Paisley Canal Circular via Glennifer Braes

Remarkable!

That's what this little cycle will have you saying if you follow these instructions:

1. Train to Paisley Canal.

2. Turn left, and keep going until you hit serenity in the form of the Glennifer Braes.

3. The main road up into the braes can get a little hairy at weekends with the odd boy racer over-compensating for his own existential disempowerment. So, mind and take the wee cut-off, marked above on the map, that will take you onto the braes (cyclable) and along to Braemount, where you can either head back down to Paisley or continue along to Glen Park.

Et Voila!

A perfectly impeccable two hour cycle. Ideal for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And those views......  !!!!!!

The Ritual Hills: Epic Dechmont

The train from Maxwell Park to Newton takes 20 minutes. From Newton, Dechmont Hill is all you can see. Another half hour on the bike through quiet backroads and you're there, wondering how on earth such a small hill can reveal such an enormous panorama...

To be honest, I cannot think of many ritual hills that are so close and so accessible, yet so permanently empty and remote. In spite of passing through Dechmont Farm to get to the hill (there's a crumbling path all the way up), I have never seen any human beings here. There is also, at the top of the hill, hidden away in some trees, a small cottage as well. But again, no sign of life. Which suits me just fine. The other day, whilst heading up the Loch Humphrey path to the Kilpatrick Braes I was rather alarmed to see a tour bus ejaculating geriatrics with all the latest Norse walking gear and weather-proof clobber. This is the result of celebrating place: it invariably becomes overrun and spoiled. I am all for the odd impromptu conversation with strangers but when you get groups like this, there are no strangers any more, just a herd mentality that has little strangeness about it at all. This is why I love Dechmont so; because it appears to be impenetrable. No-one really knows about it; no-one really cares about it; and it is sufficiently removed from the train station to discourage walkers. And yet...!

The view over Glasgow from Dechmont Hill. In the lower left, you can see the remains of Gilbertfield Castle, and Gilbertfield Farm. This whole area is a wonderful buffer zone between Cambuslang and East Kilbride, and its spaces like this, whilst probably under-appreciated by most that are the life-blood of the city.

There are several of these hills around Glasgow, which I like to call 'Ritual Hills' for their capacity to restore the spirit after a long and dark winter. I make pilgrimages to them every year, and rejoice every time I do so. From their humble summits I encompass the valley, embrace her, after a short period of absence. I gaze upon the valley and all creatures within her as a single systemic organism. And I rejoice in the clarity I receive in return, the seering serenity that enters from having resided here if only for a few minutes.

Dechmont, then, is just on the edge of Glasgow City proper. And the edge of Glasgow, being a valley, is far more revealing than its centre.

This time, I decided to return via Cambuslang and the River Clyde cycle path instead of round the back of Dechmont and into Carmunnock and Castlemilk.

Another spectacular February day. I cannot recall any February being this sunny.... ever! And the path here is wonderful taking us all the way into the city, and for me, all the way home to Cessnock without ever seeing a car.

Coming into Glasgow Green, the sky still undecided. Showers are on their way, but not before I make it home in one piece and bone dry!

Left the house at 10.20am. Was back for 2.10pm. And all this without ever rushing.

On the Side, not the Summit, of Slackdhu

The Strathblane Hills (at least their south faces) have always intrigued me for their sheer wall stature and their crumbly bone-like nature. Indeed, the word fell, some say deriving from the Old Norse fjiall meaning rocky hill, is perfect for the Strathblane Hills of which Slackdhu is the more prominent. Last year I finally got onto the slopes of Slackdhu, having decided not to go up Dumgoyne for the umpteenth time, and try another hill. To be sure, as the cornerstone to the Campsies, Dumgoyne offers uninterrupted views north to the Highlands, but the views from Slackdhu are no less impressive. Its slopes, too, are far more interesting too than those of Dumgoyne, containing as they do a vast erratic field of boulders and rocks that have been dislodged from their matricial hill.

 Slackdhu and its wall of geology.

All too often, height steers one away from the interesting hills, and though I never got to the summit of Slackdhu, I really didn't need to. Summits, I find the older I get, are simply a form of psychic compensation for those who need it; in other words for those whose lives and living are by and large swallowed up by some blood-sucking nine to five 'job'. The summit then becomes, in the spirit of the superlative-laden capitalist mind, some kind of anti-dote to the disease and unease of modern day living. But it needn't be.

