My planned half rest day got of to a good start with a lay in until 7.30 then a good fry up at the Yha, breakfast was shared with a group of cyclists heading to John O'groats aiming to raise money for the air ambulance service,a nice friendly bunch :-)
Having packed my pack before breakfast and with the sun shining the lure of using today to catch up with lost time was to great, so somewhat sensibly I wandered slowly off through Stirling old town admiring the architecture... A truly grand town!
Following my nose out of town and I'm in gently undulating farm land, with a far from gentle history, this is Bannockburn the site of a great Scottish victory against the English, though now from my position as I wandered through it was impossible to tell if I'd not already known.
A slight rise took me into Cowie for lunch a massive portion of chicken and chips, Lovely! That's three good meals in a row now, I'm in danger of gaining some weight here!
Loaded up with provisions and out of town on a cycle track that eventually passes a castellated tower attached to more recent though ancient house.A few turns in the road and under the M9 and over the M876 and I find myself getting lost in a new housing development at Larbert, as always I only ever get lost in towns! Still a friendly bloke with his springer spaniel pointed me in the right direction before I'd gone to far wrong.
Now earlier in the day I'd received a message from radio Northampton who wanted to an update on the walk certainly with regards to Alfie having retired from the trek.. Nice to see they are reading the blog!. We had arranged a time to do the interview (2.10pm) and this coincided with me walking in Larberts suburbs so there I was sitting on someone's wall doing a radio interview as people walked past giving me weird looks! Odd!
Normality resumed and I'm wandering through the town, over the railway line that I'd travelled coming back from taking Alfie home. Feels a long time ago now!.
A few twists in the road bring me a sight I've wanted to see since the early days of planning my lejog in 2009, The Falkirk Wheel! What piece of engineering, transferring barges from one canal to another and using no more than 3kw (a domestic kettles equivalent) of electricity to achieve it! Pic
After a coffee break here I'm off and into Howierig woods to pitch the tent. This puts me just the kilometers behind where I wanted to be yesterday, this catch up plan seems to working I just have to keep the engines stoked!
