Three hours is all it took, not that I was rushing or watching the clock (since I don't have one), door to door via the immortal Barr Hill in between Twechar and Croy. I started off at Milngavie train station and headed up through Dougalston, Baldernock and Torrance, to the canal towpath that takes you (like a conveyor belt) all the way to Twechar just past Kirkintilloch some five miles away. Here, we branch off, head up the road for couple of hundred metres before turning up onto the path that leads to Barr Hill. After enjoying those expansive views over to the Campsies and the Kelvin valley we head down the other side to Croy and the waiting train (yes, it was waiting just for me;) and a twelve minute bullet through the bucolic back to the newly renovated hauptbanhof of Queen Street. Another ten minutes by the river and I'm hame. It's 14:04 and I left my gaff at 11:00 on the dot. What's not amazing about that? The fact that I have entered another 'zone' of being - the bucolic and the pastoral - and been in contact with so much life via that canal and those country back roads. In those three hours I've cycled through woods, fords, passed countless streams and ponds, seen a million lifeforms that are not human-shaped or even human-like (fortunately), breathed in the silence and the space, nevermind that blissful solitude, and climbed a half dozen hills of varying sizes. And as if to seal the deal, the train is literally waiting for me at Croy station as I arrive.
God Bless Glasgow!
I thought I had taken the wrong train there for a minute arriving as I did at the newly refreshed Queen Street station. No sure if I like it though given the fact that the square frontage seems to clash with the semi-circular facade that used to be there and whose top you can still see. What I do like is the fact that the roads are slowly being taken back by the people. 'People first, not pollution' would be the motto of my city, and no-one would have cars, they would all walk or cycle.
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