“I just think,” my son said, “that we went on enough walks last week and it’s not reasonable to expect another one today.”
“I’m SO BORED,” I replied, as if this answered his objection. “We all need fresh air.”
“Fresh air is not the same thing as a walk. And you being bored does not sound like the same thing as I should go hiking.”
So. I needed proper fresh air, which really means at least 5km and some wildlife. But the children were making a good point, calmly, and with good reasoning – we had gone on quite a lot of lovely walks recently.
Where could I drag them where we could get some actual fresh air, without them feeling like I had in any way coerced them into hiking?
The answer is sandwiched between the M9, a light industrial park and a canal – Helix Park.
This is a one sandwich walk. It barely qualifies as exercise, I promise…
Car park – yes
Public transport – yes
Toilets – yes, and they’re in good condition
Café – yes, and some food trucks
Accessibility – Good, solid paths, very buggy friendly, and although I haven’t actually researched it, everywhere looked doable in a wheelchair too.
Other facilities – a genuinely impressive playpark, and well maintained boardwalks through reed beds. And indoor picnic tables, of all the luxuries.
Start at the car park – either the free one or, if that’s full, the one where you pay an apologetic young person £3.75 (April 26). Stroll up to the kelpies.
I am a sucker for very large public art. The Kelpies are 30m high horse heads. They represent the heavy horses that pulled barges on the canals, and are seen as guardian spirits. Mind you, how much actual mythology anyone read before starting is a mystery. Actual kelpies tended to trick humans into riding them, then drag them into lochs and sometimes eat them. People get quite upset with me when I say things like that, but not all fairy tales are nice.
Luckily, 30m high steel statues are pretty laid back and less inclined to that sort of nonsense, and the people watching here is pretty good. If it’s dry this is a good place for your sandwich.
It’s genuinely lovely here, which is impressive given every few steps you realise there’s a motorway behind you and several industrial units hidden behind the trees. It’s a real accomplishment.
Then leave the kelpies and stroll along the canal side until you see a straw unicorn – I’m fond of this one, it looks more like a uni-shetland-pony than anything else. It would survive a winter. Which I think is important for an art work called “Spirit of Scotland.”
At this point, cross the road and follow the path, which will take you through the reed beds. This is a good place to spot warblers, swans, and parents attempting to bird watch. A nice man with a toddler daughter told me one, that if my birdcall app had picked up a collared dove it was his little girl (“oh, good job” – my helpful response), but two, sometimes water rails nest right by the path. I will be heading back in a few weeks if I can.
A nesting mute swan.
Pass several frog ponds and a ditch, and you’ll spot a massive wall in front of you – when the path forks head right. That will take you to the playpark, the Hide (which has indoor picnic tables), and the splash park.
Genuinely impressive playwark - these are about three stories high, and small son and daughter, who were far too tired to walk, practiced scaling the insides without touching the ladders
From there, you can stroll round the lake and come back to the big wall, and head back towards the car park. On your way back, take a right into the Wee Woodland Walk, which has some den building space, insect hotels and – if you have not brought your own noisy gruffalos along – some nice bird life.
My watch recorded about 7000 steps – somewhere around 5km or so. And the children honestly did not notice they had been dragged on a walk. It might not be 20km of Munro bagging, but it did the job.