of measured tones. Paths are not “bigged up”, merely described in detail. If a mild warning is given, take note. Describing the “postie’s path” between Strathcanaird and Achiltibuie, it remarks “the path… crosses a steep grassy slope above sea-cliffs with a few metres of scrambling down a rocky step. Great care is needed at this point.” I did it the other way, with the scrambling bit being uphill, and it was daunting. Doing it the way described, looking straight down to the sea as you negotiate the step, must be terrifying.
Tuesday 20 July – Lockerbie to Moffat.
The memorial garden for victims of the Lockerbie disaster lies about a mile out of town, in the Dryfesdale cemetery. Three blocks of stone form a general memorial, with a polished panel behind them carrying the names of everyone who died - local people, passengers and aircrew. Throughout the garden, plaques have been placed honouring individual victims. A plaque for the Secretary General of the Socialist International is placed between those for a twenty year old and a twenty two year old woman. Two men (perhaps just boys) have placed plaques for their father, their mother, and their sister.
The memorials face West, across the cemetery, across farmland, towards the Southern Uplands. The condition of the garden and its contents is immaculate. A vole ran along the path, hopped over a kerbstone, and disappeared into some greenery. I left to start my day’s walk.
I mentioned that yesterday’s road walking was a means to an end, The end was to find the Annandale Way which would, I hoped, provide me with an interesting walk to Moffat. The Annandale Way is a 55-mile route between Annan, on the Solway, and Moffat, at the head of Annandale. It has been developed by an agency called Sulwath (ie Solway) Connections, in cooperation with local councils and landowners. There is a branch, which I hooked up with, from Lockerbie.
In fact I was on the Way within yards of leaving the cemetery. A short woodland walk led to a very quiet lane heading generally North to North West. Although I thought there was too much tarmac to begin with, the traffic levels on the lanes was very low, and there was lots of off-road walking to come.
Yesterday’s rain had been fairly typical for this area for the last week, while the rest of the country cooked in cloudless sunshine. The upside was that the fields here were very lush. Sheep and cows munched enthusiastically. Much of the land around here is owned by the Crown Estate, and they provided the first stretch of off-road walking, through Callaberry Plantation. Even beneath the trees it was warm enough for shirt sleeves. The grey skies of yesterday had given way to sunshine and lighter cloud, and constant sunshine later on.
Monday 19 July – Gretna Green to Lockerbie.
I escaped unwed from Gretna Green. Today was to be a day of road walking, a means to an end (of which more tomorrow). I was counting on the National Cycle Network to find me some safe and quiet roads, and it did not disappoint.
I needed to travel North, but first I headed West along the Annan Road, formerly the main road to Stranraer but now superseded by the super-highway generating a lot of noise just over the hedge. But soon I turned North on to a very quiet lane, which I had mostly to myself. Single track roads with passing places are often a good bet for walking – motorists tend to be cautious, and grateful if you stand aside for them (of course, you have to be ready to dive into the hedge if necessary!). Across the fields, and across Kirtle Water, I could catch the occasional sight of motorway traffic through the trees. Rather more appealingly, behind me there were glimpses of the Lakeland Fells, across the Solway, caught by occasional shafts of sunlight on this otherwise gloomy day.
So far, there had only been a few spots of rain. After about four miles of lanes, the Cycle Network turned right (East) towards the motorway, and I meekly followed it. Crossing Kirtle Water, I turned North on what used to be the A74, now relegated by the building of the A74(M) to the lowly status of the B Very-long-number. The powers that be have taken the opportunity to accommodate cyclists (and me) by painting white lines delineating reasonably wide lanes either side of the road. Obviously a stripe of paint is no guarantee of safety, but I found that they were left alone by drivers, who tend to stick to the centre line. One car driver, pulling in from a side road, registered the cycle lane (and probably noticed me) and made the car appear to jump sideways into the middle of the road. It was a good trick.
Kirtlebridge is a linear village with nothing to detain a traveller.
I felt that I was now following one of three ribbons on a maypole as the motorway, the main railway line and the old main road crossed and re-crossed one another. All that was missing was the little girls with the sticky-out skirts plaiting and unplaiting the ribbons. Just as well they hadn’t turned up – it was becoming more of a Goretex than a gingham day.
I plodded on through pleasant but unexciting countryside. There is little sense of this transport corridor being constrained by the landscape – no gorges through which everything squeezes or big hills round which road and rail swing. The land was gently rolling.
Ecclefechan’s claim to fame is as the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle, prolific and widely unread historian and essayist, whose admiration for strong leaders went out of fashion when fascism supplied too many of them in the 20th Century. He was born (in 1795) in a modest cottage by a well-tamed stream near the middle of the village. So keen was he to get a good education that he walked the 80 miles to Edinburgh University. He spent a great part of his career a bit South of here, in Chelsea, but his body was brought back home in 1881 to be buried in the parish churchyard. Carlyle’s nephew erected a memorial statue which broods by the roadside a little way out of the village.
Had the weather been better, I might have been tempted to go exploring, “joining the dots” along farm tracks as a break from the road. But burns would have to be forded, and a lot of rain had fallen, so I stuck to the road. As on the day before, the rain started in earnest at midday and continued fitfully for about 45 minutes, but today that was just the warm-up. A little after 2 o’clock hard, driving rain began, and didn’t let up before I reached Lockerbie two hours later (continuing, indeed, far into the evening).
The very nice man at the b&b didn’t turn a hair when I stood dripping on his front doormat. He had just dealt with two soggy cyclists, and he whisked away my wet clothing and generally made me feel welcome.
Lockerbie was probably best known as a station on the railway and a stop-off on the main road until a jumbo jet crashed and put the town on the map in a most unwelcome fashion. This very week Lockerbie’s name was being bandied about by US Senators who were seeking to link BP (already in the dock over the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico) with the early release of the only man convicted of planting a bomb on the plane.
Sunday 18 July - Carlisle to Gretna Green.
I have been this way before. When I was walking round the coast of Great Britain, the walk from Carlisle to Gretna was a transition from the South bank of the Solway Firth (Cumbria, England) to the North bank (Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland). It is not entirely straightforward. Several rivers empty into the Solway, and each needs to be crossed.
The first up, the River Eden, I crossed while still in Carlisle. I then turned West, past the attractive cricket ground, to follow the North bank of the Eden almost to its mouth. Paths and suburban roads were interspersed until I walked under the main railway line, then it was paths all the way. The river is mature here, twisting and turning through classic water meadows. Men stood waist-deep in the river, lazily flicking fishhooks. When within earshot, most exchanged a brief hello, unlike bankside anglers, who are a miserable lot on the whole.
I was following the Cumbria Coastal Way in its last gasp. Not much is made of it – the occasional “CCW” on a footpath arrow being all the acknowledgment it receives. Where the channel splits and splits again, the path wanders from the bank to find its way across footbridges over tributary streams, regaining the bank just short of Rockcliffe. This is a well-named village. A rocky bluff forces the river to veer off to the left, and a gap in this higher ground provides an entrance to Rockcliffe, dominated by the dour church. I had a quick recce for a shop, but it didn’t look likely.
