The Critical Walker

Whinney Hill from Balloch, Loch Lomond

Distance: 10 km

Date: Friday 2nd April 2010.

Weather Conditions: Sunshine with  clouds growing overcast

Temperature: 8C

Guidebook: Glasgow - 40 Town and Country Walks

Critique:

Another walk from this gem of a little book.  I've been so impressed with this book from 'Pocket Mountains' that I've bought a few more that I will test out and review here.

Anyway, back to this walk......

It was relatively easy to find a car parking spot at the station, however there is also parking available at Balloch Castle Country Park. As usual, I struggle to find the very beginning of thee walk, and I suspect this was because the instructions in the book were not crystal clear (instruction to turn left when it should have said right), however, I quickly found my way back to the intended route. Balloch Castle Country is in a beautiful setting on the side of Loch Lomond and is worth a trip on it's own.

The timing of this walk is fairly important as it can be very boggy and muddy in places, as it was why I went. If you don't mind getting muddy and wet feet, then this won't be a problem for you. You could wear wellies, but this is quite a long walk, so be sure that you can wear wellies for walking in. The view from Whinney Hill is worth the walk, but this is definitely a 'Moderate' Walk in terms of strenuousness and distance.... I was very stiff the next day!

   

Mugdock Country Park

 

Distance: 5 1/2 miles / 8.9 km

Date: Saturday 2nd May 2009

Weather Conditions: Dry, periods of  sunshine

Temperature: 10 - 13 C

Ordnance Survey Map: Landranger 64 (Glasgow)

Guidebook: Pathfinder Guide - Glasgow, the Clyde Valley, Ayrshire and Arran (Jarrold Publishing, 2007)

Critique:

Finding Mugdock Country Park is not that easy, especially finding the correct car park as there are multiple car parks dotted around the perimeter of the park.  However, it is worth pursuing as the park itself is lovely and the starting point at Craigend Visitor Centre has a Garden Centre, Cafe and a couple of Craft/Gift shops so there is plenty to keep you occupied.

Following the walk itself was challenging. The instructions were to start in front of Craigend Visitor Centre and to follow a path to the left of a sign-posted path to 'Mugdock Castle and Loch, Craigend Castle' however, there are no sign posts at all in front of the Visitor Centre. I went around the back of the Visitor centre and there are signposts there, but none with the exact directions noted on it. I therefore made my best guess on which path to follow based on the map and took that one.

The Park is very lovely and has plenty of paths which means a trip to this park would be worthwhile even if you are not going to follow this walk.  However, it turned out that the path I ended up taking was not the correct one, but I did end up at point A (the 14th century fortress/castle) only realised that I had approached it from completely the wrong direction and ended up double-backing along my original route to get back on track. This meant that I suspect that I missed quite a few important features in the park such as the chapel ruins.

Once corrected, the route was pretty easy to follow from this point onwards, although there were times where you felt that perhaps you were going wrong. This was particularly around the reservoir/Milngavie area, but in actual fact the variety of the landscape on this walk is part of the attraction. I now know that Milngavie is a very attractive place to live!

One more correction to the walk - at the end of the stretch of the West Highland Way that the walk follows, it refers to a kissing gate - there is no longer a kissing gate, instead a very modern metal split fence has been put in it's place.  

The part of this walk that moves it from 'Easy' to 'Moderate' is the very steep climb up the hill after turning away from the West Highland Way, if you are not fit, this will be a challenge unless you take it very slowly.

All in all, an enjoyable walk despite the lack of clear directions at the beginning.