Orion M.C.

Huh, well I guess I am allowed postings again without anybody suggesting that I am mean at heart and only wrote postings from faraway hills in order to make you guys jealous....

So my first acclimatisation weekend in Scotland was spend discovering nearby places I have (surprisingly) never been before:
- mountainbiking in Mugdock Country Park on Saturday afternoon. Cold but fabulous sunshine and great views over Glasgow in the evening sun. Unfortunately we did not have the right tyres and had to stick to the main trails rather than the more challenging looking little ones. Good fun anyway. Need to buy a proper mountainbike as soon as I have work again and looking forward to getting into a new sport.

Sunday afternoon I walked up Conic Hill. Unfortunately we missed the morning sunshine and walked under a grey sky with fierce winds and treated us to Tea and scones 'Martine style' afterwards. Not sure whether we had actually used up enough calories to justify that, but good to see a glimpse of the Scottish hills again anyway.

Aye, Mugdock and the surrounding area is a fab place. There are hundreds of little known trails through the woods and across the moors, where you can get away from the crowds who tend to stay on the main tracks around the visitors centre and the two castles, Craigend and Mugdock.

Having always lived 5mins drive and not mich more by bike from the area, I have been going up there since I was a kid...long before it was a country park. Rhona and Ewan love it up there as well, especially when they get a hot dog at the cafe after we have dragged them along for a big walk

Hey Silke - how was the trip? What about a slide show? Usually good fun, lots of heckling and the like. Haven't been to one since Corncircles was about.

Slides, maybe one day... will have to be quite a substantial screening and reduction exercise as I am sure nobody wants to look at 2000 or more pics...once I have reduced them to any sensible amount I will give anybody interested a shout.

Silke,

There are some great trails of the north side of Mugdock, which isn't actually in the park itself, and further to the northwest which all link into the west highland way. This is great singletrack stuff but you will need to have decent mud tyres for that stuff. You can either park your car at Mugdock itself or Milngavie for those routes.

I took Gordy and Adam on a couple of runs there so ask them what it's like.

Some of the routes also give you a great view down to Loch / Ben Lomond and further afield....... not just over spam valley!

You can also do loads of loop variations from Mugdock alone including taking in Lennox Forest to the east.

Have fun!

Fraser

Yes I ... errr .... often walk the dog there. Oooops! Hope that didn't sound too 'domestic'.

...and I take the kids up there:lol:

And those bloomin' mtb'ers are a hazard to us poor pedestrians