Barrhead to Bellahouston via Harelaw and Glenburn Reservoirs

The route here begins bottom left at Barrhead train station and follows the red line up into the hills behind Paisley before descending into and around the east side of Paisley and into Rosshall Park (centre top) where the cycle path will lead you to Bellahouston Park from where you can survey the trip you have just completed.

Again, following a beautiful cycle through Pollok Country Park to the train station (Pollokshaws West), and a 12 minute journey on the train, I arrive at Barrhead, literally as its name suggests at the head of the hills, and right at the foot of the Gateside Road which will take us up into the Fereneze Braes.

Just be careful for the little turn-off onto Hillside Road about 200 metres after you start your climb on Gateside Road, (there's an enormous house with an an enormous monkey puzzle tree that can act as a sign!)


The road is steep but no problem for my new Trek. I get halfway up and ask a couple working in their garden if I'm on the right path (I know I'm on the right path, I just want to know if they are). I ask them how far Harelaw Reservoir is. Typically, they don't know. She mentions the one (actually Harelaw 'Dam') over there in Neilston. Then he tells me that this road is a dead end (ending in Woodneuk Farm). I point at the bike and my feet and suggest that the term 'dead end' applies only to cars and closed minds. I bid them good gardening, and continue up and around past Woodneuk Farm and up onto the Fereneze plateau via a little farm path. So far so good...

And the views are amazing!

Excellent views from Hillside Road leading to Neilston Pad and Knockenae Plantation (the little bunnet-shaped hill to the right).

Looking over Fereneze Golf Course and Harelaw Reservoir into the valley.

There are a couple of walking paths up here to various locales (check out Glennifer Braes map online). I headed with bike down the wall here to Glenburn Reservoir and took a left along a muddy path around the reservoir (see dotted red line on map above) to the little huts in the distance where the path comes out onto a lane. The views are incredible all the way along.

The view down the B774 towards Paisley (Paisley Canal train station is a five minute cycle from here, and Barrhead station is a ten minute cycle in the other direction).

You could easily cycle back to Barrhead train station (or equally Paisley Canal station) and call it a day there, but since I only live in Cessnock I decided to cycle back home joining the cycle path at Rosshall Park five minutes from here.

Coming back through Bellahouston Park (I normally pop into the leisure centre for a refreshing swim) I can survey from its hill where I have just been. With a pair of binoculars you can literally see individual trees that you passed up there on the Fereneze Braes (which is that lump of land right in front). Getting your bearings is fundamental to being alive in the world (orienting-navigating organically and not technologically). Maps, notebooks & binoculars are a meditative cyclist's best friend!