Braveheart country

When last I signed on, I had just landed in New Lanark. I mentioned that this little berg was on the Clyde river. That is to say in the Clyde River Valley ie Clydesdale. But here's the thing. Nary a horse to be found. Honest, and I tried. I didn't go there because of the Clyde River or anything. I just wound up there because the Edinburgh hostels were full and the internet search said that New Lanark was their idea of the best alternative. I'm going with the flow on this trip so I book three nights here. Turned out to be two nights too long but them's the breaks. Anyway, back to the case of the missing Clydesdales. I looked through all the tourist brochures I could find and only one of them even had a picture of a draft horse. The tourist info center had a brochure from a long time ago and they treated it like an historic document. I was allowed to read, there in the info center but that was all. Turns out that Lanark, the town right next to New Lanark, was indeed the home of the breed of horse we know as the Clydesdale. However, since most of the folks in the area still need to make a living off the land and quaint and easy going as the countryside is, they do operate with modern machinery and keeping a few hayburners around for old times sake is evidently not cost effective. There are Clydesdale Horse Associations and such but looks like they're not here, at least not on any full time basis.

OK, so back to New Lanark. Operating mill town until the 1960s. One of the mill owners was one of the original human rights advocates-Robert Owens. Took kids under 10 out of the factory and put them in school. Set up night school for the workers. On site doctor. Paid medical leave. All kinds of good things. Folks in Harmony, Indiana will know of this guy. The whole place kinda died of course after the mill shut down and then went through a renaissance sort of. Now several of the buildings are exhibits/museums of what they used to be with the necessary touristy bits added in. The rebirth is still ongoing. I think the main water wheel is being reproduced in the middle of the town. I did the whole town tour-Mill, village store, workers housing, owners housing, new roof top garden, tour of The Institure for Building Character. Then I walked through the wild life preserve that surrounds a good part of the town. The walk follows the river upstream passed three sets of pretty cool water falls that were the main power supply for the mill and town. Lots of birds whose species I don't know and supposedly I was never more than 200 yards from a badger (according to the pamphlet).

The town tour and the hike took almost the whole day, including a picnic lunch. I still had two days to kill. That's when I made the Clydesdale connection but that search as we now know proved horseless. I think the town is missing out but not getting all over this Clydesdale thing but maybe that's just the tourist in me. Of course, they're also missing out on another tourist attracton opportunity though waay less benevolent. Lanark has a connection to the William Wallace story. Wallace sort of killed the sheriff of Lanark (part of the revenge for the murder of his family, I think-hey if you want all the facts look it up! I'm here for the scenery) but there's nothing about that anywhere in Lanark. I know. I spent the day there. I wanted to go to the library but it was closed. The historical museum may have had something about Wallace but I wouldn't know because they were closed, too.

So that was pretty much my time in Lanark/New Lanark. I just wandered around looking at this funky little mill town for too many days.

On Thursday, I took the train to bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Yes, really, the loch from the song about high roads and low roads. The hostel is in the town of Balloch and is a 32 minute walk from the lake. I know cuz the bus only runs every 2 hours between the two and I never got my time right to catch it in either direction for the three days I've been here. There are several different paths to take and some go through a pretty little wooded area and skirt the loch now and again, so it's a pleasant time especially since I've been have some extraordinarily nice weather for Scotland for this time of year.

I visited my first Scottish castle here at Balloch. . .gotta go. I'm out of time