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Authors: Gary Hayden
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only way to do End to End without breaking the bank. Over the course of three months, camping works out approximately £5,000 cheaper than B&B-ing.
Inconvenient , because the tent has to be lugged around for eight hours a day, because it has to be erected each evening and taken down each morning, because it isn’t big enough to hold you and your stuff comfortably, because it’s wet through with dew every morning when you have to pack it away, and because it’s infuriatingly difficult to get out of and back into when you need the loo in the night.
So, bearing all of this in mind, it came as a surprise, as I drifted off to sleep that final night on the West Highland Way, to find the thought ‘I love my tent!’ popping unannounced into my head.
Whether it was the expression of a genuine emotion or the product of some half-sleeping delirium, I couldn’t – and still can’t – say.
But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty – the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life – thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty, simple and divine?
—Plato, Symposium
Chapter Four
Sentimental Journey
Milngavie – Falkirk – Linlithgow – Kirknewton – Carlops – Innerleithen – Melrose – Jedburgh – Byrness
Before setting out on JoGLE, Wendy and I spent a long time pondering how to get from the end of the West Highland Way, at Milngavie, to the start of the Pennine Way, at Kirk Yetholm. There’s no established walking route between these two places. There are few campsites and fewer hostels. And there’s not much in the way of scenery either.
In the end, we decided to enliven the journey by taking an indirect route via Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, which we both adore. Apart from that, we had low expectations for this part of the journey. And, in the main, our expectations were fulfilled. Looking back, there are entire days I struggle to remember.
But, although the outer journey was dull, the inner journey wasn’t. Thoughts and ideas bloomed in those unstimulating surroundings like flowers in the desert.
We began with a twenty-four-mile forced march from Milngavie to Falkirk , most of it along the towpath of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Rain was forecast, so we decided to leave our tent at Milngavie, walk without backpacks, and return to Milngavie by train at the end of the day.
The Forth and Clyde Canal isn’t Britain’s prettiest waterway. It’s wide and quiet, and has an excellent towpath, but the view is often obscured by trees. And even when there is a view, it is often of nothing more inspiring than industrial parks and housing estates.
The route has one highlight though, namely the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s only rotating boat lift. This 114-feet-high landmark structure, which connects the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal, manages to be both a magnificent piece of engineering and a breath-taking modern sculpture at the same time.
Apparently, the design took its inspiration from, among other things, a Celtic axe, the ribcage of a whale, and the propeller of a ship, but to me it resembles nothing so much as a giant corkscrew. In any case, it’s a splendid sight, which attracts half a million visitors a year.
Of course, Wendy and I weren’t so much visiting the Wheel as marching past it. We didn’t reach it until late in the afternoon, and had to press on for two more miles before we reached Falkirk High railway station.
On our journey back to Milngavie, we shared a train with a crowd of business-suited Glasgow commuters. It felt strange, after a month of solitary tramping through the countryside, to be back in mainstream society, and I felt a little sorry for all of those people with their briefcases, laptops, and mobile phones.
That day’s walk was the longest so far: a total of twenty-eight miles, including the walk to and from Milngavie
Inconvenient , because the tent has to be lugged around for eight hours a day, because it has to be erected each evening and taken down each morning, because it isn’t big enough to hold you and your stuff comfortably, because it’s wet through with dew every morning when you have to pack it away, and because it’s infuriatingly difficult to get out of and back into when you need the loo in the night.
So, bearing all of this in mind, it came as a surprise, as I drifted off to sleep that final night on the West Highland Way, to find the thought ‘I love my tent!’ popping unannounced into my head.
Whether it was the expression of a genuine emotion or the product of some half-sleeping delirium, I couldn’t – and still can’t – say.
But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty – the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life – thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty, simple and divine?
—Plato, Symposium
Chapter Four
Sentimental Journey
Milngavie – Falkirk – Linlithgow – Kirknewton – Carlops – Innerleithen – Melrose – Jedburgh – Byrness
Before setting out on JoGLE, Wendy and I spent a long time pondering how to get from the end of the West Highland Way, at Milngavie, to the start of the Pennine Way, at Kirk Yetholm. There’s no established walking route between these two places. There are few campsites and fewer hostels. And there’s not much in the way of scenery either.
In the end, we decided to enliven the journey by taking an indirect route via Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, which we both adore. Apart from that, we had low expectations for this part of the journey. And, in the main, our expectations were fulfilled. Looking back, there are entire days I struggle to remember.
But, although the outer journey was dull, the inner journey wasn’t. Thoughts and ideas bloomed in those unstimulating surroundings like flowers in the desert.
We began with a twenty-four-mile forced march from Milngavie to Falkirk , most of it along the towpath of the Forth and Clyde Canal. Rain was forecast, so we decided to leave our tent at Milngavie, walk without backpacks, and return to Milngavie by train at the end of the day.
The Forth and Clyde Canal isn’t Britain’s prettiest waterway. It’s wide and quiet, and has an excellent towpath, but the view is often obscured by trees. And even when there is a view, it is often of nothing more inspiring than industrial parks and housing estates.
The route has one highlight though, namely the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s only rotating boat lift. This 114-feet-high landmark structure, which connects the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal, manages to be both a magnificent piece of engineering and a breath-taking modern sculpture at the same time.
Apparently, the design took its inspiration from, among other things, a Celtic axe, the ribcage of a whale, and the propeller of a ship, but to me it resembles nothing so much as a giant corkscrew. In any case, it’s a splendid sight, which attracts half a million visitors a year.
Of course, Wendy and I weren’t so much visiting the Wheel as marching past it. We didn’t reach it until late in the afternoon, and had to press on for two more miles before we reached Falkirk High railway station.
On our journey back to Milngavie, we shared a train with a crowd of business-suited Glasgow commuters. It felt strange, after a month of solitary tramping through the countryside, to be back in mainstream society, and I felt a little sorry for all of those people with their briefcases, laptops, and mobile phones.
That day’s walk was the longest so far: a total of twenty-eight miles, including the walk to and from Milngavie
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