Adventuring

I feel an inner confidence growing. I am still prone to panic and must remain vigilant but where I would not even consider crossing the line I am now doing it without contemplating it long enough to talk myself out of it. And also what I am finding is that if I can do it successfully then I have a  need to keep pushing and do more. Take for example the last post where I didn't think I would get to Livingston but I did. That should have been enough. That and then home but instead i lingered and I lingered and then off to another place and in all visited 3 homes and lots of places and waited for a chippy and did a lot of walking about.

Each step forward brings confidence and appetite for more. I do also have to say its not all 100% positive. Fatigue is still a big factor bothering me, slowing me. Achievements make me rise above the fatigue. I push through it but its only a temporary thing. At some point I must rest and that is when it all comes crashing in heavy. I feel it. And I go out and I feel it and I think to myself I cannot go on and I don't want to go on and I don't want to push again. Then I push again and rise about it and push right through it and later I sit down and get agitated by another crashing wave of fatigue. Its OK though. What I need to do is manage it better. That is where I am going wrong. I burn myself out basically and then spend days in forced rest worried that all my progress is ebbing away. Just needs better management.

Today I took the kids to school as I had been doing and came back the long way. Half an hour. A mile and a half. I got back home feeling tired. It feels like a long walk. Felt like I should be slowing down. Something though was preying on my mind. There is a route I had been wanting to do for a long time. It involved walking through woodland to a viaduct and cutting through a large field and then back via an industrial estate. The big problem was that I had never managed firstly to walk to the end of the industrial estate and nor had I ever managed to walk to the viaduct through the woodlands. I could therefore not manage either way and even if I could do both I would then have a large field to contend with. It turned out not to be the case and I had to abandon any thought of doing it. This route was once part of he Clyde walkway. Its easier if I post the map from the council website found here:

The Bothwell Viaduct is at point 23 (It can also be seen in the distance in the to photograph). As you can see there are two routes provided. One routes goes to the viaduct and the other doesn't. Both routes connect and basically make up the round trip I had planned but that alternative route is there for a reason. From the leaflet outlining this part of the walk:

"All that now remains of the viaduct, a further casualty of the 1960s railway closures, are massive stone piers that straddle the Clyde bear Craighead. At this point the route again becomes very informal. Negotiate the steep embankment and cross the field at the foot of the slope, head uphill to joint the estate road to the now demolished Craighead House. Please Note: Athough the development of the Craighead site will include the creation of a purpose built Clyde Walkway from Craighead Viaduct to Bothwell Lido at the time of going to press (March 09) due to current economic circumstances it is uncertain as to when this will be competed. In the meanntime the site may be difficult to cross."

So the round trip is out of the question and just to make sure it was not all a fabrication I walked the alternative route last night. What I found was that it was not just difficult to cross but impossible. Its 6 years since that was written and now the fileld is fenced off in all directions so crossing is impossible. Ah welll. But I had done the alternative route. As I sat after the school run feeling shattered my mind was telling me I had to do the original path. If nothing else at least to see the viaduct. I was getting restless. Its the last day of school today for a 2 week Easter break and I knew it had to be done today. During the holidays the woods become the haunt of others and I prefer not to do it then on my own.

I should say I had tried walking this route a few times. Distance was not the problem. I had only ever managed about halfway through the woods. There are three reasons for this. Its not much of a path which is basically just thick mud. Its not flat either. In fact one part is lie a skate park half pipe, a basin. The other factor is its not a path many people use unlike the rest of the walk. Going further in on my own does creep me out a bit. I remember a couple of years back my wife tried going down and I had to wait and she came back saying she got so far and came across a tent so doubled back. Alone down there would be pretty creepy. If I ever got there.

But of course I got there. It was not easy but I got there. It most certainly was not easy. There has been a lot of rain so the ground was like a bog and I nearly slipped several times. Going up steep inclines is bad enough but with no grip was a nightmare. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and then push on. Finally though I got there. I kept thinking about heading back as every time I turned a corner it just seemed to go on and  I was growing more and more anxious.

I was a bit disappointed if I am honest. From the map and even from the lead image at the top I presumed if I ever got the viaduct I would arrive at the water's edge and be looking up. I was in fact level with the top of the pillars and even though visibility in woodland is good at this time of year it was very difficult to get a clear shot as illustrated above. So a disappointment. No need to go return any time soon. I looked down on the field and it was indeed fenced all the way around so no way through and even if there was then I would guess its fenced off for a reason so no need to go out and find out why.

It did though creep me out. I was by all acounts alone in the woods and it was eerily silent. Then a bird flew out from a bush out of the blue and my knees about buckled. It felt uneasy. If I am honest I was glad to leave and it was an anxious retreat as the path just seemed to be swallowed up at every turn and civilisation looked a long way off. I kept going though just glad that I was starting to get back to more familiar ground and would soon be home. And that was the intention until I spotted the following.

I say that like its something knew. Its not. I have posted photos of those two bridges many times. But having reached one place I had been wishing to go for a long time I suddenly felt compelled to add a second. That silver bridge that leads to the fish ladder. I now felt compelled to get down to it somehow. Again, I got there.

It involved going down a steep slope. Again footing was not great so I nearly went my length  few times. It was nothing though compared to getting back up. It was bad enough trying to get up with very little grip but I also have a sore coccyx at the moment and did not realise how much more painful it would be climbing up as opposed to trudging down. I had no choice once I was down there and it was bloody sore. Mind you the one thing that helped me up was the stench. It is totally stinking down there. The water is rancid and enough to make you green. I got down to the gates which to my surprise were open but there was another gate beyond which looked locked. I didn't want to go any further. I have no idea how safe it is as I don't think its used anymore.

So all that done I should have stopped there but I did not. I went another path I had been before but this time decided to follow it to its conclusion. There was a time I would have stopped and just called it a day but I was determined to keep going. Every journey I do I always plan. This last one was different as I had no idea where the path led to and even when I got the end I no wiser. Its something I would never have done in the past but I was so determined to keep pushing I followed it on. I found myself in an open field. There were factories in the background. Not sure which ones. I will find out later. For now it doesn't matter. I am just glad I kept pushing. More confidence gather as I stretch out toward normality. No idea where I was yet I felt calm. Calm enough to just sit down and rest for a few minutes before heading back home. A little portal maybe. A little portal to normality.