Falls of Clyde 26 October

Allan, Davie C, Davie Mc, Dougie, Gus, Hugh, Ian, Jimmy, Kenny R, Malcolm, Paul, Robert

We travelled to Kirkfieldbank through heavy rain and flooded roads in the hope that the forecast would be correct and that the rain would go off about ten o’clock. And sure enough, it did, with blue skies appearing.

Derval Davie suggested doing the walk in the opposite direction as the south side would be extremely muddy and better to get it out of the road first. The second option, which won the day, was simply to walk in our normal direction up through New Lanark and continue up to the dam and then retrace our steps back to the cars.

All didn’t go to plan though, as we had only walked for about five minutes when we saw the grass path ahead of us absolutely flooded as far as the eye could see. There was no option but to turn back and consider Plan C, which was to drive up to the car park at New Lanark and re-assess when we got there. It was a lovely autumn morning by this stage, and once the parking meters had been mastered, not an easy task, we set off at half past ten. We decided not to stop for a coffee at the café but continue up the path whilst the weather was with us.

Given the amount of rain that had fallen it was no surprise that the water was roaring down the falls and, with the sunshine, the colours were excellent. Underfoot was better than we had expected with only a few large puddles to negotiate and before long we made the dam, or is it a weir?, which we crossed, and then walked down to the viewpoint on the opposite bank where we took an early lunch at about half past eleven, watching the water cascading over the falls accompanied by tumultuous sound.

Retracing our steps, we got back to the cars at twenty to one having covered about four miles. Given the weather earlier on, we had got in a decent walk in unexpectedly good conditions.

FRT was taken at the Black Bull in Darvel where the barmaid confessed that she had missed us as it had been a while since we had been there. A really good day out!