The Gyp

Dawsholm Park Gyp

Took a trip to this large expanse of green stuff in the north west of Glasgow today. Also gave me a chance to use the relatively new suburban railway from Queen Street, through some of the less fashionable bits of north Glasgow.

I caught the train at Glasgow Queen Street and got off at Kelvindale station, one stop short of the line end at Anniesland and made my way towards Dawsholm park.

The park itself is a little ill defined. Not on a par with Queens Park or Kelvingrove, both of which have a compactness and Victorian grandeur to them. It is literally as I describe it in my first sentence. It has the feel of a scaled down country park. The river Kelvin and the Kelvin walkway pass through it briefly and I made the mistake of following the river only to find myself out on a main road and briefly wandering about in a science park of all things. I made my way along a forest footpath back to where i'd started before finding the park proper. At this point I encountered about the thirtieth dog walker of the day. The look I was given by this rather fine labrador as I snapped it having a quick swim in the river was first class. By this time it was a little late and I was in need of feeding and watering, so a quick saunter through a rather nice tree lined avenue led me to a fantastic viewpoint looking out over the Kilpatrick Hills to the north west and the Glasgow suburbs of Bearsden, Knightswood, Drumchapel, Kelvindale and Anniesland.

On making my way back to the station I encountered another labrador, an over friendly one at that. The owner was almost annoyingly apologetic about it. God!, it's a lovely big Labby and it want's to say hello to me. Let it.

Got the train to Anniesland where the line terminates and took the chance to get some food at the local Wetherspoons(yes, I know.........) and some new batteries for my camera. The North Glasgow Loop as i've dubbed it isn't actually complete. The line I took to the park is unelectrified and ends in a small inshot at Anniesland station. From there one merely waits for an electric train to take you back to the low level station at Queen Street.

Suburban railways are generally used for commuter traffic, but if you want to get to some of Glasgow's harder to reach attractions with as little pain and hassle as possible, they kick the arse off the buses. Nicer staff as well.

posted by iLL Man @ 12:26 am