Day 29 Walking into one of Britain's great cities.

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  Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Sunday, July 18, 2010

Despite the West Highland Way having been completed yesterday, today is really the day when we wrap up this stage of our walk. By this evening Phase Three of the Badgers walk will come to a conclusion. And it seems so fitting. Here we are on the cusp of one of the great cities in the world with a magnificent history and the WHW stops in a northern suburb and says, that's it you're finished. Keith says it would be like walking into his home town, London, and getting to Tooting and saying that's it. Or perhaps Melbourne and stopping at Craigieburn. Well, not for us we are off to the heart of this city and won't stop until we hit the Clyde river.
We bid farewell to our charming host, Ellie, after a nice breakfast, but not before she had brought a laptop into the dining room and offered us the chance to blog. So, uploaded all our remaining photos and set off with that extra warm feeling of satisfaction. We got no further than five mins down the road and went straight into Costa Coffee for a flat white (not a good one) with our new best friend, John. We decided last night to walk into Glasgow together today and we are looking forward to it. We know we will miss his companionship once we part this weekend.
The vagaries of the long distance walkers routine mean you are never quite sure of your timings of how the day will unfold. After coffee it was 10.50 and we agreed we really should get going, so we did. We did the official sign in with dear Callum at the Information hut to say we had completed the WHW and where we were headed next. Then it was off. Well, at least  as far as Tesco's where Callum had advised that John could get the best breakfast in town. John, having finally used the tent he has been carrying (all the talk of hard, tough Yorkshire men was called into question by John talking all day on a walk of camping only on arrival to check into a hostel or even a B&B) he now needed breakfast. This was quite okay with us and we trawled the aisles stocking up on a few more bandaids and our two apples. Then finally, we bid farewell to Milngavie and by now it was nearly 11.30.
Walking out of this suburb of Glasgow, heading towards the great city centre itself, we were plesantly surprised by our surroundings. Not the endless rows of suburban housing we had expected, but green countryside with cows grazing and a delightful river meandering by our side. The river is the Allander and that leads into the Kelvin, which leads in a lovely winding, relaxing way into the very heart of Glasgow. We were all very impressed. Certainly for any one doing the WHW we would encourage you to do this leg, either at the beginning or end of your walk. After about an hour of walking, the path became completely overgrown and we had almost the sense of cutting our way through some remote part of the country, a lovely experience for all, including the bugs which fed juicily on Keith's calves. (Why is it that bites to the calf produce such large swellings a day or two later?)  By 2pm we were ready for a spot of lunch, so we took a short detour and found a pub, The Rams Head near Maryhill station. Some vaguely remembered stories came back into Keith's mind about Glasgow being a tough city of hard bitten people, who would smash a glass into your face as soon as look at you. So, warily, Keith in his full walking kit, which stood out as being startlingly different from all the locals at the bar (not to mention the entirely sweat soaked teeshirt which would have given offence in pretty much any pub in the world) went to the bar and ordered the day's special of roast beef with all the trimmings for £4.25. All turned out well and the meal was certainly not the worst we have had on our travels.
After lunch we carried on, following our lovely riverside, seeing so many signs of Glasgow's imperious past. This city we learned, was for some time known as the second city of the Empire. It's fortune originated with the tobacco trade when it's great port became the entry point for most of Europe's demand for this product. From that came the pre-eminient ship building industry of Britain which used to produce 80% of all the ships the country made. Steam trains were also almost entirely engineered and manufactured by the highly skilled body of tradesmen that the city housed. The signs of this success were everywhere as great buildings and churches loomed at times over our path and nowhere was it better shown than in the marvellous collection of bridges which we passed on our way along our small winding river. And still we felt we were walking along a pleasant country path. All in all just a lovely day's walk.
Too soon we were bidding farewell to John who was off to the Youth Hostel and we carried on right to the riverside of the mighty Clyde, where the Exhibition Centre sits doing an imitation of the Sydney Opera House. We were elated to be here even though Debby was once again buggered! It was 4.30pm and we had covered 22kms in some of the warmest weather we had so far experienced on our trip. By now we had called Morag's sister Shona and we were comforted that she and her husband Gerry were winging their way to us to whisk us to their home for a well earned rest. Well, Shona had different ideas. Immediately these people that we had never met were very friendly and proceeded to give us a tour of their lovely city. So, off we went on another 3kms around the centre. At least now we had stored our backpacks in the boot of their car. The surprising thing was we lifted and indeed we realised this was just the best thing that we could have done. It meant we had "done" Glasgow, albeit in a tiny way. It gave us at least the feeling we had seen some of the impressive sights and had furthered our growing sense of this being a place we would love to come back to visit. It also meant tomorrow, our rest day could be devoted to our chores and resting without trying to do the tourist bit. We did not go home until we had been into Jamie Oliver's latest resturant, an Italian job, which was in it's second week of opening. Very impressive and with a two hour wait for a dinner table, it seemed we could have been in Melbourne's cafe lifestyle. so, it was finally home for the most sumptuous comfort food which Shona laid before us, Coq an Vin, one of our absolute favourites and so yummy. As we slid into bed about 11pm we have no recollection of our heads hitting the pillow.

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Debby and reflection of bridge - Kelvin River	River & Kelvin Stevenson Memorial Church 1898	Keith & Soldier Sculpture Memorial	Debby & Art Gallery & Museum Kelvingrove
Us at Clyde River Glasgow & Squinty bridge	Glasgow Exhibition Centre - SECC	Gerry, Shona & Debby at Jamie Oliver's latest   Comments!

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