low river

I had to take my car in for a service this morning. The garage is about 3 miles north of Dumfries, and I had about 2 and a half hours to wait, so I thought I'd try out my new bus pass and travel into town. 

I sat by the river for a while and read my book, and then went for a walk through Dock park and over the cycle bridge to Troqueer before heading back to the bus stop for the return journey.

The Nith is notorious for flooding, and the water can easily cover all the grassy area you can see in the photo, as well as the carpark and streets on the opposite side. An ambitious and widely unpopular plan to prevent flooding has been proposed and looks likely to be implemented in the near future.

Today, the river was quiet and very shallow. There were a lot of gulls (also widely unpopular) on the islands.