I often find that those who are hell-bent summiteers miss all that glory on the way up for their head-down-ness and their too-much-focus. The spontaneous-minded amongst us however will stop on the side of a hill wherever and whenever the moment arises to do so. Their is no real 'target', no real 'objective'. The summit is simply a summit. It is not a goal. Nor is it the end-point of my living.

Those who judge a hill on account of its height show an alarming lack of imagination, suggesting that it is only the all-round view (which more often than not in Scotland is obscured by clouds) that counts, whilst ignoring the more palatable and intimate aspects of a hill. Where the summit is something of a sledgehammer, the slopes of a hill are a more subtle experience, requiring more attention, and more delicacy, from its hill-walkers. But this is entirely in keeping with a society predicated upon superlatives as the best. Yet, as I have alluded to before, in order to become human, one must distinguish between what is merely big, and what is simply great.

From the slopes of Slackdhu, greatness in the form of budding moss and the inimitable Whangie in the background, a hill of attitude and not altitude if ever there was one!

So the next time you're headed along the Campsie Dene trail towards Dumgoyne, stop at Slackdhu and head up its gentle slopes not to its summit, but to its crumbly rock-strewn bottom. There, in amongst those seemingly motionless great erratics, you might just find part of your Self.

On the side, not the summit!  [February 15th, 2016]

The Great Embrace: Neilston Pad on a Glorious Day in February

This cold February morning, the sunshine pulls me out. I am, after all, a creature of light. It seems that I no longer have to try. I just release my self to Nature and let her take over.

I'm off up to Neilston. It's a short route but absolutely beautiful. And so energizing. To not do it on a day like today would be tantamount to a crime against nature. But that's what modern society appears to be, a crime against Nature writ large.

What a wonderful route to get to the train station!  Through the woods of Pollok Country Park towards Pollokshaws West train station for the train up to Barrhead.

From the train, a wonderful view of the lumps and bumps of Glasgow's southern periphery. Neilston Pad is on the right.

From Barrhead Station just follow the road ahead of you, yes, that one going uphill. This is the beautiful Gateside Road to Killoch Glen and Neilston, and it's always empty.

From atop Neilston Pad....
 

The great walker and writer Theodor Brotchie in his wonderful Some Sylvan Scenes Near Glasgow opens his 18 Afternoon Rambles with a trip to Neilston and its surrounds:

The old-fashioned and still quaint little village of Neilston lies in a straight line about nine miles from the city. Those who still cultivate the art of walking may fix on this upland town as the starting point for a delightful Saturday afternoon's ramble....

The air is keen and bracing, and carries with it the nip of the moors, for Neilston stands high. A beautiful landscape unfolds itself to view as we pause to take breath. We have around us a charming variety of hill and dale, and wood and water, with all their varying local life and colour...

About the pad itself, he writes:

A more wild or beautiful scene cannot be imagined. A perfect panorama of hill and dale, woodland and moor, mountain, loch and sea radiates on all sides from our vantage spot. There are few places in fair Scotland which command such a wide-stretching view.

It's a rousing call, surely...

These Blissful Peripherals

Freedom is nothing; becoming free heavenly. Fichte

I become free every time I enter these hills. When, in the past, I have travelled abroad, I have not experienced this same heavenliness, but rather something akin to its opposite. Which leads me to believe that the real travel is not the lure of the exotic through distance and seduction, but the getting to know the local through intimacy and using one's own steam to get there. In other words, the 'world' is already here before you. You just need to open your eyes a little more widely. Trust in your legs and your lungs a little more confidently. Open your Mind, not to those who wish to corrupt it, but to the hills themselves. Only then might you hear what they have to say. And in the process, become free.

Blairskaith Muir and trig. point, with the Campsies in the background.

