Three grans walk no.3

On Saturday we walked from the World Heritage site of New Lanark mills up alongside the river, through woods rich in wild flowers, to the Falls of Clyde at Corra Linn, and onward to the weir at Bonnington Linn. The river banks are steep in this part of the Clyde's journey to the sea and the ground is often boggy so a boardwalk has been built to saunter along. We did a fair bit of sauntering, along with crouching to get pictures of wild flowers. Rain showers, making getting my camera out of my rucksack and out of its dry bag too much of a trachle, meant I took most of them with my phone camera. I haven't quite sussed how to improve exposure so some of them are overexposed. Still, they were sufficient as record shots for the 8pm Sunday #wildflowerhour on Twitter run by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

Given how dry the weather has been of late, we were pleasantly surprised at just how much water was coming over the falls. The Clyde catchment area is quite large so I guess we shouldn't have been surprised.
<< Two of us

the route

I'll post the flower pics in roughly alphabetical order of their common names because that's easiest and I can't fully remember the order we spotted them in. Not that it matters.

Alternate-leaved Golden-saxifrage

Bilberry

Bitter Vetch

Broom

Cowslip

Great Stitchwort

Great Wood-rush

Large Bittercress

Leopard's-bane

Pink Purslane so pale it's white

Out of focus Red Campion
with bluebells and Gt.Stitchwort

Thyme-leaved Speedwell

Wood Speedwell

Violets

Wild strawberry just below a badger sett

As we did the upper part of the walk's loop we came across this dodecadal structure made of hand hewn sticks and some ingenious stick joiners–sort of a grown up version of some kids' construction toys, I suppose. It looked as if it is meant for pow-wows or, perhaps, lessons and singalongs. We wondered if it ever has a cover. Maybe that is still to come.

Then we walked back to the mill shop, where I bought a new wallet part of whose construction is of New Lanark wool (I lost my lovely, old, Florentine leather one in Edinburgh last year), and we refreshed ourselves with tea and, for two of us, caramel pie, and for the other, fruity/oaty flapjack.

This jumper, that I'm still knitting (one and a half sleeves to go!), is also New Lanark wool.

Three grans on parts of Clyde Walkway Stages 3 and 4

Our first glimpse of the Clyde after walking down the Garrion Stream
from Cardies Bridge

Little She Bear (hereafter known as Bear; she's a scout like the famous Bear Grylls and her given name means little she bear, so it's entirely appropriate) and I departed from the Boggy Brae at about a quarter past eight in the morning. We had a car ride round the loch and two train rides* before we met up with LanarkshireGran ('Lana' for ease of typing!) at Carluke Station. She had booked a taxi to take all three of us to where we were going to start our walk at Cardies Bridge over the Garrion Stream at NS798515. Safely delivered there we hoiked on our rucksacks and walked to the end of the bridge only to be splashed from head to foot by a car that didn't slow down as it drove through the massive puddle in the middle of the bridge. Thanks, dude! We laughed it off – at least it wasn't raining; we had left drenching rain behind us – and carried on off the bridge to avoid another mud shower!

*Bear and I had to change railway stations in Glasgow. For once, I was the one who knew the way (sense of direction, me? Ha!) as it's a short walk down Buchanan Street and right turn onto Gordon Street that I've done many times in both directions. Bear had not been in Central Station for a long time and was slightly awed by the size of it. We are fairly out in the sticks on our boggy lochside and not frequent visitors to the city so it's easy to forget the size and busy-ness of the place. I remember Toadlet, aged nine, when we were on our way to visit DerbyshireDaughter in London (before she moved to Derbyshire), being overawed by Central Station's size and bustle. She was probably seeing as many people within the space of a few minutes as she had seen in months in her local village and town.

Here is Lana near the start of our walk with Bear in green ahead. We met some dog walkers along this bit and we enjoyed some little bridges over wee burns and some old trees. Lana told us that some of the woodland here is part of the old forest that used to fill the central belt of Scotland.

I like how this large beech tree had apparently
adapted its root placings to the shape of the bank
where it found itself.

An old, old yew tree

There is a woodland dedication stone near here, erected in January 2008, "in honour of Irene Barbour Weir", by her husband George Weir. It hopes people will enjoy the tranquility and spirituality of the "Irene's Wood" and ask that "no damage or cruelty is carried out...against the flora and fauna of these woods."

We were intrigued by the patterns on large old trees with flaky bark and loved seeing red Elf Cups. They are edible apparently but I never have eaten them.

This one might be an elf king or queen's cup, I reckon ;)

mole country

We walked through some rolling fields with plenty evidence of moles. I don't know whether that mole field above is the work of one or several moles but it looks like a mole village.

We spotted this lovely beech tree, which I'd like to see again in its autumn glory, and a 'snag' of a tree, before we found a perfect picnic spot.

Lana and Bear on a log and, since there on no pics of me on my camera I begged one from Lana. She sent one of me negotiating some mud. We did a lot of that.

plum blossom

Towards the end of our walk we encountered some buds that we didn't recognise and some lovely plum blossom. 

When we reached Crossford we walked along the road for a bit to Silverbirch Garden Centre for tea and cake. Very good cake but we forgot to take pics. Cake addicts, us? Never!

