I didn't mention our first trip to Dollar, which was long before the fund raising strawberry tea; well - I say long before, it was after the move, so long before is a relative term really. Anyway we went to check out the bookshop. I'd been told it was fantastic and it is indeed very good, and there's a cafe attached with nice cake and good coffee. They also had a small selection of Yoshi goods, so the OH got treated to a new keyring and some nice jigsaws and I treated myself to one of those.
We also bought a Walk Book. because when you move somewhere new, that's what you do isn't it? 'Weekend walks in Stirling and Falkirk' it was called and it seemed just the ticket. Alas I had not realised when it said weekend walks the vast majority of them would take me a whole weekend to do.
I'm joking. but it's a long time since I did any regular walking of any length and when I looked through the book to mark walks of 2.5 kms or less as a starting point there were very very few. And most of them had the word 'steep' somewhere in their description. And that's really quire off putting.
But anyway last weekend, the weather being lovely, we decided to do one of the walks and the OH, who was given the choice went for one that was rather longer then 2.5 km, but was at least basically on the flat and on a well marked footpath, it said. And it was. It was at a place we'd often passed signs to; the Gartmond Dam country park. The walk is basically a big circle around a reservoir created by a dam which a local bigwig built, not to create a reservoir and therefore a guaranteed water supply for the local villages, but to stop his mines from flooding. The water supply thing was an unlooked for, and happy, consequence.
Lots of birds, lots of trees and some wonderful views of the hills in the background. So even though the walk made my back ache it was a very enjoyable afternoon.
We saw this heron
Delighted to spot a Swallows and Amazons reference :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like a really lovely place!
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