Tuesday 3 September 2024

The Drumchapel Way

                                                  ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.


Hooray, I'm back thanks to tech wiz Alex. Still a good friend. More tech skilled than me anyway. Had to switch over to google chrome and take 3rd party cookies off rather than using Firefox. ( which I'll switch back to using for everything else. ) Might not work in the long term but I'm back for now. What a ********* faff!.... when it worked fine before. So this post will be quick... not much text. Bus no 3 to Drumchapel shopping centre where I got off. A path leads from there to the two high rise flats and this tarmac path skirts right, between and underneath them and above football pitches then past a playground.


This is the Drumchapel way and is on good, easy to follow paths all the way round. Basically a circular walk right round this vast estate. It's fairly scenic, especially in July, when I did it with a range of wild flowers. If you find yourself going into any of the Drumchapel housing estates retrace your steps as the route only follows a green ribbon of meadows and woods all the way round on a tarmac path.


It then runs beside the Garscadden Burn between Southdeen Avenue, seen here, and Glenkirk Drive.


I then go off route slightly to include Colquhorn Park in Bearsden. Using this handy gap in the fence to enter.

And the pond there.


Then walk along Station Road back into Drumchapel's edge to pick up the path again here at the electricity sub station. Leave Station Road at this point as the path is on the left next to this railing.


The path then runs up through Garscadden Woods to come out near the white water tower at the top of Drumchapel and from there back round to the Shopping Centre again. A good walk of around three hours. Quite a lonely walk for single females and I've certainly not seen many on it, being a wilderness area yet surrounded by urban estates. I always turn around often on walks like this just to see if anyone is following me or approaching me. A lifelong habit as I grew up in a similar large estate.


This is a shortened post just to see if it works. 70 years since Drumchapel was constructed apparently and I've visited it numerous times in every decade since the 1970s onwards. Always an exciting place to be and always changing.


Always like this mural. It makes me laugh. Probably the eyes.


Driving range and five a side football pitches. Drumchapel Way.


They've knocked down part of the 1950s /1960s style Drumchapel shopping centre yet left this. This is a type of 1960s sculpture/ art I never understand. What's it meant to be?


400 feet high it looms over Drumchapel, dwarfing the surrounding tenements and high rise blocks with its vast austere bulk. ( PS ...this last statement is a Republican party 'alternative fact.'


 

9 comments:

Anabel Marsh said...

Woohoo! Glad you found a fix. We did the Drumchapel way once, just before lockdown I think. I was surprised to see deer.

Anonymous said...

Yes Anabel so am I as the thought of going walks without posting the best ones afterwards was a real motivation killer. Shows you how conditioned/ addicted everyone is to the internet now, even though we have both experienced several decades before it arrived. Admittedly I very rarely get bored now with TV, books, films, and the internet to keep me entertained. Main reason I don't go out everyday is that after 50 years of outings I'd soon run out of walks that get me motivated due to repetition as I like to enjoy walking rather than just for the exercise. You often get roe deer, buzzards, kestrels, and foxes in Drumchapel, even in the middle of the scheme itself as there's loads of half empty districts now where housing used to be. Bob. BSS.

Carol said...

Are you sure that metallic-looking 400 foot high thing is a sculpture? It looked like some kind of infrastructure in the photo (although no idea what).

When you said about retracing your steps if you strayed into the estates, I thought you meant 'cos they were dangerous - but it was just you'd be off route then...

Glad you're back on. It's often a good idea when you have a problem to try another browser (I use Chrome and AVG browser). At first, I thought you'd fixed your problem with my 'copy a previous post' suggestion. But well done to Alex anyway (tell him hi from me).

blueskyscotland said...

Hi Carol, It is a sculpture but it's only ten feet tall. Trying to understand America dismissing science and fact for fantasy I watched a programme about right wing anti feminist women on TV tonight with large numbers preferring to be completely subservient to males, being happy with men deciding what they do and making every decision for them, and their bodies, Andrew Tate style, and going back to being a trad wife. I.e. men rule the roost. Smart phones, social media and religion have really altered that country profoundly in the last 15 years and they are usually about 15 years ahead of us. Minus the religion bit for the UK.
I swapped to chrome and reset everything.

Carol said...

So... you reckon in around 15 years, some guy's gonna come along and try to dictate to me and boss me around? I'd like to see one try - it would be amusing (for me anyway).

Did you give Barnacle Bill a listen - there are quite a few versions - ours was the filthiest/rudest (and the funniest). Some of the old versions online are quite tame... I taught my mother the really rude version we used to sing - she did find it funny I have to say, even though she'd never use language like that.

blueskyscotland said...

Only if you love your bible and obey it's message. Just listened to BB the naughty version. I usually prefer more subtle stuff mind you and more interesting, creative, word play than straight down the middle lyrics like that one has. I've been spoiled by Ode to Billie Joe and the Bewlay Brothers. Two complex and skillfully ambiguous classics of music.

Carol said...

David Bowie's Bewlay Brothers? One of my favourites out of all his stuff. Never figured the lyrics out though - totally weird.

blueskyscotland said...

Mostly about his half brother Terry and maybe even The Krays as he hung around Soho a lot in the 1960s which made a big impression on him, being young. Terry was older I think and showed him around all the places he frequented. My favourite as well. Mick Ronson and the rest of the band are owed a great deal of credit for the arrangements and sounds of those early LP's up to and including Diamond Dogs. I don't think he would have been anything like as successful an artist without their considerable input and producer Tony Visconti as I was listening to the later LPs recently and apart from a few highlights like Heroes it's not commercial. Very few catchy tunes and if he wasn't already famous worldwide by that point sales would have been poor... like most other experimental bands. And nothing in them to match The Bewlay Brothers, Life on Mars, Quicksand, etc....

Carol said...

I liked the Ziggy Stardust era and album best and that was also my favourite Bowie look. I definitely think Mick Ronson and the others made his music really special - of course, Mick was a Yorkshireman! :-) - I even called our cat Ziggy. But there are some superb tracks on Aladdin Sane and The Man Who Sold The World (which I thought was the heaviest) too.