Lana's husband picked us up from the garden centre and very kindly drove Bear and me back to Carluke Station to begin our homeward journey, but not before a slight diversion to a triangulation pillar plaqued in honour of Major-General William Roy "from whose military map of Scotland made in 1747-1755 grew the ordnance survey of Breat Britain." We all love OS maps so it was a fitting end to our plod.

"Here stood Miltonhead..."

<< This pic is for triangulation pillar and benchmark geeks. We all know some 😄. 

When I was checking info about the Clyde Walkway I discovered that our walk was officially part of Stage 3 and part of Stage 4. See screen graps of maps below. We had missed out Stage 2 because we though some of it might have been closed but we will do that and the rests of 3 & 4 in our own sweet time. Depending when the bluebells and wild garlic can be expected to be in flower at New Lanark, we might to that part next.

Meanwhile, long live the delightful bumbling and burbling of gran walks!

Bear's mum, who is visiting from the north German island of Pellworm where Bear grew up, decided not to join us on this walk after all because back on the Boggy Brae and two fields along at Bear's abode it was tipping down with rain. Bear's mum had another option: to spend some time with her great-granddaughter.

Three grans on Clyde Walkway Stage 1

Two of us were coming from north-west and one from south-east of Glasgow Exhibition Centre. One of us thought we were meeting at the railway station, one of us thought we were meeting at the Exhibition Centre, and one hadn't a clue. We all got together eventually, not helped by text messages not arriving promptly, nor by one of us having forgotten to check she had LanarkshireGran's number on her new phone.

Exhibition Centre coffees and loos being sufficiently tested, we set off. Here is LanarkshireGran (LG) and LittleSheBear (LSB) in the foreground with the Finnieston Crane and the arc of Squinty Bridge (officially "Clyde Arc" Bridge but everyone calls it Squinty; this is Glasgow after all! 🙂) beyond. We set off eastwards. Below is the view looking back towards the BBC Scotland building and another arc: Glasgow Science Centre.

LSB

Looking back again to Squinty Bridge. The dome-roofed building to the left of Squinty is the southern Rotunda. There is another on the northern side of the river and a tunnel runs between them.

This link takes you to a page that has a good photo taken from above, of both Rotundas and Squinty, plus a bit of history.

Squiggley Bridge, Glasgow

Within minutes we had come to a dead end. Clearly my talent at homing in on dead ends has not diminished. Diggory would have been proud of me (Diggory was my old car many moons ago; he often led me on round about scenic routes and into dead ends). We could have walked back and around the building but we decided to climb over the fence, up a ladder and over another fence. LSB, being the youngest, led the way and hoiked LG and me over.

The next bridge along (yes, I love bridges!) is officially called the Tradeston Bridge. Unofficially – this being Glasgow, and there being a Squinty Bridge already when it was built – Squiggley Bridge.

Squiggley Bridge

And so we trundled along, enjoying the bright sunshine and light reflected off the river. The photo to the right was taken from the shade of the King George V Bridge and looking towards the second Caledonian Rail Bridge, the pillars of the first, four-track, Caledonian Rail Bridge and, furthest away, Glasgow Bridge which is also known as Jamaica Street Bridge.

Just beyond the Jamaica Street Bridge, on Custom House Quay, is the sculpture, La Pasionaria, by Arthur Dooley (1929-1994). The inscriptions below it say:

"Better to die on your feet than live for ever on your knees", Dolores Ibárruri (1895-1989).

"The City of Glasgow and the British Labour Movement pay tribute to the courage of those men and women who went to Spain to fight Fascism 1936-1939. 2,100 went from Britain, 534 were killed, 65 of whom came from Glasgow."

There were lots (lots!) of rowers on the river, and quite a few rowing coaches cycling along the walkway (which is also a cycle track) yelling instructions to the boats. The boats went by so fast I had difficulty getting a good shot of them.

Along the way someone had stuck feathers into the cracks where a tree branch had been cut off.

feather decorations

We crossed Shawfield Footbridge to eat our picnic lunches on the other side. Further inland from the footbridge is the Shawfield Greyhound Stadium. There is a good stretch of cleared land between the stadium and the river, which is presumably going to be developed at some stage.

When we had crossed back to the north side of the river, though after Shawfield Footbridge it was more like the east side because there's a bunch of big meanders at this part, I managed to get a shot of some of the rowers from a distance.

Strathclyde Public School, built in 1903, is near Shawfield Footbridge. The school closed as a school in 1974. Apparently it was reopened as a business centre in 1999.

The last old bridge in this post is the Dalmarnock Rail Bridge, seen here through the pillars and ironwork of an older rail bridge. The last new bridge is this one below that's so new it's not on the maps or Google yet.

A little before we crossed the river at Cambuslang we were reminded of the planet's plastic bag plague by this "plastic bag tree" on the riverbank. When the sluices at New Lanark are opened the river water level rises quite a lot. The low branches of this tree have snagged floating plastic bags.

LSB had researched the availability of refreshments at Cambuslang so we repaired to Morrison's Supermarket café for hot drinks and snackeroos.

Altogether a lovely day. The sun shone on us all the way and the low temperatures meant we didn't get too hot tramping along. We were also, of course, most congenial company for each other.

Watch this pace for accounts of our further trampings along the Clyde Walkway.