2009-Jul-15 by Gregory Williams.

My journey continued through the superbly picturesque Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park today. First of all I passed through Balquidder, where I discovered an as-yet incomplete link of NCR7 that appears to use the old railway here back southward.

The route follows the railway northward for a short, leaves it, then rejoins it further up after a series of hairpins to climb the steep valley side. There were five Sustrans mileposts along this stretch of cycle route up to Killin and I’ve photographed and logged the positions of them all.

The cycle route arrives at Killin practically opposite the attractive Falls of Dochart. I took a short break in Killin for a snack before continuing my journey.

NCR7 leaves Killin eastward via a quiet road on the south side of Loch Tay. I’d covered a few miles of this and then experienced my first puncture of this journey. Given that I’d cycled over 1450 miles by this point I’m very pleased that my Marathon Plus tyres are doing their job well. I started to repair this in the rain and the midges decided to start their attack, so out came my repellant. During the repair some hikers came along and chatted to me. They’re walking the Rob Roy Way, which, by their description, seems to roughly follow the route that I’m cycling.

Luckily tonight I’ve got WiFi Internet access again after it being unavailable for several days. So I’ve managed to catch up in posting my blog entries for the last few days and will commit my pending offline map edits shortly.

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2009-Jul-15 by Gregory Williams.

Heavy rain started the day, so I donned my waterproof jacket and trousers. I soon took off my waterproof trousers though because I was getting too warm climbing whilst wearing them.

The inital part of my journey took me through Queen Elizabeth Forest Park. Despite the rain I stopped many times to photograph the trees, streams, waterfalls, and views. I continued to take more photographs when I reached the lochs and the weather slowly brightened.

At Callander I went in search of National Cycle Route 76 as it’s marked on my OS map. I found a cycle route in the right place, but it’s not signed with the route number anywhere along the section that I covered, so I’ll enter it as just a normal cycleway when it comes to entering that data.

In the early afternoon I was a little frustrated with my camera again. It had become a bit wet again and was misting up, so I wasn’t able to get clear shots for a little while. It eventually cleared though and I got some great pictures passing Loch Lubnaig on my approach to Strathyre.

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2009-Jul-15 by Gregory Williams.

Today’s cycling was a little over 70 miles. I started out on the A72 which got me to the outskirts of the greater Glasgow area. I then followed a road closed for resurfacing (a great advantage for cyclists is that you can often become a pedestrian to weave through these works if necessary), and met up with National Cycle Route 75, which more or less followed the Clyde.

Several miles along the Clyde I needed to make a small diversion from the cycle route simply because it no longer exists! The M74 is being extended across the cycle route’s path, so the path itself is temporarily severed, but you can skirt around the edge of the works.

A few miles further on the path was closed completely without any signed diversion, quite typical in Britain. I’d just started to figure out a way around when along came another cyclist and he led me to the other side of the closure, which he guessed was due to construction work for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games to be held in Glasgow. The help around the closure was very helpful, thanks!

On the opposite bank of the Clyde to the BBC Scotland building NCR75 connected with NCR7. I then followed NCR7 for the rest of my journey. I’ll be following it for several days now.

I stopped for a few minutes rest at Old Kilpatrick, on the western edge of the greater Glasgow area. Whilst I’d stopped the rain started to come down quite heavily. Luckily I’d stopped under some trees, so I kept mainly dry. After many minutes it became clear that this was more than a quick shower, so I donned my waterproofs and got cycling again. Afterall I still have about 30 miles still to cover.

A little further on at Dumbarton NCR7 heads northward following the river Leven, almost reaching the edge of Loch Lomond. It then heads across country and slowly upwards using quiet roads and a couple of stretches of former railway line. It passes along the edge of the Loch Ard Forest, soon after reaching Aberfoyle at the edge of the Trossachs and the place of my overnight stay.

Tomorrow will start off with a climb of more than a couple of hundred metres over the course of only a few miles through the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park then I’ll be following the edge of Loch Venachar towards Callander. I’ll then be following Loch Luhnaig to my stop at Strathyre, dwarfed all of the time by the peaks above me.

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2009-Jul-15 by Gregory Williams.

I continued along National Cycle Route 74 today for much of the journey. It gently climbed over the course of many miles. This time the road was extremely quiet, perhaps because it was early in the morning and a weekend, so it was more fun. There were also long stretches that used a former carriageway of the former A74 as a cycleway. The separation from the traffic made it even better.

I arrived in Lanark much earlier than planned, so visited the picturesque village of New Lanark, a world heritage site, followed by walking along to the Falls of Clyde.

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