This morning, the weather again informs my choice of where to go. The sun is out and it feels like a Cardrossian kind of day. I jump the Helensburgh express at 11.08am from Partick. 26 minutes later I'm breathing in seaweed smells from the platform at Cradross, another great train station location, almost on the beach itself. And it does feel like a beach as opposed to a bedraggled piece of coastline. The Clyde is more sea here than river, and you feel it. At any rate, it's an oxygenating start to any cycle, as is the Carman High Road which is just a couple of minutes round the corner. Follow the blue line, and it'll take you up the single track road where you can veer off to a couple of interesting spots along the way, the first being Kilmahew House (formerly St. Peter's Seminary), and the next being Carman Muir Hillfort.
Images of the dilapidated seminary can be seen here:
http://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/meditation-3-dumbarton-circular-via.html
The other orange circle on the map just to the east of Cardross station is the wonderful Geilston Gardens (maintained by the National Trust) where you can get up close and personal with some giant Sequoia trees, some of the tallest trees in Scotland.
From the shore at Cardross looking across to Port Glasgow and Greenock.
This is us on the right, the Carman High Road... going up!
Passing Cardross Golf Course...
You could be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere in the heart of Europe, with this sun-dappled little glen and the sounds of nature all around.
The entrance up to the hillfort which you can see just to the upper right. It's only a 15 minute climb from here by bike and foot.
Looking east-ish over Alexandria at al. into the Vale of Leven.
From the hillfort itself looking west... All my cycling-hillwalking could be summarised simply as trying to find a quiet place to have coffee and gather my thoughts;) Caffeine and oxygen I have discovered, mixed in with a few endorphins and vast draughts of space, can have a real profound (and beneficial) effect on the mind.
The bactrian Dumbarton Rock from Dumbarton.
The almost Mediterranean Bowling harbour with the blessed Kilpatrick braes in the background.
The route back to Glasgow follows the Sustrans path through Dumbarton, Bowling, Clydebank etc..
Because I live in Govan however I sometimes take the wee Yoker-Renfrew ferry (actually a raft now) and continue along the boardwalk at Braehead and along the long and pretty quiet Govan Road. I find the river crossing poetic, and the boardwalk at Braehead offers views across to the former shipyards at Scotstoun. If this isn't thought-provoking enough, you have just around the corner when we rejoin the road, the dump, the new billion dollar hospital, and the sewage works.... before we pass through Govan village which has its own curiosities, not least the old church and its ancient hog-back Viking grave stones....
Anyway, it's such an easy route, but so full of interest.... a great way to spend any afternoon.
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