Late March, lockdown in process, the creature with the huge home range rejoices, for everywhere is local now. And you cannot close the great outdoors. In spite of this, I did see more police vans (3) on my way up to Mugdock from Milngavie than people. Thankfully though they knew better than to stop a non-helmet wearing wild-bearded cyclist, and so it was bliss all the way... no cars, no people, only the naturally-abiding... In the whole two hour trip Milngavie train station to Strathblane and then along to Lennox Castle and up to Blairskaith trig point before heading down to Fluchter, Baldernock, and Dougalston on my way back to Milngavie, I saw less than six people. And yet, it is such a wonderful set of paths, routes, car-free roads. Surely, I thought, everyone should be out and about enjoying their new found freedom. But no. Maybe people have forgotten how to walk after all, having relied on the great pram to carry them for so long. At any rate, what a route! Perhaps because I hadn't been up here for six months or so and I had forgotten just how serene and majestic it is with full-blown Nature all around: the great Campsie mesa, the Glazert Water and Ballagan Burn, the Blairskaith plateau, the Highlands beyond... You get a real sense of the remote and yet I can see the university tower poking up just down there in the city. Today, also, because of the clarity, I could see way across the strath too towards Tinto. And so, from Blairskaith, you have the whole central belt in your vision with the Lowlands to the south and the Highlands to the north. In this way, you can see all of Scotland from this humble little spot. This, along with the silence and serenity of this secluded space, is the beauty & bliss of Blairskaith.
Take the blue pill.... the square in the middle, straight up from Milngavie train station to Mugdock and then down the other end to Strathblane before joining the Thomas Muir path towards Lennoxtown.
The lovely Thomas Muir path, and the great Campsie mesa. Lennox Castle is just up ahead in that foresty bit on the right.
The beautifully dilapidated (and some say haunted) Lennox Castle.
The Highlands and Dumgoyne from Blairskaith.
The wild-bearded man atop the plateau of desolation... (Blairskaith trig just behind to the right)
Looking south from Blairskaith into the valley that the city of Glasgow nestles in.
For those of us with dodgy Latin (and/or Monty Python) it means 'Humans, go home'.
Once down from Blairskaith, there's a whole new beauty to be found in these bucolic back-lanes between Blairskaith and Baldernock and Dougalston. See below links for more details.
https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-odyssey-cadder-blairskaith.html
https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2013/04/milngavie-loop-via-schoenstatt-lennox.html
https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2016/09/roots-routes-milngavie-to-cessnock-via.html
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