Day One
Friday 6th May
Milngavie to Drymen – 12 miles
I woke up around 6am, the two sleeping, snoring beauties in the
main part of the room didn’t stir; made tea and searched everywhere
for a biccy but gave up when the rest of the room became quiet, both
of them were staring at me from the comfort of the big soft bed. Jen
went to the loo and I jumped into the bed it was nice to see
daylight and have the luxury of the soft bed, Brenda pulled the
duvet over her head. Eventually we were all up showered and dressed
ready for breakfast, it was wonderful – scrambled eggs and smoked
salmon. Each table had a flag of the country that the guests were
from, as the SNP had just won the local election we were treated to
a Scottish flag on our table….. being half Scottish I felt very
proud.
We collected our gear together, put our bags down for collection, paid our bill and were off in a heavy shower.
On arrival in town the men who were in our B&B were at the oblisk taking photos and a nice young man from the tourist information office kindly took photos of us with each of our cameras, we then paid a visit to the TI Centre donated £5 each got our passports and signed the guest book. At last we were off.
A lovely walk through Allander Park, lots of joggers and dog walkers were about, on through Mugdock Wood with a carpet of bluebells as far as you could see… which wasn’t too far due to the rain. There had been a number of small fires in the woods and around the area of the Wooden Hideaway Chalets near Carbeth Lock.
On reaching the B821 we were surprised to find that this is a very busy road, we soon found the path up to the Cross Stone Wall and had a mid-morning break. The rain had stopped but it was still very overcast. A number of walkers passed us as we enjoyed the lovely views over the Campsie Fells and Dumgoyach (wooded hills).
We ambled on down through a field with cows where two young
female walkers in front of us stopped and were a little
apprehensive, we shooed the cows away and guided the girls through
to the exit gate.
Crossing over the Blane Water Bridge we turned left onto a quiet
path past the Glengoyne (note PAST) distillery and stopped for a cup
of tea at Dumgoyne Beech Tree Inn. We bypassed Killearn and strolled
on past some lovely fields to the small hamlet of Gartness, where we
saw and photographed a heron sitting on the weir, we supposed he/she
was waiting for a leaping salmon.
The next mile or so was on a reasonably quiet lane with beautiful
views on all sides, past the sand quarry and on towards Drymen where
we found our B&B (Elmbank), we were then directed a little way down
the road to a house all to ourselves. It was lovely, with two double
bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, lounge, conservatory and patio. We had
to sort out our own breakfast, which was not an issue as we have
learned to cook… well toast.
A quick shower and off to find food, we opted for The Pottery, the
food was good and just what we needed. We had walked 12.5 miles in 4
hours plus a couple of hours for stops. We bought sandwich filling
in the spar shop, wandered back to the house to watch TV and write
up the journals.
Brenda had a double bed to herself, Jen and I opted for the twin room, we had a flat screen tv in both rooms, our room was a bit small for such a big tv, so we left it off in case we got a sun tan if it was switched on. We were all in bed with lights out by 10.30