West Highland Way Day 2

Day 2

The view of Loch Lomond from the top of Conic Hill

Unfortunately it rained lightly overnight. I got up late, in the hope that the morning sun would help dry my tent, at least thats the excuse that I told myself. The slog over Conic Hill was quite difficult but gave great views of Loch Lomond before the path descended down towards Balmaha. At this point the rain was managing to hold off. Balmaha gave me the opportunity to buy a little more food and grab a cup of tea from the local pub.

After Balmaha, the path followed the shores of the loch wherever possible, with brief intervals of road walking. The going was easy and the views were spectacular. I watched as storm clouds formed over the opposite bank of the loch. The forest along the edge of Loch Lomond was filled with beautiful broad leaved trees.

The banks of Loch Lomond just up from Balmaha

Most of the time, the going was easy along well maintained wide paths, however the last few miles before Inversnaid started to get narrow and it also started to rain. It was during this stretch that i was lucky enough to see the famous wild goats of Scotland. At first I thought they were bears, and then I reminded myself that there aren't bears in Scotland. As I was calming down I noticed the size of their horns and immediately thought they were going stab me with them. I eventually made it to Iversnaid that afternoon. The original plan was to camp at a campsite just outside of 'town', however the weather was miserable and there was a taxi waiting to pick up some other walkers to take them to a bunkhouse. I met some people along the walk her were staying at the bunkhouse and decided that I would have a miserable night in the tent so it was worth paying some money to stay in the bunkhouse.

Watching a storm roll in

Awaiting me at the bunkhouse were warm showers, hot food and a real, albeit springy bed. I caught up with the walkers that I had met earlier that day and also made friends with a German walker from my room who I would encounter numerous times along the way.

The scary as hell goats

Just before Inversnaid

Even though the weather turned bad, I had a great day walking down on the 'bonny' banks of Loch Lomond. By the time I reached Inversnaid I was over a third of the way, having walked 33 of the 95 miles.

West Highlands Way

The start of the way

So I promised some people that I would do some  blog posts detailing my experiences in Scotland on the West Highlands Way. Where to start? Well since my visa application was taking longer than expected I decided that a week long hike through Scotland would be good fun. It was definitely an adventure I don't know if I would say that it was fun.

I bet your wondering, "Michael, wtf is the West Highlands Way". Basically it is a long distance trail from the beginning of the scottish highlands on the outskirts of Glasgow, 156 kilometres north (I think thats right) to Fort William through some of the best scenery that the UK has to offer. The website said that it should take between 7-9 days, around the same amount of time that my visa would take. Perfect. What follows is what I saw and got up to along the way.

DAY 1

Mmmm, lunch

Day 1 started on the back of an 8.5 hour bus ride to Glasgow the night before. The trail started in Milngavie (pronounced Miln-gie) on the outskirts of Glasgow. Immediately the trail headed off through a wooded section and I quickly noticed the large number of people wearing gators along an extremely wide, well trodden walking track. It would soon make sense. I should probably mention that it was aready raining on day 1 and would continue to rain for most of the time that I was in Scotland. The beginning of the trail was very pretty with wooded sections and rolling green hills. I was initially surprised to meet some people drinking beer along the way and I would soon come to learn, that walking in the UK usually involved drinking. At this point I was confident and powering along the track chewing through miles quite easily.

The view from my tent

It absolutely started to pelt down with rain just as I reached the pub for lunch. due to the inclement weather I thought, "Stuff it, I want some hot food". Listening to the woman telling me the specials with a strong Scottish accent I heard the word anchovies and ordered that particular dish. Turns out that it was chicken schnitzel topped with egg and anchovies. It was unusual but luckily I like all those ingredients and scoffed it all down.

After lunch i continued the walk past lovely Scottish farms and up to Drymen. This is supposed to be the end of day 1 according to the guide, instead I pushed on further since it was only 3 and i wanted to camp out. The nex part of the trail took me through a conifer forest and out into a sheep paddock at the base of Conic Hill. The view was spectacular with the steeply rising hill and Loch Lomond surrounded by the highland mountains.

My tent in the middle of nowhere and by nowhere I mean a
Scottish sheep paddock 

I wandered around the field for about half an hour trying to find somewhere flat and dry. . i managed to find somewhere, pitched my tent and ate some food before heading off to bed early, in high spirits, albeit a little lonely.

And that concludes day 1