46

When I arrived at the meeting-point for this morning's Ramblers walk I thought we had been joined by another group, such was the number of people gathered. But no, everyone there was with the Cumbernauld & Kilsyth group and ready to take part in our walk through the woods and along the Canal near Auchinstarry.

I don't think I've ever been on a Ramblers walk with 46 participants before!

We headed north and west from the Marina, entering the woods and along the path towards Twechar. After a mile or so, maybe a bit longer, we crossed a footbridge over the burn and headed up towards the Canal, which we then followed back to the start.

Arriving back, some of us felt we needed a bit of a longer walk (it was still only 11.30am and we'd walked only about 3.5 miles), so we continued on an 'unofficial' walk, following the towpath to the bridge at Craigmarloch and then through the woods at Nethercroy - we gave Croy Hill a miss on this occasion - before dropping back down onto the towpath on the car-park side of the Canal.

What was crazy was the fact that 23 people, half of those who started out on the advertised walk, also did this unofficial extension. Must be doing something right!