The traveller by the idyllic Ballagan Burn

The great Campsie Fells

Coffee with Carlos above Kilpatrick

The Kilpatrick Braes are wonderful. Not just the getting there, (freedom is nothing, becoming free everything!) but the actual being in them. Indeed, for someone like myself who resides in Govan, the getting there is as important as the being there. I almost always cycle, though often I will jump the train from Partick to Dalmuir as a sort of springboard push to help me on my way. In the less cold months, I might take the southern route by the river along to Braehead (meditating on the braes as I go) and get the little raft across the river, before continuing along to Clydebank and joining the canal. This 'getting there' is of extreme importance, and sets you up quite nicely for 'a clear communication' with the hills themselves. I have in the past been ferried in a friend's car to the hills, but the difference has been so palpable as to force me to reject the car entirely as a mode of transportation. On the one hand, with the bicycle (and the body), you contemplate the coming - the be-coming of the hills - whilst on the other you contemplate nothing whilst having your ear bent by some mindless idle chit-chat. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until I move on from this plane, that the car (and its internal combustible engine) is one of the reasons man is in so much existential trouble.

Anyhoo...

This little foray enters the braes through a little ridge route that veers off the Loch Humphrey Path just before its steepest part (aka. The Bastard). There are plenty of overhanging old growth trees, plenty of waterfalls too. Indeed, such is the power of water falling at this time of year I propose a new name for February: Water Falling! (or maybe, Februa, as the feast of purification, is this water falling. At the very least, I have purified myself through using my own engine).

The beautiful canal lending us views of our destination as we go...

The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view.

This is the gate leading into the braes and the one of the ridge paths along them. You can easily walk along it for a kilometre or so and either head deeper into the hills or head back down onto the Loch Humphrey Path.

Coffee with Carlos above the City

Lochwinnoch to Port Glasgow via Mars

It never ceases to amaze me how easily I can reach the country from where I live in Cessnock. Five minutes over the motorway to Dumbreck and another ten minutes on the train to Paisley Canal. From there, the two minute cycle downhill to Paisley Gilmour Street for the train to Lochwinnoch is the most architecturally fascinating inter-station kilometre alongside the Glasgow Central - Glasgow Queen Street one. Fifteen minutes on the train and I am at the loch of birds (loch eanach) and at the foot of the Inverclyde hills.

The map route for this cycle can be found in another post here:

 http://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lochwinnoch-to-port-glasgow-via-duchal.html

In spite of the constant smir of rain - there's nothing quite like cycling in drizzle! - the temperature for this 4th February was unseasonably warm reaching perhaps 9 degrees above zero. The single track road up to the Muirshiel Country Park Visitor Centre was people-empty save for the mad little postie and his little red van.

This uprooted tree is a fitting symbol for modern man: still alive but not doing great (in his removal from the land). This whole area, if not the whole country, used to be covered with trees: oak, hazel, birch, pine... But now all we have are ornaments and monuments: a few trees together here and there. Admittedly, the Muirshiel Park is trying to re-establish the natural tree cover that this land used to have. We're not talking plantations here but real woodland, as unmanaged and left to its own devices as possible. But the history of Scotland is, like many other nations, the history of destruction and forced extinction; of trees, birds, land, loch and sea. We are only beginning to realize the devastation our forefathers let loose on this fragile land.

This is a remnant of the old narrow guage track that used to convey those ignoramuses who sought enjoyment out of killing defenceless birds like grouse and treating the land as some kind of sport. They couldn't even be bothered walking these moors, so they had a railway built for them, and of course, in line with their ignorance, left it to rot when their fun ended. The hill in the right distance is Laird's Seat.

Here's to the moors and bogs, remoteness and solitude, the tranquility of the mist, all the features that can redeem the spirit. (Oh, and thermos flasks too!)

Some of these pools are deep enough to swallow you whole. I cycled through most of them getting my feet wet along the way but there were a couple which were too deep even from my lofty 29 inch wheels.

The utter desolation of the moors renders a magical quality unto your living. It is an enchanting place that enopens you, and where, given the length and breadth of space and of remoteness (and all the qualities that arise from those), one can understand the Self, not the small manufactured and ornamented self but the indefinite immense and large-eyed Self. It is only by losing yourself that you shall find your self, and here atop these high land moors and bogs, imbued by a wealth of elements and space, one comes closer to the ultimate realization that all this is 'You' -

Exiting the moors via Hardridge Farm, the mist and the smirr coats everything in a gentle blanket of cosiness. There really is nothing quite like cycling in a light rain!

Cairncurran Hill in the misty distance from the Chapel path.