Outdoors for wellbeing #5 – My favourite local walk

We might not be able to go very far with the Covid restrictions in place, but most of us have a place we can walk in our local area. I chatted with April, Louisa, Catrin and Violeta from our Permission to Dream project, about their favourite walks nearby and why they like them.

April:

April: I like the one that takes you round the Kelpies to Carron then onto Dollar Park. It can take you along the canal, past the love and kisses statue. Apparently, it looks like a pair of lips if you look down on it from up in sky, say in a helicopter. I have never been in one so don’t know if it’s true, but you can see it looks like lips. The walk is nice and flat, and you can see some good wildlife too. I think it would probably be a good walk for children as well, or at least parts of it, as it’s about 7 miles long.

I also like the walk from Tesco Redding along to Muiravonside Country Park. Again, it’s flat along the canal until you get to the path for the park. Then there are some very steep steps to get down into the park. It’s nice for kids and the walk is about 5 miles. If you don’t want to go into the park, you can just keep going along the canal. It will take you straight to Linlithgow. The best bit about that is the old post office restaurant at the end! You can have a lovely meal then get the train home.

Violetta:

I like the Union canal, it’s nice. But the one I do more often is the Kelpies to the Caron river as it’s closer. I used to walk to my friend’s house when we were allowed to meet.

Louisa:

I recently went to Bo’ness foreshore for a walk with my daughter and we enjoyed it that much that we went back the following day with the whole family. My son doesn’t particularly like walking but it’s all on the flat, so it’s easier. You can walk right out to Blackness Castle, though we didn’t do that. I’ve seen people put pictures online of seals although we never seen any. It’s a lovely walk.

Why did I pick this one? For me it was a change of scenery and something different from my usual walks. Lockdown can be so boring, you just do the same things every day. I saw posts from other people about Bo’ness foreshore so thought I’d give it a go. I’m glad I did. Here are a couple of photos I took, it was a lovely winter’s day.

Catrin:

My favourite walk is the Carron dams. It’s beautiful anytime of the year. The drive to get there is lovely and picturesque and once you get there, there are so many walks. You can walk for miles. In the summer you can also go swimming there, if that’s what you enjoy. There’s a platform as well to jump/dive off into the water. The dogs love I too, they enjoyed the snow there recently.