ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.
A view of Bowling Harbour. For me personally I made the mistake of going to Bowling on a sunny Saturday in March 2025. I arrived just after 10:00am and it was already busy down here. Normally, on previous visits, by bike or car or on foot, solo or with a friend you do get folk visiting here but not in great numbers, maybe 30 or so at most. On this occasion it felt like hundreds of people. In a town or city centre, not a problem for me, as it's expected, but here, for me personally, it just felt wrong. It is a beauty spot with good walks/cycles in both directions but on all other visits it did not feel crowded... and now it did. Even as a child with my parents visiting Clyde coastal beaches like Ayr, Troon, or Largs I never liked sitting on crowded sands with loads of other families a mere ten feet away in all directions. An inevitable occurrence when most families then took two weeks off work for the Glasgow/ Paisley/ Clydebank fair fortnight in July/ August. Even though each city/ town had a different two weeks, crowded resorts were still the norm in the 1960s when I was growing up. Very good for shops and businesses but not for me. This reminded me of that.
I was lucky enough to get a parking place in one of the last spaces in the overflow car park but I was already starting to wonder if coming here was a good idea. It is beautiful here but I prefer it quieter. I only spent a couple of hours walking here but it was enough. In that time well over 100 cyclists had passed me and at least 100 pedestrians and try as I might I just couldn't escape them.
Normally when I come here it's very easy to escape people but not on this occasion. No matter if I took the back trails away from the main canal tow path or went down to the beach at the river bank, people kept appearing and popping up. ( I deliberately avoided taking photos with folk in them so these photos only appear to look deserted. It was not.)
There's been a lot of over tourism reports recently of holiday hotspots but as I don't frequent most holiday hotspots I'm largely shielded from it on walks outdoors. I have noticed a big rise in people going outdoors more since covid but I naively thought it would be OK here when it was still March but apparently tourism in Scotland is a year round event now.
There's plenty to see and photograph here and I'm as guilty as anyone for posting about where I go but for the first time I was really questioning if it was a wise move.... for my own future benefit. On previous posts here I was usually marvelling at how easy it was to escape into the woods and meadows on foot or bike, escape any crowds and be surrounded by wild nature. That such a place still existed so close to major urban areas of population. Not any more I'm not.
A moorhen. Maybe it still is that way midweek or on poor weather days but I mainly felt sorry for the wildlife on this occasion, getting ready for crucial spring breeding after being hit with bird flu the last few years.
A male mallard duck.
Pochard ducks.
Someone had made an effort to tidy up all the rubbish in one small area that some humans always leave behind them ... but then left it there, presumably having no bags with them to put it in. Note the number of black dog s**t bags. Every walk now is littered with them. People go to the bother of picking up dog poop into a bag then instead of taking it to a bin they leave it dangling from a hedge, fence, bush, tree, often at children's head height, all along every path. Why? One of the modern mysteries of life.
The River Clyde down at the beach with the Erskine Bridge in view.
Kilpatrick Hills above Bowling.
Trying to escape the crowds worked out well as I wandered down to the river in time to see this large ship travelling up the Clyde to the inland docks, either at Clydebank or Glasgow. Atlantic Wind it was called.
Accompanied by the usual two tugs. Anglegarth , above.... guiding/steering from behind.
And the CMS Wrestler out in front.
The deep water channel markers for ships entering the River Clyde.
Some nice reflection shots. I couldn't help remembering the last time I took similar shots though in a previous year (autumn) when I was so inspired on that quiet walk by the serene beauty of it all that I became fairly poetic and borrowed the famous image of Ophelia by the artist Millais as an imaginary companion, floating down the canal beside me. No chance of that happening today. What a difference in experience between two posts of the same place.
Despite being a glorious day I turned back and headed for the car.
Once back at the car, and still only early afternoon, around 1:30pm I headed for Dumbarton Castle then Dumbarton itself but the roads were so busy with traffic by this point I doubted I get parked anywhere... and so it proved. I was also seriously worried about denting my car and almost did as it was mayhem out there. To be honest I was very glad to get home. No stress, no potholes to avoid... no big bills to pay from a simple day out.
My next post will be of a walk I did enjoy. A quiet rural gem... which brings a dilemma with it. How do you post a secret.... and keep it safe....?
6 comments:
I suppose because they’ve made a lot of improvements there it attracts more people. My last visit was a very cold November day a couple of years ago and even then it was quite busy.
Funnily enough Anabel they had two folk with official jackets on at the new elevated cycle track asking for folks opinion. On the way In I never said anything but on the way back, after seeing all the back trails widened by foot and bike traffic, the woods visibly denuded by an increase in people walking through them and several other issues I did offer my opinion. "you need much bigger car parks, here and at Dumbarton Castle. Get rid of all these trees and just concrete the lot. Skate parks. Maybe build some new hotels and completely remodel the waterfront. Night clubs, casinos etc.... Charge for entry to visit. Each car £10 on arrival. " Although tongue in cheek/ sarcastic I was probably just predicting the future somewhere down the line for this location. Thankfully/ hopefully, I'll be dead and gone by then.
Always like that in good weather on a weekend - just about anywhere now I think - like you say, since the lockdowns. Sounds just like our previously quiet Northern Fells which were only walked by locals - now there are hundreds of walkers in every direction and so-called mountain bikers ripping up the hillsides and ridges :-( I'm as sick of it as you are - I love solitude anyway and it used to be solitary up there.
As to the doggy-doo bags, I think it would be better if they didn't bag it in the first place if they're not going to remove it as it is far worse for the environment and wildlife to have plastic everywhere around them.
Yes, seems to be that way Carol. Arrive very early or scant chance of a parking space at weekends... or go by the longer bus or train. I would take the train more often if it wasn't a 20 minute walk to the nearest station... and a boring walk at that having done it for years in the past for work. Bob. BSS.
It looks a lovely area and you did manage to take some photos without any crowds visible.
More people travel to beauty spots than they did previously and this is probably due to programmes seen on the TV. I think of the programme which featured the remotest Highlands in the programme Britain's Most Beautiful Road which has gone from being a peaceful haven made by very few people to a rat race, and a place which doesn't have the necessary facilities to accommodate so many visitors.
Hi Rosemary, Probably because it was March and I've always had Bowling mostly to myself for the past 20 years I was amazed how busy it was but with the internet every place is the same now. Even the former secret places that few people visited are more frequented. I did find a quiet area on my next walk but I'll need to post that one very carefully as I want to keep it the same way it is now. Luckily I did the Scottish Highlands, Cornwall, Devon, The Cotswolds, The Home Counties, The 500 and loads of other places decades ago, pre internet. when they were quiet.
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