Showing posts with label Ben Lomond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Lomond. Show all posts

Monday 7 June 2021

All Change.

          For months because of covid19, Glasgow has been in lockdown, level 3, which meant that we were not allowed to travel outside the city. These restrictions were lowered to level two this weekend, meaning we could now travel outside our city. Stasia had some business to do in Drymen, one of the routes of my cycling outings. So I went with her, but by car this time. It hadn't changed much, still the quiet little village, a few shops a couple of tearooms and a grassy square with a couple of pubs/hotels. However, a two tearooms had gone and there seem to be quite a few very large and expensive looking cars dotted around the square. We had lunch in the garden of the Winnock Hotel on the square, very nice indeed.
       A part from cycling that area many times, it was one of our walking routes in the days before my cycling era. So we decided to go on and visit Balmaha, four miles further on, and Rowardennan, the end of the road there. Back then Balmaha was a quiet little place on the shore of Loch Lomond, a tearoom, a hotel, a small pier and a few boats bobbing about. We could sit on the shore where mallard ducks usually came by to see what you had to offer. So quiet the tearoom eventually closed. Rowardennan was about 5-6 miles further on, a dead end place with a small hotel that always seem to be closed when you wanted something to eat, and a youth hostel. It was the common starting point for climbing Ben Lomond, which was our only reason for going to Rowardennan.
         As we arrived at Balmaha I went into a state of shock, the place was packed with people, two car parks were full, and cars were parked in odd places along the road. You couldn't see the shore for people, the quiet hotel was festooned with sun umbrellas, all full with people eating. Balmaha is on the famous walk, "the West Highland Way" and there was a steady stream of walkers in groups of 2, 3 and 6's making their way along the route. We didn't stop and decide just to go on to quiet Rowardennan.
      It is still a beautiful route as it twists and turns through a lot of untouched forest, dotted with the odd cottage and farm. We stopped at one point just to listen to the birds, amazing. However, the route has changed, every so often there is an entrance and caravan park, some with lodges, camper vans and "glamping", all busy. This meant the the quiet twisting road was very busy with cars. On reaching Rowardennan, again, shock. The dark old quiet hotel was now a large white building with lots of facilities, a car park which you have to pay to stop there. We pulled into the car park and watched about 25 or more walkers in a long straggling line make there way into the hotel. Of course we didn't pay at the car park, we just turned round and head back home. I'm still in shock at the change and massive commercialisation of that wild and beautiful part of our land that I once walked for solitude and to escape from the buzz of city life. I suppose, one of the outcomes of living so long.

A few photos on route:



The blueish haze are bluebells, a beautiful little woodland flower.

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Tuesday 20 June 2017

Memories.


 

        Another beautiful day, 20 degrees, practically no wind, a clear blue sky, and that wonderful short term Scottish memory, after a couple of days like this we start to think, what a fantastic climate.

     So I set off to complete what I didn't the last time out on the bike, go to Balmaha. It is a beautiful spot, if the weather is kind, it was today, very kind indeed. It is another spot I used to take the kids to, though in those days it wasn't quite so popular, just a place for some walkers, cyclists and a few cars. Today it was awash with walkers, lots of parked cars, though I seemed to be the only cyclist there today. 
      It was also the place, in my younger days, we walked through heading for Rowardennan and then up Ben Lomond. Lots of wonderful pleasant memories as I sat in the sun.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 21 March 2016

Oh What A Beutiful Day---

        Sunday, another glorious day, but still COOOLD. Out round Gartmore, beautiful sunshine, not much of a wind, it just needs to move up a few more degrees to enter that zone of super magic. I have never seen so many cyclists on the road before. There were individuals, groups of two to six or seven, bunches of a dozen or more and one pack of around twenty. You didn't have to cover much ground to see another couple grinding their way around. All ages, young and some grey-bearded, fantastic to see. In the first photo, if you look carefully, you can just see the top of Ben Lomond peeking above the horizon, with some snow still visible on its slopes.It looked better in reality than it does in the photo.
Just visible, Ben Lomond, in the centre of the horizon.

Just outside Gartmore.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk