Setting of on the journey home always creates a mixed feeling. I love my home and am always keen and happy to get there. But a week of camping produces a love for that area as well. I’d have loved, for example, to have returned to Luing on a sunny day.
But local wildlife have no mixed feelings. Birds and amphibians clearly have an eye to the main chance. There is recognition that a tent is going and there might be easy pickings. Early visitors were the local ducklings.
They arrived before the tent was down. Of course, mother was with them.
A young robin waited and moved in as soon as the tent was down. It already knew there’d be worms to find. So too did a toad.
For us it was time to hit the road. Our intention was to be somewhere in England, probably near Manchester by the end of the day. For southerners, it is all up north and therefore it must all be close together, but actually we were planning on a journey of at least 320 miles with the start on ordinary roads and then Glasgow to negotiate. It was a long way.
So stopping was limited. In fact our first real stop – for coffee – was at Inveruglas on Loch Lomond and I could now say I had seen Loch Lomond, mist free twice.
There is a hydro electric power station at Inveruglas.
The pipes carry water from a storage lake and with that amount of fall the energy must be huge. The power station was built in 1950. I think it still generates 130 000 kilowatts of power or enough to keep more than eight million low energy 100watt equivalent bulbs burning.
Here are the waters and the bonnie banks.
Our ‘T and P’ stop completed, we continued down the length of Loch Lomond and across the Clyde. We used the rather irksome Glasgow motorway network and then headed south again.
By the time we felt the need for lunch we were dashing South on the M74. Our best option for the picnic seemed to be a service station. The Annandale Water one, which I quite like, was too far south so we stopped at Cairn Lodge services at Happendon. It sounds to me a bit like a back packers hostel in Australia and is in fact an old service station, just off the motorway and predating it. I was not over impressed with the facilities for picnics. We did find a wall top with a 45 degree slope to lean our behinds on. I won’t blame anyone for the weather turning a bit damp.
But it did have slightly stately surroundings.
A gatehouse was complete with very stately lion.
Soon we were zapping south again and pondering on just where we might stay. I had somewhere in mind and a couple of calls made it seem like a good choice. Find out where next time.
