I have a guide to our North Coast 500 route for £2.49 on Kindle or £5.99 on Paperback if you want to start planning! (Also available on local Amazon sites in local currencies!)

This blog entry contains Amazon affiliate links

So in Scotland at least we are staying on lockdown for another three weeks, although they are looking to “relax” the rules on exercise a bit. We were hoping that this might mean being able to travel to exercise, even if just a short distance from home, but not yet anyway.

We don’t mind the lockdown too much, we see why it’s necessary, but we still can’t really understand why taking (for example) a drive to Loch Lomond for a hike or a canoe paddle isn’t ok.

Anyway, I guess now perhaps the UK is best waiting to see how the countries that have started to relax their lockdowns get on and take it from there.

Today’s walk was just another walk through Dawsholm Park and Cairnhill Woods. The bluebells seem to be at a peak now and look wonderful. The rhododendrons are flowering too and look stunning. Spring is a lovely month!

If you’ve been following my blog then the photos below will show how everything is really starting to blossom now. We would have loved to canoe over to Inchcailloch to see the bluebells which carpet the island at this time of year, but I guess we just have to hope we’re still here next year to do it then instead…

Hope you like the photos and are managing to enjoy Spring as much as we are!

Today I fancied checking out Maryhill Park at the start of our walk. It’s about 15 minutes walk from us and in all the time we have lived here, we have never been into it.

I have bad memories from childhood of this park as my friend and I were attacked (nothing serious but it scared us) there by a group of teenagers when we were about 11 or 12.

The layout of the park has changed from what I remember. When we were attacked it was at the swings, which at the time were at the top of the hill. This assumes my memories from over 40 years ago are accurate. These swings are now gone and the kids play park has since been moved to a lower level close to the road.

Anyway, it’s quite a small park, but the views over to the Campsies from the top of the hill are great. It’s a nice option for an extra stretch of the legs whilst walking to either Dawsholm or Garscube. You just need to cross over the main road. And for anyone doing the Kelvin Walkway, it passes close by the back of the park (this section of the walkway is harder to find and rougher going).

As we were so close to Dawsholm Park, we couldn’t miss the opportunity of having another look for the resident parakeets. They are getting much harder to spot now that the trees are getting greener. We only spotted one today when we saw it fly in to the tree, so we had a rough idea where to look for it.

After a while the parakeet came onto the trunk of the tree to access what we assume is it’s nest, so we got some good photos then.

For the rest of our walk we backtracked a little to head in the opposite direction to the Botanic Gardens as it has been a few weeks since we walked that way.

I love this bench that we stopped to photograph!

Now we feel that we are running out of local “new” walks, so we are hoping that the lockdown exercise rules will be relaxed a little soon and that we might be able to drive out, at least a short distance, to take exercise. We prefer to take most of our exercise in woodland or parks, although there are other walkable options that we may need to look at but they involve having to walk a fair bit through urban areas to get to.

Keep watching and stay safe …

For anyone not local to our area, parts of Drumchapel can be classed as a “bit rough” and the last thing we expected was to find this fantastic walk around the area, almost all of it in wood or parkland.

I had been talking to Mum about the “bluebell woods” in Westerton that I used to go as a kid, and she mentioned ones in Drumchapel that she used to go to when she was young. A bit of googling and I found the “Drumchapel Way” which incorporates Garscadden Wood East, aka the “bluebell woods”.

So we set off today to explore. We couldn’t believe this was in the heart of Drumchapel and that the loop could be done almost all in wood or parkland, save for a short part of just over a kilometre that was through the urban area. We even saw a couple of deer (managed to get a photo of one of them this time!)

Since this lockdown, sometimes we just open Google Maps and look for green areas or footpaths, we are discovering new places to walk all the time.

The bluebells in Garscadden Woods East were lovely, maybe not quite as lovely as the Lake District or Inchcailloch, but needs must, we were happy…

Then the views from the water tower at Cleddans Burn hilltop area were fabulous!

Here are some photos – enjoy!

On Saturday we decided to take a walk to the Western Necropolis, one of four necropoli in Glasgow. From our house it’s about 25 minutes walk, and at one point we had great views over the outlying villages to Dumgoyne Hill and Ben Lomond.

