Glasgow to Kilsyth Walk Story

In the summer of 1994, Ian and Chris and I started to think about finishing our walk along the Forth and Clyde Canal. When the end of the school holidays was approaching, I asked them if they would be free any of the Saturdays over the next few weeks, since Saturday is the best day for canal walking. They said in three weeks time we could continue the walk from Glasgow eastwards, going as far as Falkirk if we felt up to it.

At this time their car was not working, so we had to think of a new plan for how to get to the canal. We decided to get the bus from my house in Corstorphine to Edinburgh, then the train to Glasgow and another bus up to the canal. At the Falkirk end of the walk we would get the train back to Edinburgh again. Ben was to be left at our house this time, as he had a bad toe and couldn't manage such a long walk.

Saturday came, and it was a lovely day. I got up early and rushed around collecting things to take with me. I had learned a lesson from last year's walk and this time I had two packets of "Dextrosol" tablets to help me along the way. I had a packed lunch, waterproof coat, maps and a camera like last year. I also had a survey sheet for my school geography project (mine was about the canals) on which I was going to count the people I saw using the canal in Kirkintilloch, and whether they were on the water or on the towpath.

At about quarter to nine, Ian and Chris arrived. Ian had a large rucksack with his and Chris's things in. The first thing he said to me was, "You know, it's highly unlikely that we'll actually make it all the way to Falkirk today". He's obviously a master of keeping people motivated. I asked him where we'd be able to stop if we didn't manage the whole distance. He said that if we left the canal at Kilsyth we could get the bus to Falkirk from there. I took all this in and thought about the distance. Twenty five miles was a long way, further than I had ever walked before. But after last year, I was confident that I would enjoy it and manage, at least, most of the distance. I showed Ian the Dextrosol tablets.
"Those'll be handy if anyone suddenly starts suffering from low blood sugar levels," he said.

After Ian and Chris had had a coffee, it was time to set off. We walked along my street to the main road. Then suddenly, Chris said, "Oh look, there's the Glasgow bus. Let's get that instead of the train!"

So we ran for the bus and just got on it in time. Chris and I found three seats together up at the back while Ian paid for the tickets. As the bus drove along, we talked about how much better it was to use buses than cars, and almost before we knew it we were nearly in Glasgow. The roads were very quiet on a Saturday morning and the bus pulled into Glasgow bus station at about ten o'clock; the journey had only taken about forty five minutes. After picking up some timetable leaflets to help us find our way back, we made for the canal.

We had planned to get the bus up to Maryhill, where the Glasgow branch of the canal joined the main line, and start the walk from there, but the weather was so nice that we decided to walk up the Glasgow branch instead. After all, another couple of miles wouldn't make much difference on a walk this long.

We arrived at the Glasgow terminus of the canal at quarter past ten and started walking north. It was pleasantly warm and I took my coat off. Soon we had left the town centre and were in the suburbs. We saw a few local people taking their dogs for walks, and thought how funny it was not to have a dog with us. We passed the Partick Thistle ground again, but there wasn't a match on this time.

At the junction, the path we wanted was on the other side of the water and there was no bridge. "How are we going to get across?" I asked Ian.
"There's a little aqueduct under the canal here," he said. "We have to go down and under that."

The aqueduct was tiny, more like a tunnel really. And it was so narrow that we had to wait until there were no cars coming before we could get through safely. All the noises anyone made were amplified and distorted by the curved walls, and everyone was glad to get out into the open air again. We climbed a grassy slope to the towpath and set off once more.

Soon we saw some wild blackberry bushes, so we picked some blackberries to eat. We walked along as we ate, feeling glad that the weather was so good. It didn't look as though we were going to need the waterproof coats we'd brought. Chris pointed to a funny looking brick tower over in Cadder and said, "I wonder what that is?" But no-one knew, and no-one really cared either. It was just so nice to be walking along in the sun for a change.

At Lambhill Bridge there were the remains of some old stables buildings built into the bank next to the towpath. We had a look at them and then walked on. We were right out of Glasgow now, with open countryside to the north instead of busy roads and streets lined with houses. Along a few hundred yards from the bridge was a little picnic spot. We decided to stop and have elevenses, as it was already half past eleven. I had a big bottle of Irn Bru, so I opened it and took a slurp. Chris had some homemade biscuits and we shared those out as well.

While we were eating our small snack, something very surprising happened: the rain started. Gentle at first, it got heavier very quickly. I put my coat on and sheltered the biscuits underneath while Ian and Chris struggled into their waterproof trousers. We decided there wasn't much point in sitting around in the pouring rain so we ate the rest of our biscuits as we walked along.

By the next bridge the rain was easing off and we entered a pretty tree-lined stretch, but my trousers were already soaked and I wished I had waterproof ones. The canal cut north through the Antonine Wall, and we climbed up onto a nearby mound to look at the view over the valley of the River Kelvin below. It was a small river at this point, not looking at all like the big wide one we had crossed on the aqueduct at Maryhill last year. After getting our breath back we climbed down off the wall and returned to the towpath.

