I left Bonnybridge at 9:30 after breakfast at Retro Cafe which had opened at 9. It was a beautiful fresh morning with a lively westerly wind which made walking into it quite a challenge at times, the forecast saying it would gust 46 miles per hour, which I could well believe. This made me smile - part of the tradition of walking south to north is to have the prevailing Southwesterlies behind you - almost without exception I’ve had easterlies or northerlies to walk across or into - only now when I’ve turned west for awhile has a westerly kicked in! The path took me under the M80 at 10:30. With a number of locks and flag iris and lilies starting to flower, I found this a prettier and more interesting stretch of the canal to walk. It was wide too which I wondered might explain the presence of the lilies. Of birdlife there was little; I think the wind was keeping them down but I saw lots of mallard and their chicks, a few swans and swallows and above the wind, I occasionally heard the...