The Western Necropolis is located near Gilslochill train station (near Maryhill). Adjacent, with no noticeable boundaries are Lambhill and St Kentigerns cemeteries.

My Nana (my Dad’s mother) is buried in Lambhill cemetery. I only recall visiting her grave once as a child as I wanted to take a photo of her headstone to give my Grandpa. To be honest I don’t think my Dad visited after that, but maybe it just wasn’t something he spoke about. He did often go “birding” across the road at Possil Marsh, so it is quite possible he may have visited my Nana’s grave at these times. My Dad has passed now, so I will never know.

Anyway, I couldn’t find out on the internet where her plot is, and even searching her name produced zero results. I asked my cousins afterwards, but they were none the wiser, so I will try my Uncle Archie next. I am also not sure if Grandpa is buried next to her, though my cousin Julie thinks he may have been cremated. I guess I kind of hoped that some kind of mystic source would lead me to her headstone, but it wasn’t to be. Many of the headstones on these cemeteries have fallen over with time, and some have fallen inscription side to the ground. It’s really quite sad.

However, this huge site is a sadly beautiful place to go for a walk. There are some great views from the higher ground . We saw a few dog walkers and cyclists, but it was otherwise very quiet.

As I mentioned earlier, our next stop was Possil Marsh where Dad (and sometimes his brothers) used to go “birding”. We walked the circular route until we reached the Forth and Clyde canal, and from there we walked back home along the canal path to make a circular trip.

I would like to do this walk again, especially if I can find out where my Nana’s grave is. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and like the photos. If one good thing has come out of this Coronavirus/lockdown it has been discovering or rediscovering some new places to walk to and some old childhood haunts.

Getting bored on lockdown? If you fancy planning a trip to Scotland, you can’t get better than a road trip along the North Coast 500! If you have a Kindle, then check out our mini guide on Amazon, only £2.49 (or foreign equivalent) or watch our YouTube video for free!

This blog entry contains Amazon affiliate links

Today we took a walk up to Dawsholm park after Paul had finished work. This time armed with my camera with zoom lens rather than just the iPhone.

We got lucky and saw three of the parakeets. The third one joined the other two later on, so the photos below are of the two who seem to be a “couple”…

We took a walk on Saturday to my Mum’s via Dawsholm park and Cairnhill Woods, then taking a different route than usual into her estate, we passed some old haunts I used to frequent as a kid.

It’s still only April, but already the bluebells have started to appear. They normally carpet the forests and fells in May, and we had been looking forward to our annual May bank holiday Lake District trip (now not happening of course) and a May wild camp on Inchcailloch, both places being our favourite spots for photographing the bluebells.

As we walked over to Mum’s, we didn’t expect to see any bluebells out yet as they normally appear around early-mid May, however already quite a few were in bloom in the woods. It was so beautiful that I wanted to share some photographs with you. I love all the seasons, for different reasons, and Spring I love for all the colours that appear after a bleak, grey winter, as flowers start to bloom and trees start turning green again.

It was a beautiful and warm sunny day, and I found my spirits lifting. It was nice to enjoy the sunshine and Spring flowers, and then to take the route past places from my childhood, such as the church where I went to Sunday School (opposite which, you get a great view over the city) and the old “Brownies hut”. It’s funny how when you move away from your parents’ home, even when you’re living just three miles away, you forget about these places. So I guess this lockdown has some plus points, without it I would possibly never have rediscovered these places. And normally, if we walk or cycle to Mum’s, we take the canal path as it’s more direct, but it was so busy last week, we decided to take this different route.

View from the top of the hill

Pretty bench outside Westerton Hall

Westerton community notice board

The “Brownie hut”

Taking the same route home, we were lucky to see (for the first time) the parakeets that we had heard lived in Dawsholm Park. That was pretty special. Now we know where to find them, we shall go back again with a better camera and try to get better photos through the zoom lens.

Closer to home, we saw families with their pet dogs playing by the river and enjoying the sunshine…

And below is one of my favourite views, just outside our estate looking along the river and the Kelvin Walkway…