Away Days From Stirling: One
This is essentially a self-organised bus tour, not one laid on by a company, but the fairly frequent service that runs from Stirling Bus Station cross country to the charming Perthshire town of Crieff to the north. On several of our walks we have seen the Knock of Crieff, an elongated, plateau-like hill, lying distant on the horizon, beckoning us.
So the trip has been another in the planning and a case of finding the right day when each of us is free and one in which the weather will comply. Luckily we seem to have chosen well, the sky an azure blue for the most part under which lies a broken covering of fluffy cottonwool cloud. These produce odd drops of rain but nothing that will threaten to spoil the views of passing countryside too much.
We’re late leaving due to a pile up of traffic but we don’t care, we’re in no particular hurry, our aim being to simply enjoy the journey en route and take our time. We aren’t disappointed.
The double decker takes us out of the city, across the slim River Forth, the road running between the curving grey cobbled Stirling Old Bridge, traversed by us on foot on a previous outing, and on others via the railway bridge on the opposite side. We can even see the place where we passed under the railway bridge by the bank when leaving Riverside on one of our walks. Rosebay Willow herb line the parallel rail tracks, dandelion clock angels float above them.
We travel through Causewayhead, heading towards Bridge of Allen, passing the gates to the beautiful grounds of Stirling University. It’s the height of summertime and we enjoy the colourful cultivated vistas offered to us from the front gardens of houses beside the main road like the splotches of optimistic yellow Hypericum as the bus drives on. Then, in contrast, a jungle of wild Hogweed when out on the open road.
There’s more Rosebay Willow Herb at the Kier Roundabout, growing in profuse clumps. Here the bus veers north towards Dunblane, eventually skirting the old part of the town to our left, which includes the cathedral. We promise ourselves a special trip here sometime.
Onwards, past the Royal Victoria School, a military-like educational establishment and a sprawling conurbation of more modern residences. Soon we’re out in the countryside again, turning off the A9 onto the narrower B8033. Here the real countryside adventure begins.
To our left the bevelled Trossachs rise out of gentle mistiness, and the Braes of Doune, much nearer now than when we’ve seen them in the distance on our walks around the outskirts of Stirling. It’s as if we’ve entered the scenery, are a part of it, even though we cannot forget human insignificance against this towering magnificence of rock, a bluish-grey on the near horizon, veiled in the almost transparent low cloud. Maybe it’s not so much that we are mere passing onlookers, here for a speck of time compared with their comparative permanence, but a part of something much greater, a shared transcendent spiritual connectedness.
The clouds attempt to cast a shadow on the surrounding scenery without succeeding. We skim past banks of wild yellow gorse, patches of green fern which in autumn time will look stunning cloaked in golden-brown, and mini forests of tiny Christmas trees, reminding us that they aren’t really Christmas trees at all but part of the Pinaceae family of conifers.
Scots pines stand erect, warriors of nature. Skinny-trunked silver birches grow in huddles amongst dense undergrowth along with tall, sturdy oaks. There’s a delightful gatehouse and a drive leading to a country mansion hiding in a forest of trees, placed in the middle of nowhere.
The sandstone villages we pass through are a delight, small and rural, clinging to the country road. Greenloaning, Braco, Westerton, and Muthill, which is celebrating its annual scarecrow competition. The village’s inhabitants make their own comic creations displayed on pavements during gala week, for public judging. We’ve struck lucky with the timing.
As we approach Crieff, rich cornfields surround us. We pass over the River Earn, treacle brown, gurgling, hedge-rowed and narrow in this part of its course. And there we are, at our destination, disembarking onto the charming High Street from the double decker, thanking the driver.
It’s a jewel of a place, elevated, with views between buildings to the countryside around, set against a backdrop of the further away hills and mountains. Now their rightful shade of deep sapphire they both blend and contrast with the foreground intense green layers of vegetation and golden fields of corn. A destination worth arriving at and a journey well travelled.
