Unlike yesterday, it was not a beautiful day with clear bloo skies, but I went anyway. There’s a route which leads a bit more cross-country than the way I went, but I wanted to cross over the bridge even if it isn’t the actual historical Stirling Bridge, so I went that way. Plus I didn’t see any signs to the more scenic option.
It’s not a bad walk for the most part, just a bit suburb-y & beside a road. The last part, unsurprisingly, is uphill, because while there’s a visitor centre, it’s not at the base of the hill, just the base of the steep bit. I took the wee shuttle bus up, mostly because it arrived as I got there, but also because I’d already walked a fair way just to get there.
From a distance it looks like the remnants of some medieval Scottish space program¹, a stone rocket ready to spread tartan to the heavens. Up close, it’s a big damn tower.
¹The Scott Monument in Edinburgh looks like it’s straight out of Vampire Hunter D, if anyone’s seen either of those things?
There’s a museum inside, and you can climb the 200+ steps up the thing, so I did.
Of course, I didn’t realise that the stairway, as soon as you’re past the bit you can see from the ticket counter, is a Narrow Steep Spiral Nightmare. It’s maybe a bit wider than my shoulders, steep enough that I could rest my hand on the step at just below eye level, and it’s on one corner, so the wind can blast in through narrow windows and remind you of just how high up and precarious you feel. Haven’t felt that uncomfortable for a while, but at least I avoided having to try to pass anyone.
That said, the view is pretty awesome. You can see the Great Hall at Stirling Castle clearly, so the weird peach/Kings Gold colour does work. (Limewash & iron oxide, they said)
The museum is inside, split over three floors; Some about Wallace, some about historical context, some about other noteworthy Scottish people.
Having taken the bus up, I decided to walk down. The timings on their walking routes looked odd, with a big scenic loop only taking slightly longer than the shorter scenic loop. Turns out that this is because the scenic bits are relatively flat, and the descent to the carpark really really isn’t; It’s a “steps shorter than your own feet” & “zigzag down the slope” exercise.
Someone arrived up from the very short non-scenic way while I was there, clearly having run it, and was loudly congratulating himself in what seemed to be an attempt to get people to notice him & be impressed. This being Scotland, nobody paid him any attention at all. That said, if he got up that thing at even a standard walking pace without stopping I’d be impressed; I’m confident I could do it, but it would not be quick, or at an unbroken pace.
Aside from the bloody staircase (and I wasn’t the only person dreading that thing), it was great, and at least the staircase bits didn’t last long. I took the approach of listening for folks coming up or down before using it on the way up, and just tailgated a group on the way down.
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