Walking Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. Ronald Turnbull
that shows that we are as yet still in the Scottish Lowlands.
The Falls of Leny
The trees rise on either side as the dirt road passes through the slight col behind Bochastle Hill, but it then emerges into clear-felled ground. In 500 metres, as the road bends left, a cutting exposes the grey schist of the Highlands. The track re-enters trees, and in another 800 metres a path descends from the left, and plunges into the trees down on the right – both branches being waymarked with blue posts. The downhill path could be used to shorten the walk. This path is used by Route 8 descending Ben Ledi's south ridge.
Keep ahead on the track, which crosses a stream and then forks. The lower fork ahead could be taken, but the left branch, doubling back uphill, is more interesting. It soon bends back to the right, and then descends gently through cleared ground.
When you see a well-built path forking up left, look for the descending path, on the right, just before it. Both are waymarked in red. This red-waymarked path is Route 8, heading up to Stank Glen and Ben Ledi. The path is rough and quite steep, above the gorge of Stank Burn. It meets a corner of the lower forest road, but continues ahead downhill above the stream. Finally it emerges onto a lower bend of the forest road.
Head down the forest road until it levels, then take a short path on the left to join a tarred track (the Route 7 cycle path). Follow it ahead, with the wide Garbh Uisge river on your left, for 1.2km, to a crossroads with a bridge on your left. Here the short-cut path arrives from above, out of the trees.
Don't cross the bridge, but take the Route 7 cyclepath on downstream past car parks onto a wide, firm bike path. After 1km it passes the pier of a railway bridge that once crossed the river, and the path is now wider and smoother, being on the old railbed. Just after this, at a stone table, a rough path leads down left to follow the riverbank for views of the Falls of Leny. (The railinged walkway opposite might offer better views, from a convenient car park on the A85; but both car park and walkway have been barricaded off, so we west-bankers have the better of it.)
You can now rejoin the smooth cycle path, or remain on rough little paths alongside the river. After 1km, with houses on the opposite side, river and railbed converge and the rough paths rise back onto the cycleway just before it crosses a small stone bridge. Follow the cycle path for the last 800 metres to the A821.
ROCK NOTES (SEE ALSO APPENDIX A)
The brown ‘puddingstone’ is conglomerate of Old Red Sandstone or Devonian age (400 million years old). It is also seen at Conic Hill (Route 43), at Doon Hill (Route 5), on Callander Craigs (Route 11) and the Menteith Hills (Route 4). The great Caledonian mountain range, formed at the collision of Scotland with England, was then decomposing. The smooth pebbles within the puddingstone were probably an outwash fan below the mountains.
At the roadstone quarry you can see some of the pebbles cut open. Many are of dark andesite lava with pink or white feldspar crystals. Others have irregular white blobs, former bubble-holes refilled with calcite mineral. When the Caledonian mountains formed, the volcanoes were on top and so were the first to get eroded away. Their only remnants are these pebbles – and two bits that sank and so escaped erosion, Ben Nevis and the mountains of Glencoe.
The rock that forms the northern edge of the Lowlands: conglomerate (puddingstone) of the Old Red Sandstone, from the roadstone quarry on Bochastle Hill. The pebbles within it are dark rhyolite lava, some with feldspar crystals, one with gas-bubble holes that have filled up with white calcite. Other pebbles are of near-white quartzite. All were washed down out of Highland mountains that no longer exist.
The grey rock on the north side of the Highland Boundary is noticeably different. It contains no embedded pebbles, it has a slaty cleavage (or tendency to break in slices), and the white quartz within it is bent and broken about. This is Dalradian schist, about three times as old as the puddingstone. The schist was already mangled and old before Scotland and England ever met: the collision mangled it even more to make the deep roots of the new mountain chain.
Around 100 million years after the puddingstone eroded out of the mountains, the combined Scotland–England bit of continent was being stretched north-to-south. The earth's crust broke at Kilmahog, with the northern rocks being pulled away and up, and the southern sliding downwards. Thus the less ancient puddingstone rocks to the south were brought down alongside ancient schist of the mountain roots to the north. Another 300 million years of erosion, plus a final scrub from the Ice Age, has left the two contrasting rocks standing side by side.
On Bochastle Hill you can contrast the lumpy-looking Lowland hills, such as Meall Garbh directly opposite, with the stronger lines of Ben Ledi. On the return part of the walk, the Falls of Leny are in grey slaty schist. In fact, the rocky embankment alongside the A85, just before the northern 40mph limit of Kilmahog, is still showing the grey Highland rocks. An exploration of the Garbh Uisge might show the actual fault line between the two. The strange rocks along the actual boundary can be examined on Route 4 (Aberfoyle to Menteith).
ROUTE 11
Callander: Falls and Crags
| Start/Finish | Callander woods NN 634 082 |
| Distance | 7km/4½ miles |
| Total Ascent | 300m/1000ft |
| Time | 2½hr |
| Terrain | Good paths, very minor road, rough path onto Callander Craig |
| Max Altitude | Queen's Jubilee Cairn 343m |
| Maps | LR 57; Expl 368; Harvey Ben Ledi |
This is a walk of pleasant woodlands, an impressive small gorge and a viewpoint reached without undue effort. Callander Craig, when you get there, is made of lumpy puddingstone: it's the same stuff as Doon Hill at Aberfoyle and Conic Hill above Loch Lomond, and belongs to the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone age. Thus Callander is revealed as being a Lowland town, if only by about 2km.
The exciting footbridge across Bracklinn Falls was washed away in 2005, and rebuilt in 2010.
A side street at the Lowlands end of Callander is opposite the Roman Camp Hotel and is signed for Bracklinn Falls. It runs up to a car park on the left. Start by continuing on foot up the road, past a signpost for a golf course walk, to another car park. Here the wide, smooth path on the right is signed for Bracklinn Falls. After almost 1km it descends earth steps to Bracklinn Falls in their impressive gorge. Rebuilding of the bridge allows an excursion on path and track northwards, to recross by another bridge 2km upstream.
Return to the tarred road, and continue uphill, emerging from the woods. A signposted path on the left leads in 100 metres to the Red Well.
Return to the lane, continuing uphill then level across grassy moorland. As the road bends sharply right, a stony path is on the left under trees. It winds up to a fence corner, and follows the fence onto Callander Craig. A conical cairn marks the summit.