A great little route - not very long but a great series of short climbs before we reach the path by Walls Hill Fort and Broadfield Hill. Plenty of spots to stop once we're up on the plateau to inhale the space. I should say, though the most part of this route is on paved roads, that this is an off-road bike kinda route. No road bikes unless you're prepared to sling it on your back for a couple of km between Hartfield and Hallhill. Also, if you want to get up to Walls Hill and Broadfield Hill the link here will give you that option:
The route starts at Barrhead station (centre right, blue circle) and up the Gateside Road. Keep following it up up up and when you get to Mossneuk take the blue line backroad, which by now, if it hadn't been already, is utterly devoid of any human presence at all. Through some wonderful corridors of big old beech trees we skip over the fence at Hartfield and head down the tractor path to Walls Hill. Just keep to the faint path to the right of the hill and it'll take us pretty easily onto a paved road. Here, I cut over another fence and onto an old dilapidated path down to Hallhill. A worthy detour. Not a soul to be seen. From there, it's straightforward enough to get back on to the sustrans path at Elderslie (passing the Wallace monument along the way) and back to Paisley Canal train station, which, if our timing is anywhere near as good as our spacing, the wee shooglie will be waiting just for me and Pegasus!
All in all, a beautiful wee route with more than just a touch of the primal and primordial. And all those short climbs to start with really open you up, so that by the time you're up on the plateau, strange things start to happen!
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