JOHN MUIR WAY: DAY 2 BALLOCH to STRATHBLANE.

 

Thursday 15 May.

We were now fully recovered from our flu or cold or whatever it was and the weather forecast said it was to be fine today, so we were off to do the next stage in the ‘John Muir Way’. Moira had done a lot of research into bus times to get to Balloch and back, from the end of our walk, at Strathblane. She had planned to take the bus from Port Glasgow to Clydebank and from there catch a bus to Balloch. This was going to take about 2 hours before we would reach start of the trail and with the times of the busses that would be about 11am. I changed all her well prepared plans and said we would leave early and just drive over to Balloch, park the car there and worry about getting back later. This we did and left at 7:30am, after breakfast and preparing our lunch, which I carried in the daypack. It was 8am when we parked the car opposite the bus station in Balloch again and set off on today’s section of the ‘John Muir Way’.

         

BALLOCH COUNTRY PARK

At the southern tip of Loch Lomond, the Park is a 200-acre landscaped garden established in the early 19^th century for Glasgow banker John Buchanan. It includes wooded areas, Chinese garden, pond, parkland and kitchen garden, and is a haven for wildlife. The castle, now derelict, stands on the site of a 13^th century structure.

Waymarked nature trails and guided walks are accessible year-round; a lochside kiosk is open Easter to September.

     

We were going to go through the gate into Balloch Castle and Country Park on the main road opposite the bus terminus and pick up the waymarks eventually where the route went through the park, but instead decided to head down to the bridge over the River Leven and pick up the ‘official track’. It was fortunate we did this as the track took us up the side of the river and along the banks of Loch Lomond before climbing up the hill to go round Balloch Castle at the top. It was a beautiful wooded area and the meadows were covered in colourful bluebells. The castle seemed to be undergoing renovation work and was surrounded in scaffolding spoiling any photographs but there was a particularly nice conical tower with a clock face that was free of any maintenance work. After the castle we were on a nice tarred track that now meet up with the ‘7’ cycle trail that had come through the gate that we had contemplated entering earlier. This path led through more wooded countryside to meet the A811 main road to Drymen.

    

It was more or less directly across this busy road to take a Y-junction to the right onto some narrow country lanes.It was fairly flat route eventually running alongside the Catter Burn, a delightful little stream with overhanging trees and bushes. Ahead and to the right were some lovely hills, not ‘Munros’ but quite high while to the left it was flat, going down eventually to the Loch and always in the distance there was the profile of Ben Lomond. After 2½ hours walking it was time for a break and we sat on some logs at a farm gate and had a cup of coffee and a piece of fruit bread. Moira had forgotten to bring an extra cup and we had to share our drink from the one on the top of the flask. The weather had been good for walking, a bit cloudy and cool; the high pressure system over the country shown on the weather charts on TV wasn’t producing the expected heat wave just yet.

         

Continuing after our break it was more flat walking on a minor road until we reached Croftamie on the A809. We crossed the road and on to an old railway track that had been converted into a walking trail. On the road at the start was the old station house. It was now very good walking on a narrow path, still flat, through more wooded countryside. A metal walkway bridge now crossed the Endrick Water using the supports of the former much larger railway bridge. The river below twisted and turned on its way to join up with Blane Water. Shortly after crossing the river we reached the junction with the path leading to Drymen, 2 miles away, we had now joined up with the West Highland Way coming from Milngavie; these walkers would take the route to Drymen. Now we were on the ‘WHW’ we met more and more hikers coming towards us. There were single ones with huge packs, small parties using baggage carriers and one large group all in the same blue t-shirts. We saw a poster for accommodation in Drymen in a bunkhouse, £27:50 per person, a bit steep when compared with another advert a little further on offering bed and breakfast with an en suite room for £30. We spoke to a few of them as we passed, a couple of guys were hoping to reach Rowardennan tonight, quite a walk and then a party of woman from Somerset who had done the South West Coastal Path and were now looking for something different.

      

At the village of Gartness we crossed an old bridge over Blane Water and now the path ran parallel with the A81 down the valley of Strath Blane. It was still flat and on a good smooth gravel path. There were still a lot of people doing the WHW and now there were also cyclists on the track. We stopped for our picnic lunch outside the Beech Tree Inn at Dumgoyne. This was an ideal stopping place for those walking from Milngavie to Drymen for their first day, about half way. The inn also advertised a variety of t-shirts with various phrases and symbols telling people you had ‘done the West Highland Way’. A lot of the hikers had stopped at the pub for lunch or a drink but we used a bench outside for our coffee and sandwiches. When we got going again the route took us past Glengoyne Distillery but it wasn’t a particularly attractive plant just a few flat roofed buildings. Shortly after that the route took a detour from the flat valley and made for the hills in a loop that took us to the town of Strathblane. It was the only climb of the day and it was a toughie. It wasn’t that steep but it just kept going, as soon as you reached what seemed the top anther climb appeared. We did get a good view back over the hills on either side of Strath Blane and in the distance we could still make out Ben Lomond. We also heard a cuckoo; it was faint at first but gradually grew louder

        

Once over the top it was a long gradual descent and we could see the houses in villages of Netherton and Blanefield on the other side of Blane Water in the valley below. Strathblane was ahead of us but as we often find at the end of a walk the final destination never seems to arrive. But eventually we got there and as we approached the A81 which ran through the centre of the town I stopped to ask a local for directions to the nearest bus stop for Glasgow. As he was directing me a bus went past, we had just missed one. When we got to the bus stop the time table told us we had a wait of an hour for the next one, we spent this time in a nearby pub with a refreshing glass of lager.

       

It was only 11 miles to Glasgow but it took an hour. It went ‘round all the houses’ of Milngavie, Bearsden and Maryhill and stopped at all the bus stops which seemed to be only about 50 metres apart in places. When we eventually got to Buchanan St terminus in Glasgow I enquired about the bus for Balloch only to be told that it didn’t leave from there and to catch it at Jamaica St near the Central Station. On the way there we decided to check at Queen St. station about a train to Balloch; there was one in 15 minutes and it cost £5:10 each. We decided to take it; the journey time was only 40 minutes compared with an hour and a half using the bus. It was nearly an express train stopping only at Charing Cross, Partick, Dumbarton, Dalreoch, Renton and Alexandria before reaching Balloch. The car was safe and sound and we were soon heading home. It had been a long day nearly 12 hours since we left this morning. The walk had been 29.5 km, it had been quite easy just the one hill but we were both sore, not at our fittest after the flu.