best part of the day: that darn walk

Friday 3rd May

Mary had noticed the weather forecast wasn't great for the Lothians (for her Friday off) but slightly better for Stirlingshire. This prompted her to think about public transport to hikes in that area. Our old car can't always be relied upon for longer trips. More often Mary likes to repeat runs we've already done so it was something out of character for her to suggest a walk she'd just found on the internet that went from Bridge of Allan train station to Dunblane and back via the riverside paths of the Darn Walk. I'd never heard of it.

We even uploaded the gpx file into our watches so we wouldn't get lost. (In theory.) I do like an adventure and this seemed an excellent way to go do a few miles we hadn't done before, with only the mild inconvenience of catching a train to Bridge of Allan and back. And if it didn't fill the whole day then we could continue on to Stirling Uni (one of Mary's old universities) and the Wallace Monument, then catch the return train from Stirling. Plan! I just need to think up a smart title for the blog since Darn is such a gift. I asked Mary. She said 'the best I've come up with is Wallace and Mrs. Pig-face'.

Mary doesn't often use the sat-nav on her watch so there was a bit of bedding in time when we got off the train. I took pics of a buzzard flying nearby while Mary worked out which end of the car park to leave by. My watch just gives me a line (it was a circular route) to follow and doesn't mind which direction I follow it in. Mary's is direction specific and if we did the route back to front, it would tell her all day to go in the opposite direction. But not until we got out the car park. I shouldn't complain or make fun of it, as I won't be allowed more of the same, and it was a great idea and use of available information to go somewhere we'd never been without too much forward planning.

We only hit upon the route the night before, so one bit of forward planning we neglected was Julia and Sandy who live in Bridge of Allan. We knew they were really near the station and texted Julia a hasty message to ask if we should call by after for afternoon drinkies. We got a reply saying they were headed off to Arran and sadly unavailable, which sorted that out. (Sorry we've just left the country, something came up!) The photo above is a stone's throw from both the station and Julia's garden. (Although we've been there, we didn't recognise it.) But we are looking over that fence because the first female orange tip of the year was loitering on flowers there.

female orange tip

Weirdly we had seen the males for a couple of weeks but no sign of a female, which tend to emerge slightly later than the males and can be harder to spot as they have no distinctive orange tips.

green veined white

Before we were even out of Bridge of Allan we had seen loads of butterflies - mostly whites, dancing about a local park in trains of 5, 6, or more.

5 whites dancing in the sunshine
set the day off to a cracking start

The start of the walk was marked. Mostly it was dirt trails along the river Allan towards Dunblane. Although there was a bit of cloud cover it was a decent warm day and jackets were soon put in bags, and we spent the rest of the day in t-shirts.

orange tip on cuckoo flower

this comma flew up into a tree declining photos

Pocket in my right hand, G9 in my left

That photo above (taken by Mary obviously) is of me taking the photo below. I was pleased to see some real wild garlic flowers. So often the garlic smell along riversides is the invasive Few Flowered Leek and not Ramsons which are prettier. I was taking the photo with the DJI Pocket, a small gimble camera that is actually pocket sized and takes all the photos I can't with the G9 without changing the lens. I have been using it more and more and it takes an acceptable standard of selfie / panorama. Or just a photo of the scenery. Leaving the G9 for close ups of wildlife or distant birds. More than half the photos of this day out were taken with the Pocket.

some stuff about treasure island / RLS?
I should have been paying more attention

amazing trees near the golf course

caption: the owl on the left is saying to the one on the right
with the startled expression: who's the longhaired paedo?

starling with worm

distant red kite

The trouble with using 2 cameras is posting the results in the right order. Trying to remember did we see that kite before lunch or after? Were we at the Wallace monument after or before Stirling University? We went into Dunblane for lunch but there was nothing much to record of the trip to a local Tescos for sandwiches. We then carried them to a scenic seat on a log (by now on the return journey back down the river.)

When I took this photo I saw just the single rabbit near to hedge, however while cropping the photo just now I realised there is a trio of bun-bums under the rhododendron leaves bottom right!

This was a sad spectacle - a buzzard maybe - on the train line. I imagine it has been drawn there by some roadkill (rail-kill) and perhaps been caught out in similar fashion. Although if you were a sneaky gamekeeper killing raptors it would be a good/lazy place to dispose of the corpse. Surely a bird of prey would be smart enough to fear the sounds of an approaching train? I think we need to call in Quincy. (I am too old for CSI.)

lunch by the river

I had been looking out for dippers all day. There had to be a few along the river surely? The only one I saw was at a point the path left the riverside and headed into some trees. Mary was too far ahead to shout to that I'd be 5 mins bushwacking through the jungle here. But it was the only one! What's your hurry Mary? I clambered over a load of bracken and brambles to a couple of spots close enough to get photos. I kept well away from the steep drop off and what might end in a slither and spalsh.

I had to then run like the clappers to catch up with her majesty who was quite a bit further on. At least the sun came out and cheered everything up.

second orange tip female of the day/year

in the distance the Wallace monument,
should we or shouldn't we?

Mary took the extra bits of stuff out her shoe at this bench

So we decided to walk to Stirling train station via the Wallace monument. There were quite a lot of stories from Mary's past came up, walking through the campus. She left home (in Orkney) to go to Stirling University and, of the three degrees she now has, this one was perhaps the least responsible. Very similar to my own art school experience in Aberdeen, which was my first time away from home and filled with so much spreading of wings, that there was very little time left for academic studies.

Dumyat in the distance

oystercatchers in the university grounds

worth another photo just for those crazy red eyes

At the top of the hill in the shadow of the monument there is a fine view of the flood plane below Stirling Castle and the makings of an oxbow lake. I was surprised we weren't going into and up the monument. Mary didn't even consider it. But had us walk down the other side which went through a pretty wood full of bluebells. She could half remember the way through a haze of student mist.

a tree with that on the front!

Mary got a little ahead while I was taking photos so I ran to catch up. Now the thing that inspired us to get the DJI Pocket was seeing a hillrunner running while video-ing a pal. The gimble irons out most of the shoogle. Making what used to be unwatchable, now perfectly smooth. Or near enough. So I tested it out by jogging a little down the path. Results above. The actual video out the device is a bit smoother than the processed video above which I put through an editing software as it would be too large to transfer without compression. Which has made it a bit flickery. I may have to tinker with frames per second input vs frames per second output. But in terms of footfall shoogle it is fantastic.