The Kelvin River Walkway

After the Clyde, the Kelvin is the city’s other major river and we’re lucky enough to live about a two-minute walk from the wooded trial that hugs its sides. The walkway is a favorite of dogwalkers and bicyclists and anyone who wants to escape the urban hubbub. While all the maples and oaks are barren now, the first sign of spring is showing in the clumps of snowdrops on the steep banks. Plump wood pigeons (so much more attractive than their more pedestrian urban cousins) abound, along with magpies and other songbirds. Allegedly there are salmon and other fish in the river and herons ready to eat them, but we haven’t spotted them yet. Walking south along the trail you pass the ghostly remnants of a flint mill while the northern leg takes you past a set of locks (on an aqueduct above the river!) for canal boats that ply the Forth & Clyde Canal.