Monday 19 May.
I got up at 6am and showered before making the breakfast. I took it up to Moira on a tray; she was sleeping and got a fright when I brought it in. The weather was looking promising and the TV forecast was encouraging as well. We planned to catch the bus to Glasgow just before 8am and after showering Moira made lunch and loaded the daypack. We drove down to town and parked the car at the library then headed over for the bus. It was a bit late but made it over the Kingston Bridge into Glasgow without any major delays but in the city centre it was continuous red lights and the traffic was snarled up. At Hope St we jumped off and walked/ran up to the Buchanan St station. We arrived at the same time as the bus but it was all right we were in plenty of time for our connection to Strathblane.
Again it was slow going through Maryhill, Bearsden and Milngavie, it seemed to stop at ever bus stop and these were only about 50m apart. As we came down the hill into Strathblane we recognised where we were and got off the bus at the Kirkstone Inn where we had a beer on Thursday while waiting for our connection to Glasgow. The weather was perfect, a clear blue sky and hardly a cloud in sight. It was beginning to get warm and soon we had our tops off and cursing that we hadn’t had the courage to wear shorts.
The route from Strathblane to Kirkintilloch was the tarred over track bed of the old Blane Valley Railway which originally operated from Glasgow through Kirkintilloch to Strathblane. It was lovely route that followed the course of the River Kelvin and appropriately named the Strathkelvin Railway Path. The path crossed the river on a number of occasions with delightful old bridges as the river meandered and twisted its way along the valley. The hedgerows were an abundance of wild spring flowers and the trees covered in blossom. Although it was now after 10am the morning chorus of birds was still in full song. It was a pleasure walking today even though we were both feeling a bit stiff from walking and running.
As we progressed down the valley on our left we had the Campsie Fells, not Munros but still impressive. The main ones here were; Earl’s Seat 578m, Holehead 551m, Meikle Bin 570m and Cort-ma Law 531m. Along the valley floor there were the villages of Lennoxtown and Milton of Campsie before we reached the major town of Kirkintilloch. The path was also an attraction for cyclists and we had to be on the lookout for them coming behind without much warning. One cyclist helped us out when we were scratching our heads at a signpost. According to our map the route went straight but this pointed to the right. After some discussion we concluded that some mischievous kids had turned the pointer round to confuse us. The cyclist had lived previously in Kilmalcolm and we discussed cycling to Loch Thom and down to Largs. We stopped and sat on the rails at one of the bridges and had a mid-morning coffee and some fruit bread to keep us going.
At Milton of Campsie the old railway station had been renovated and a couple of young chaps were busy sweeping and cleaning. They said that it had been in a bad state after years of neglect and the youth of the village had worked hard at giving it a face lift. They had laid slabs where the platform had been and planted flowers and shrubs in bricked off beds. It looked very nice and the youngsters of the village will hopefully take a pride in their work and maintain it. At Kirkintilloch ‘A town that welcomes walkers’ we reached the Forth and Clyde canal; the town was certainly a walking delight with the old railway track and the canal towpath on its doorstep. Also another walking route that caused us confusion came this way; the Thomas Muir Trail. This path ran in conjunction with its namesake all the way to Kirkintilloch but went in the opposite direction at the canal. It was named after Thomas Muir, the Father of Scottish Democracy,. He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, became a lawyer and was interested in radical reform. He was involved in the French revolution and Irish nationalism. He was deported to Sydney for 14 years and eventually died in Paris. See: www.thomasmuir.co.uk.
We sat on the canal bank and had our lunch; the sun was still warm and it was relaxing watching the ducks and swans floating about on the canal waters. It was a pleasant walk along the towpath and we had done this before when we were joining up a walk from the West Highland Way to the end of the Pennine Way at Kirk Yetholm. We came to the B&B we stayed at on the first night then, at Twechar. The farm house lodging was still there with its B&B sign outside. At the same point a bridge crossed the canal and that was the route for walkers but we took the cyclist’s way which was straight ahead continuing on the towpath. We wanted to finish our day at Kilsyth and this was the more direct route.
[ A few day’s later when we eventually got the official guide book from Amazon we found we missed a treat by taking the cycle route. The other walker’s track went to Bar Hill Fort an old Roman fortification on the Antonine Wall.
BAR HILL FORT
Completed about 140AD the Antonine Wall represented the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Built of earth on a stone foundation it was 63km long and ran from the First of Clyde to the Firth of Forth it was 5m wide and 3-4 m high and had 19 substantial forts of which Bar Hill was the highest. It was abandoned in 210 AD. The Wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is maintained by Historic Scotland. It is all free and more can be found at: www.historicscotland.gsi.gov.uk.
We intended to come back again and do this loop one day.
About 2km further along we came to a signposted pointing to ‘Kilsyth 1 mile’. We took it but should have gone on another kilometre to the B802 road into the town which was more direct. Our path though a pleasant walk in the country went in the wrong direction at first then skirted round a small dam before we saw the houses of the town. It turned out to be longer than 1 mile but we were in luck when we reached the town centre. There was a bus for Glasgow about to leave and we ran and managed to catch it. We were now on our way home.
This bus route to Glasgow was much quicker and the only towns that slowed it down were Kirkintilloch and Bishopbriggs. It took just over 30 minutes and we were on a waiting Largs bus at Buchanan St. We were in Port Glasgow and home by 4:30pm.
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