Walking Lands End to John O'Groats 2025 for Alzheimer's Society

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...

I was delighted to meet a colleague, Paul Dodd, at Aran cafe for a catch up over coffee, and for me, breakfast, at 8am. I was meeting David Philp at Falkirk Wheel later in the day to walk onto Bonnybridge and he had alerted me that Paul actually lived in Linlithgow and it was good luck that Paul was able to fit in a coffee before heading off to Perth for the day. When he left I spent some time exploring Linlithgow Palace where Mary, Queen of Scots, was born. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until 9:30 and I needed to head off so resolved to return and spend more time in this beautiful town at some point. I headed off back onto the Union Canal, via Subway to pick up some lunch - a new experience for me! The heavy rain had gone through during the night, and I only had light rain for a short time 3 or 4 times during the day - to the extent that when it rained mid afternoon I didn’t bother putting my waterproof jacket on.  I found the canal walk today more interesting than yesterday - the...

Having been indulged at Abi and David’s with a first rate breakfast and packed lunch, Abi drove me back to my end point at Mid Calder and I set off at 9:20. I was pleasantly surprised again by the Almondel Country Park; a substantial river and my curiosity piqued by a feeder canal which was channelled away from the river just before the impressive Camp viaduct - largely constructed to support the oil shale industry of the 19th century. Walking through largely pastoral country I reached the jaw-dropping Lin’s Mill aqueduct at 10:45. Its dizzying height above the river is enhanced by the waterfall spilling out and down from the canal - apparently this had frozen one winter and taken 2 months to thaw. I started to walk on the upstream side of the aqueduct finding that I actually had to be on the other side, going down and under the arches to come up the other side. Here I met Patrick - having spotted that I was walking LEJOG he wanted to tell me that he had cycled the Alps for Alzheimer’s...

I woke at 6:40 so got up and prepared breakfast and got ready. I left at 8:10am.   There was a steep climb out of the village and then a more gradual track joined Agricola’s Roman Road and open country which I reached at 8:30. This brought me to Siller Holes, where Mary of Guise, Regent of Scotland from 1554 to1560, and mother of Mary Queen of Scots, was reputed to have paid her army with silver from here. There were gorgeous views back to the Southern Uplands over the meanders of Lyne Water as I passed below Faw Mount. Three mistle thrush landed on fence posts and flew off abruptly when they saw me and then linnets. There were lots of small brown butterflies with orange upper wings - I’d have to check later. The grassy path was magnificent with wide open views - just my sort of country and excellent gradient gaining height steadily. A path diversion to take it away from the Baddingsgill House. A hare came running out from the stone wall before me, took a good look at me and r...