The sun shone in the hotel room window at 7am. Time to get up and get ready for our first day of walking.
The road took us west along the busy well known Glasgow road called Sauchiehall Street (pronounced sucky hall) to the Kelvingrove park. The park was full of flowers. Joggers were out and mums with young kids on bikes and scooters were enjoying the morning sun. The entrance into the lovely park is a little non descript but once inside it is lovely.
Kelvingrove Park
Dominating the skyline in the centre of the park is the Stewart Memorial fountain. It is a beautifully ornate fountain dating back to late 1800’s.
All around the fountain young kids played, dogs goofed about and people just walked and talked. It was a lovely and peaceful start to the day.
The temperature was around 17C. Pleasant. I wish it had stayed that way. The Kelvin Walkway leads north along the Kelvin river and it was hard to imagine that we were still in Glasgow City for it was green and lush and fairly quiet. The hustle and bustle was above us.
The guidebook talks about a well sign posted easy walk to gently get you ready for the walks to come. Utter horses**t. Whilst it may be true that the first few miles is well signed and easy, once you get north of Maryhill Park it turns into an unmarked tangled mess of weeds nettles and long grass with “not” a signpost in sight.
This slowed us down considerably for fear of losing our footing as we could not actually see the footpath in places. The river lies close by and the last thing we wanted to do was end up in it. That was not part of the plan.
We arrived at the road that crosses Balmuildy Bridge. What a complete surprise to see an information board giving details of an old Roman Fort that lay here. It talks about the Antonine Wall. I knew nothing of this. My history of Romans in the UK ended with Hadrians Wall. Not a peep about what I think would be considered a mention in the guide book.
The book goes on to say and I quote “depending on the time of year, the Riverside Trail can be fairly overgrown. (Understatement number 1.) If this was the case between Maryhill and Balmuidy Bridge you can be sure the next section will be more overgrown. (Understatement number 2.) It was impassable even hacking at it with walking poles.) If it’s also raining you may want to keep your boots and legs dry and take the shortcut along the A879 to join Allander Water which you follow almost all the way into Milngavie.”
The A879 is a main road with a footpath alongside it about a metre wide. It was scary, hot tarmac underfoot, very noisy with close traffic and energy sapping. It was at this juncture Debbie called into question my navigation skills. The look on her face gave me reason to suggest that I needed to get off this path Toute Suite. Finding the footpath that lead away from the road was no mean task in itself as it was overgrown with long grass and difficult to spot until we were upon it.
The guidebook suggests that one can partake of a cold beer at the Tickled Trout Pub just off the path. The guidebook can go and take a flying leap. If I sat down to a cold pint of beer that would be the day over. We plodded on. I got stung on both hands by nettles towering over the path. I looked back to tell Debbie. She was flailing away at them with her walking sticks. I thought better of a witty repost and continued on.
We crossed the Prescott Bridge. I loved the calm tranquility around the little spot. We stopped for a while and I thought of my friends killed in the Falklands Campaign as was SSGT Jim Prescott in whose name the bridge was erected.
We are now settled into the West Highland Way rooms. Our accommodation for the night. Our host Gerry came to introduce himself and show us around the apartment. Lovely chap. Debbie has been and stocked up with something for dinner and breakfast. She washed all our unmentionables that are draped around to dry. We dosed up with ibuprofen to stop the complaining legs and hips.
Would I do this day again instead of just hopping on the train from Glasgow Queen Street station to Milngavie station? A journey of 20 minutes. Instead of trudging 6 hours with a 10 KG back pack strapped to me. Nope. Once was enough. We did it in good weather. If it is wet underfoot forget it. I reckon it will be a bog after rain.
According to my Garmin we did 26000 steps today.
We walked around 10 miles, much of it tough going in warm weather.
Tomorrow we head out to Drymen some 12 miles to our north.
Woodend Wanderer 