Lower Campsie Glen in December

In celebration of completing our house sale I took an hour to see lower Campsie Glen with a little more water coming down. The Tolkein steps:



And the view from on the steps:



Looking back down the glen



A tributary hangs in the air



Just looking for footprints in the deep leaf mulch makes me think I am the only person to walk here for at least 4 weeks....

Snow on Ben Lomond

I went to visit "our" house in Summerston. It's a crystal clear day with what to a southerner is a hard frost, still on the ground at 2.30 and not looking like going. As you drive out of what will be our drive you can see Ben Lomond in the distance. SNOW!




EDIT: Had to drive north to Stockiemuir to get a decent view. This is not from my front drive, unfortunately!

Campsie Glen after a day's rain

I drove past Ballagan en route to Campsie Glen. It was raining and I didn't have a lot of time so a quick trip was in order, just to see if any water was coming down the falls. The white smudge in the centre of the picture is the Spout.



Yes, there is some water coming down, the heavy rain was just one day and that was two days ago. Wonder what a weekend of really heavy Winter rain will look like...



This is the same palce the last time I was here:



This is the set of falls I scrambled up last time too! Not today.



Lower drop of the easy access section of the gorge.



The flat picnic rock. A bit damp today!

Kelvin in Partick after a day's rain

First real rain for a while yesterday. No time to get out to the Campsies and the water levels are dropping already, so probably not worth looking for falls in flood tomorrow...

Here's Partick today.

Looks promising



And enjoying himself (none of this was set up by me!)



Busy chap



More Summer flowers in October



And yes, the sun does shine in Glasgow

Upper Ballagan Glen in Autumn colours

Friday the 16th of October and nice fresh borage flowers. Summer is late in Glasgow!



We've had a gale and many of the trees in Ballagan Glen have lost their leaves.



The walls of the gorge below the Spout of Ballagan are fossil rich sedimentary. I really must look up the geology of the Campsies. Mixed sedimentary/volcanic.



Looking down in to the gorge, lots more layers!





Today I climbed right to the top of the wildlife reserve then scrambled a few meters down to the burn and sat in the sun for half an hour. No UVB but plenty of infra red. Might not make any D3 but very pleasant. Today was flat calm and not a cloud in the sky and undoubtedly the hottest day since we arrived here at the end of July! This is looking downstream from the top of a fall of about 12 foot in to the main pool here:




Just upstream was a pair of Goatsbeards in flower, Summer trying to hang on for a few days longer!



But in the woods the colours are nice if autumnal.



From the road walk, a very strange looking rock, in total isolation in the middle of a very tidy sheep field.



Up here should have a nice view over Strathblane, I'm thinking ahead to the next walk...

Upper Campsie Glen

For the Upper Campsie Glen I parked in the main car park on the B road from Lennoxtown to Fintry. There's a good path and stepped descent down to the plunge pool of the first of a series of falls.



After that it's scrambles around each fall and a hint that someone might have walked up the rough grass some time ago once the trees stop!



When the trees stop it's a moorland valley. The B road is high on the right.



Nice flat rock for a picnic:



Tributary valley:



When I got up to where the stream joins the road I found I had actually been walking an "informal route". Very informal methinks, excellent:



Walked back down the road to the car to have a quick look at Jamie Wright's Well



Tastes fine.

Dawsholm Park

I got some meals cooked and frozen for my next on call set of shifts, so it was time for a quick walk yesterday afternoon. I'd noticed this electricity substation supplying the Science Park as I drove by the other day after looking at a house in Summerston (the least rough bit!).



That got me out of the house and so I carried on round through Dawsholm Park, just south of the Garscube Estate and the vet school. Bridge over the Kelvin in the park. Autumn is coming but so far very slowly.




Anything not in active use gets covered in moss pretty quickly. No, it doesn't rain all of the time, but certainly some of it! These are random steps from one bit of derelict tarmac to another in the park...



Round via the Kelvindale Maze



Which turns out to be quite easy when seen from the air:



Though an attempt with a skateboard or in-line skates would require a very accurate and fully up to date train timetable for "stations via Maryhill" before the attempt... Perhaps not!

After that it was a canal walk past the gasometers to have coffee with my wife at Lock 27. Very civilised!

Anderston

If you have ever been on the suburban train out of Glasgow Central Low Level station towards Bearsden you will have gone through Anderston station. If you were wondering what you were missing, this is it:



It comes out under the M8, on the northern edge of the Kingston Bridge, as in Rico's "Black Limo".



I was in Anderston as it is one of the closer train stops to the new A&E clinic where I'll be working from now on.

Next to the clinic is the Harley-Davidson centre, which doesn't photograph well, and next to that is the Mitchell Library, viewed here across the M8.



Crossing the M8 then gets you on to Sockie Hall Street (Sauchiehall, don't pronounce it, this is Glasgow!), probably back in to Rico land... Live music is alive and well in Glasgow, mostly in real dives. We've not been to a rock gig since our son was born but these venues look tempting.







Not sure I'd want to live on the Sockie Hall, but an occasional visit would be nice...

EDIT: Forgot to mention the Healthfood shops. There are LOTS! And I don't mean the Noodle Bar in the background!

Chrichton's Cairn

I parked in the carpark at the bottom of Campsie Glen. The path started gravelled and neat, the scenery was pretty and so



I was expecting something a bit more home-counties than usual, what with the car park and all, but a few hundred yards and I'm clearly still in Scotland:



A bit of muddy scrambling gets you to these rather Tolkeinesque steps, leading up to the plunge pool of a small waterfall.



This is the waterfall that steepens the path.



And above the plunge pool the path became a little steeper and a bit of a scramble, not exactly paved!



Above the fall the valley opens out and the path climbs to cross the main road and up the edge of the hill to Crichton's Cairn.



Classic Glasgow weather, sun, drifting rain and (slightly) broken cloud



Then it's back down the hill, across the main carpark, scramble down the burnside path and back through the raised hands to that neat tidy path to the car...