Over the Loch and Through the Woods - a Semple Ramble

For a taste of the countryside, we took our Portland friends Jonah and Deirdre on a hike in the Castle Semple recreation area. Starting at Howwood, about a 25-minute train ride from Glasgow, our five-mile ramble cut through a cowpie-laden pasture, around an 18th century folly that was used as a hunting lookout, past the ruins of a church built in 1504 by the Laird of the original estate, through the woods, and eventually to a 1.5-mile loch. Slogging through the mucky farmland under the inhospitable gaze of a herd of cattle, we wondered if this was really such a good idea, but a picnic overlooking the lake made it all worthwhile.