The long and winding road

Today we were ready to walk the 70km to Abington, so it was an early breakfast and then hit the road.

We left Milngavie (Scottish Gaelic: Muileann-Gaidh – David’s Mill) and headed into Glasgow itself. Milngavie is pronounced “mulguye” and this difference stems from the way the original Gaelic name was adapted into English.

It felt very strange, after 10 days in remote areas, to be back in a bustling city and its traffic. But the scenery, whilst very different, was good to see and gave us lots of talking points – including passing Patrick Thistle’s ground in Maryhill.

Walking into the city centre we passed the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, formerly the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, which is a centre of performance based higher education for dance, drama, music, production and film. Right opposite is the National Piping Centre, an institution dedicated to the playing of the bagpipes, including not only the Great Highland Bagpipes, but also the Scottish smallpipes and Irish uileann pipes, as well as other traditional musical instruments. We also took time out to pose in front of the HSBC branch on Buchanan Street.

A lovely walk through the centre of Glasgow in the sunshine and passing within photographic range of Celtic Park.

Heading out of Glasgow now, we passed through Dalmarnock, Blantyre and Hamilton (where we passed the 300 mile marker) before heading to Larkhill and a lunch break.

Larkhill (Scottish Gaelic: Taigh na h-Uiseig) is a popular commuter town for Glasgow and is the home of the 2006 Snooker World Champion Graham Dott. As we passed the turning for Lesmahagow we passed the 500 km milestone.

Heading further south now towards Abington, the scenery became much less varied and the main focus of the day was now completing our 70k. As mentioned before, when there are interesting / varied things to look at, time and distance passes much more quickly – when it‘s not so varied then time does pass very slowly.

As we walked the final stretch, the sun was setting over the hills and wind farms to our right and then the light went completely and we finished our walk in the dark – hopefully this will be the only occasion for head torches.

A mammoth day – 70km, 13 hours 25 minutes walking and a foot-numbing 84,000 steps. So the day ended with us very tired but proud of ourselves for the effort.