Across the Central Lowlands

Following the Watershed across Central Scotland has proved to be more hilly, wild and remote than I expected. Of course there have been roads, railways, farms,industry, and even one town but overall developments are usually some distance away. Wild camping wasn't a problem and I was always hidden from roads and houses. The Watershed twists and turns, touching the south-east corner of the Pentland Hills and doubling back on itself twice in the Campsie Fells. Only around Cumbernauld, the only town on the Watershed, did it feel like I was really in the Lowlands. My main memories though are of the wildlife and the flowers and trees - a roe deer grazing in a forest glade, a badger foraging in an overgrown field, a wonderful dawn chorus, the wild whistle of curlews over rough pastures, fields of yellow buttercups, hills white with cotton grass, lanes lined with hawthorn blossom, the young trees of the new Central Scotland Forest. Nature is thriving in the Central Lowlands. But now it's into the Highlands with Ben Lomond the first Munro on the walk.