Karinsmiles

Another Grand Day Out

The Citylink bus from Edinburgh to Oban (and Fort William) goes via Stirling, Callander and Killin and last week’s trip gave us an idea for a second trip this weekend. You can see bits of cycle route 7 from the bus, particularly through Glen Ogle and the stretch from Callander to Killin is about 24 miles, just right for a Sunday run. It’s also on the route of the Rob Roy Way, a long-distance path from Drymen to Pitlochry.

I love planning routes, and I spend longer doing the planning than I will doing the actual run, so I bought the OS Explorer 365 and browsed loads of websites – the cycle route on the Callander site, the Rob Roy Way , and my favourite Undiscovered Scotland.

Running south from Killin gave us the most time between buses so we caught the 8am bus again and it arrived at Killin bang on time at 10:14.

The cycle path climbed out of Killin on a mixture of good forest track and tarmac, all very runnable, though clearly a steep climb on a bike. The track cuts off the corner to Glen Ogle so there’s very little traffic noise and it was really pleasant, not least because there was intermittent sunshine and a fresh breeze as the path got higher. There’s a burger van just where the path meets the A84 again which would be great for a cup of coffee if you were doing the run from south to north.

The path tracks along beside the road for only a very short stretch before it crosses over to join the old railway line through Gen Ogle. This bit is fairly typical improved railway path, very slow gradients and gritted surface and with the attraction of crossing the viaduct which is really visible from the main road. There was also an obvious path down in the valley but I suspect it would be a bit boggy and the railway made for very good running.

The path descends fairly steeply at Lochearnhead and we repeatedly passed a group of walkers as we stopped to try and take the best photo, but this is the best we came up with.

Despite all my planning and pouring over maps, I got a bit confused here because I thought the path actually went through Lochearnhead and the bits of OS map I had copied managed to avoid both Loch Earn and Lochearnhead, but the path was very well waymarked for NCN 7 and we continued on an undulating path through woodland to Balquhidder Station, with some tarmac and running close to the main road in some places. Just at the Kinghouse Hotel, the route was marked along road to Balquhidder but I was sure the path actually went west, behind the hotel and up through Queen Elizabeth Forest to Strathyre and I had managed to miss that bit in my random photocopying as well. In my defence, large two-sided maps are a bit unweildy on a small copier and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need them anyway because Sustrans are pretty good with signs, but the Rob Roy Way is largely unmarked, and a this point the two diverge. (There is a detailed description of all the waypoints available to buy for a nominal price from the Rob Roy Way site). Fortunately there was an information board at the car park that showed the forest track.

(Map Reproduced from Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland mapping with the permission of the Director and Chief Executive, © Crown Copyright.)

The path climbed south then north above the hotel then doubled back south again, passing the hotel for the third time and finally opened up to a view of Strathyre before descending to Strathyre village. We missed the path that went directly down to the village and overshot it, forcing an unpleasant walk along the verge beside the very busy main road, but it was otherwise a really good run.

We filled up our water in the village and crossed the river to follow the minor road then the old railway track down the west of Loch Luibnaig.

It was quite warm in the valley so it was a bit of a plod from there to Callander and we did get a rare photo of both of us where there was a convenient post at the right height for the self-timer.

I had originally wondered whether we might be able to fit in a side-trip to Ben Ledi or, less ambitiously a diversion to Loch Venachar but it was hot, our packs were heavy, the run had more climbing than I had anticipated and Callander had a baker’s with coffee and gingerbread.

So we lazed about in the sunshine until it was time for the bus at half past 5. We got home about 8pm , so it was 25 miles in 13 hours but far less tiring than the previous week and much nicer weather. While I’ve really enjoyed the runs these last two weekends, I think it’s back to the Pentlands next week – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a new route. I think the carpet may be covered in maps again this week.