For a Few Dollars More

To kick off the walks chronicled on the Stroll on Blog, I made the short trip to the Ochil hill foot town of Dollar with my son Calvin and Paul (a.k.a. the Bunman).

After parking in the local pub car park, the council in their infinite wisdom having halved the number of parking bays near the river, we ascended to Castle Campbell up the Burn of Care. The oldest part of the Castle dates back to the sixteenth century and has been frequented in times gone by, by both Mary Queen of Scots and John Knox. To the best of my knowledge neither had problems with their parking. In those days coaches and horses were allowed to park side by side and not forced end to end into ridiculously wide bays.

We descended via the less arduous Burn of Sorrow, stopping only to take the obligatory castle pictures. It's unlikely that either burn suffers from vampires as the air was heavy with the smell of wild garlic. Any sharp toothed creatures of the night would soon be held to 'ransom' by the whiffy aroma.

This didn't however discourage the obligatory dipper that as usual decorated the rocks in midstream a fetching shade of white, or the strange yellow bird (later identified as a grey wagtail) that flew off before we could get a closer look. Best not say any more on the subject in case the town is beset by a plague of Twitchers.

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