The canal soon came out of the trees and was crossed by a newly restored bridge, with lots of boats and a restaurant next to it. After spending a while adjusting the camera settings (I was borrowing an SLR camera because mine was still not working properly) I took a photograph of the scene.

We went under the bridge and walked on. The canal was by now nearing Kirkintilloch where we planned to try and find a fish and chip shop to buy our lunch at, which was just as well as we were all starving. We had an interesting conversation about one of Chris's plants (which was definitely not an African Lilly, no matter what else it might be) and a filing cabinet that had mysteriously appeared in Ian's office at work (after much debate about its possible origin we decided it must be an alien from another planet in disguise).

After that, the effects of the hunger set in even more deeply and we got onto the subject of how anything might be anything else, and all sorts of complicated things. This at least passed the time until we got into the centre of Kirkintilloch. The canal here was crossed by a road on an embankment instead of a bridge, so no boats could get through. We left the canal here. Ian and Chris took off their wet waterproofs and we went along the main street looking for a lunch place.

Soon we found a large shopping centre on the left. We went in and found that it had a food court which served good hot food. We all filled ourselves up with some haddock and chips, then I opted for a doughnut while Ian and Chris tucked into apple pies. We got into a bit of an argument about religion: Ian and I said it was the cause of a lot of wars and things, while Chris said that without it we would never have been nearly so civilised. Goodness knows what the other diners must have been thinking if they were listening. This sort of thing is a bit beyond me anyway, to be quite honest. I prefer to stick to things I can understand, like canals and computers.

Ian payed the bill, and then had to go and look for a bank as he had spent all his money on the lunch. We returned to the canal at the banked up road culvert, and a bit further on was a modern concrete bridge in an open parkland area. But next to it was a more interesting feature: the Luggie Aqueduct.

We went down underneath to have a better look at the second largest aqueduct on the canal. It was certainly an unusual aqueduct; under its arch was a railway and under the railway was the Luggie Water. The railway wasn't there anymore, but the path which had replaced it had been resurfaced with a picture of railway tracks in the tiling.

As we returned to the canal, the rain came on once more. Ian and Chris put their waterproof trousers back on, but my non-waterproof ones had only just dried out from the last shower. We crossed a road blockage at a pelican crossing and walked on out of Kirkintilloch. The rain went off again but Ian and Chris didn't bother to take off their trousers. We managed to get onto the topic of filing cabinets and plants in our conversation again.

The next bit was where I first started to get a bit tired and bored. The next town, Twechar was only about two miles away, but the only features between Kirkintilloch and Twechar were two large water pipes crossing the canal, so it was not a very interesting section. We were in quite remote countryside by this time, and although there was a road right next to us, there was hardly any traffic on it.

Twechar seemed to get further away as we walked towards it; every time we thought we must be nearly there we rounded a corner and saw another few hundred yards of emptiness ahead. Suddenly Chris noticed Twechar right in front of her as she was trying to unobtrusively relieve herself. She came back to where Ian and me were waiting and reported that she had found it.

Sure enough, round the corner was Twechar Bridge. Past it, the towpath shared its course with a road for a couple of miles so walking was harder on the feet. The rain came back on for a few minutes and then went off again. No-one spoke much as we were all a bit tired and bored.

At the next bridge, Ian said, "We can either stop here or carry on further. But if we carry on, it's quite a few miles to the next stopping place, and it's very long and boring."

Looking at my watch, I found it was half past four already so I agreed to stop. We took one last look at the canal we had been following for the last fifteen miles or so, then left it and walked up the quiet country road to Kilsyth. Ian sprinted across the main road right in front of a huge lorry to ask someone what time the Falkirk bus would be. ("I thought I was going to collect my insurance money then!" Chris said to me, grinning).

We followed Ian, slightly more carefully, and asked him what the woman had said. He said that the bus would be coming at five o'clock to the bus stop round the corner. So we went round the corner and were glad to be able to sit down in the bus shelter.

This turned out to be the worst part of the whole day. The bus was nearly an hour and a half late, and to make matters worse, some woman kept on looking out her window and laughing at us. By the time the bus finally came at twenty past six, we never wanted to see Kilsyth main street again. As we heaved ourselves onto the bus, not knowing whether to be glad or annoyed, Ian asked what had happened to the five o'clock bus. Apparently it had broken down. So much for buses being better than cars.

I almost fell asleep on the bus journey, but I was awakened again when the bus pulled into Falkirk bus station. We all got out and wondered what to do with ourselves in the next half hour before the Edinburgh bus came (we decided it would be easier to get the bus home than the train). In the end we all went into a nearby cafe for refreshments. I had a hot chocolate, Chris had a coffee and a hot orange, and Ian had a coffee and a chip buttie.

Suddenly I looked at my watch and it was only five minutes until the bus came. I nudged Ian and Chris into action, and we just all made it in time for the Edinburgh bus. On the way home, we planned our third and final Forth and Clyde Canal walk (Kilsyth to Falkirk) to be done at Easter next year.

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