So, there’s a cool little spot on the road to Loch Lomond when heading north out of Glasgow. It’s maybe 30 minutes by car.
The Route
It’s called the Devil’s Pulpit because there’s a natural rock formation resembling a preacher’s pulpit. The soil of the riverbed is red (Maybe sandstone?) and the water takes on a crimson hue. Put the two together and the mythology of the Devil preaching to his followers while wading through a river of blood takes over. The site itself is located in Finnich Glen.
Bring:
- Decent footwear. Boots or hillwalking shoes if you’ve got them.
- Towel
- Wear clothes you don’t mind getting wet or dirty. You WILL get wet and the red soil gets everywhere.
- (Optional) Full change of clothes.
The visit is great for a morning or afternoon trip. I’d recommend the morning as the place gets quite busy, especially if you’re going at the weekend, and parking could be an issue. It wasn’t for us but we arrived at 10am.
The DP is in a gorge off the main road but you need perseverance to get there. You enter the trees via a gap in the wall and follow a rough path down to the gorge entrance. There will be other people there. Chances are you’ll follow others or the sound of voices to get where you need to be. Once you see the steps you’ve arrived. They’re steep and dangerous so you want to take care but it’s manageable. Going down is much harder than getting back up.
Once you’re down it’s all good.
You can either turn left or right when you get down there. The DP is left and other cool river scenery is right. We did both but headed to the pulpit first. Now, most people keep their shoes on… we didn’t. We went full Hobbit wading through the water barefoot. Ten times more fun. You’re going to get wet anyway and if you have a towel it doesn’t matter. Plus, you’ll never tire of scolding your mates with “Fool of a Took!” if they stumble, “Thief Baggins!” when they pinch your sunglasses, and “You’ll have to toss me!” when sizing up jumps from stone to stone. We might have gotten a bit carried away with the Lord of the Rings jokes…
The pulpit is just up ahead, you can see the approach peering over my shoulder in the second photo. I’m not going to lie to you, the water is cold, but you adjust very quickly and its way more fun and involving to get in the water. We saw lots of people trying to climb their way around the river, hugging the walls, trying not to get their kit wet. This is definitely not the way to do it. You can see the red waters from the pictures, it’s not hard to imagine just how many stories have been told over the centuries about why the water’s red. The deepest areas of water are almost black.
We did a bit of posing with the pulpit… see exhibit A, B and C.
And then we saw this…
Long-story-short, we had to swim in it. Didn’t come all that way to just look at it, did you? If you did, you need to have a word with yourself.
The swim was fun and you adjust to the cold quickly. After you come out and dry off you are energised. On a side note, it’s actually convinced me to try cold showering because, as I said, I felt great and if I can have that feeling every day then I’m game. Here’s a post drying off pic.
We headed back to our bags at the foot of the stairs and decided to explore further down river. There is a rock formation down this way I wish I’d gotten a picture of. Alas, I did not but it’s worth heading to. There’s an overhanging cave above a similar pulpit arrangement. We wandered further downriver but the scenery became less remarkable so we decided to backtrack. The walk was about 4km once done. A decent hustle when barefoot walking through water. We got back. Dried off and started climbing back out. The place was getting busier and we were all thankful for the earlier arrival. Most people there were tourists so it was nice to see people from all over coming to enjoy this special little place. We headed back to Glasgow for a burger and a beer before lounging in Kelvingrove park. Pretty sweet day out and I’d recommend it to anyone if the weather’s good.
Thanks for reading.
Euan
Thinking Aloud 