I set off at 9am for Milngavie, an outskirt of Glasgow, with the rain falling. The gorse was wafting perfume everywhere. Gorgeous. 

It wasn’t a difficult walk, flat and dry surface, but it was ok. Down one small valley was an ancient bridge, almost hidden in the undergrowth. A sign named it as Trolls Bridge. You can imagine them sneaking out at night!

Onward up the valley to Milngavie past the Glengoyne Distillery, which was tempting but too much of a diversion. Round the final hill on the route I looked back at the last vestige of the Highlands. 

The Way had another surprise. The weather had brightened and a dry afternoon was forecast but it did a U-turn and peed it down for the last hour of my walk. 

There is a park in Milngavie just before the end of the Way and the rain eased. As I entered it a bloke in a suit got out of a Landrover and got some bagpipes out of the boot. He’d come to the park for somewhere isolated to practise and started up when I was thirty yards away. The dark sky, the wet undergrowth, the mournful sound of the pipes (filled with pride, history and purpose), the ache in my feet and legs, the emotion of knowing I’d finished this 320 mile journey. It got me and I hid my face as I walked past the piper to mask the fact I was weeping.

The end, until the next beginning.

It puts me off when somebody talks to me and says ‘right’ after every sentence. However it’s beaten as a cringeworthy practise by a bloke saying ‘yeah’ at the end of a sentence. And I find myself involuntarily saying ‘yeah’ in reply every time, as if his ‘yeahs’ are questions to ensure that you’re following the monologue. Know what I mean, yeah?

A buffet breakfast for the first time and I snaffled oceans of black pudding, haggis and potato bread, with a few beans and a bit of scrambled egg. Fantastico, or as a German couple might say;

Das ist scheiss.

You chose it.

Nein, you chose it. 

Valk behind me all day as if you’re being led to your death. Schwein. Und don’t forget to look miserable as scheiss if you see ein Englander.

The hills were attracting a few fluffy clouds as I set off, heading along Loch Lomond south to the village of Balmaha, to then climb Conic Hill which sticks up a thousand feet above the loch, and on to Drymen where I would spend the night at the Hawthorns guest house. A quick 15 mile dap.

Down along the lakeside the going was fine and I made good time. The gorse was out in full flower and each bank of it released a beautiful fragrance.

The path ran by little sandy or pebbly bays and at one two swans were sweeping across gracefully.

The beaches themselves and their views across the loch were stunning.

The path wandered from waterside to hillside, and I have a slight discomfort with cattle, and a palpable fear of Highland bulls. Look at the length of the horns. He could stick it through me, one side to the other, now I’m not such a fat bat.

Just before Balmaha the path turns up a hill that stands a couple of hundred feet above the waterfront. What a view.

On the way down the far side of this hillock I spotted a young Roe Deer, still as a statue checking me out. 

Beautiful. First Roe Deer I’d seen.

I finally came down into the little harbour of Balhama, with a busy little boatyard and plenty of moorings.

A seat overlooking this little harbour had the most amazing inscription I’ve seen. I hope you can read it. Must have been quite a lady in her day. 

A Scottish hillwalking guru, Tom Weir, is celebrated with a statue on the waterfront.

The path cuts sharply inland and uphill, with a steep climb up Conic Hill. The effort with a rucksack is hard but the reward is that view.

Over the hill and five miles back lies Drymen where I located the Hawthorns easily and had a nice meal in the company of other walkers from different age groups and different nationalities. It was nice for a change. I slept well and was only 13 miles short of the end in Milngavie. A few steps away from having completed two trails and 320 miles. Bring it on. Night night.

I was full of enthusiasm for a short walk (14 miles) after clocking up 21 the day before. Nae botha. This would take me halfway down the east side of Loch Lomond to a nice place with evening food. I left the Drovers’ and some bloke offered to take my photo.

I walked upstream to a bridge over the river to the east side and yomped down. I took a poor turn over the bridge onto a WHW link that turned out to be problematic due to fallen trees and small landfalls. This cost me precious time. 

The clouds were developing around local hills as I headed south to LL. 

LL are great initials as Superman only had girlfriends with the LL initials. So he must have right fancied Loch Lomond. The first mile or so was ok, and I came to a bothy, Doune Byre, which was in decent shape, although an Irish couple I had met earlier said they’d stayed there and it was infested with mice. What do you expect for nowt? 

After the bothy the path started to deteriorate. And a mile later it was very difficult. I had to climb, scramble and jump across problematic blocks of stone over a few miles of the route. The views of the lake became lovelier and despite the tough nature of the route the view continued to compensate.

Eventually I made it to Inversnaid, a small community with a hotel and outside seating where I could eat my Drovers packed lunch without a problem, and with a nice view.

Carrying on to Rowardennan the path followed the shore and looked more like the South West Coastal Path on occasions.

Often, between the beaches and difficult boulder strewn stretches, there would appear a patch of new-growing bracken and Bluebells, destroying the myth that blue and green should together not be seen.  

I was running late however and compounded the problem by taking a minor lakeside route that was swamped with path works and difficult boulders to negotiate. In the end at 7.30pm I made it to the hotel/hostel and moved to the bar/restaurant to get my food and drink. The view was awesome.

I had a place booked and slept easily through the night. I’m ready. Night night.

The morning was clear and my tent had dried out on the fence. The views were lovely and Maurice cooked me a manly breakfast of meat, with the exception of some scrambled egg. Big chunks of burnt toast and strawberry jam. Massive pot of tea. Right set me up. Unfortunately I got bit during the day and scratched the bites on my legs in the night, prolonging the misery. It’s such a shame for a beautiful neck of the woods.

I walked over the hill from Inveroran to The Bridge of Orchy and looked back at Maurice’s place, in the middle of the picture, and the loch.

The river running under the Bridge of Orchy is pristine.

The Way crosses the road and up the hill, where I found a ruined car with a seat to mapread in for a few minutes.

The route climbs up a long, but not too steep pass over to Tyndrum. The views en route are reight good. I’m enjoying this walk. It’s not the South West Coast Path. That was special. But it’s got something.

Tyndrum and the area around it are crammed with interest. Gold has recently been discovered and it’s not uncommon to see families panning for gold in the rivers. It also reeks with history. Robert the Bruce and his men were here in 1306, being pursued by McDougall of Lorne and his men. To lighten their burdens Robert the Bruce and his chaps threw their heavy weapons into a small lochan.

Imagine if Robert the Bruce’s sword is in this lochan, preserved in peat. OMG. Which means oh my god. McDougall’s men caught up with their prey, but were all slaughtered. Fight light fight effective. Down the road I came upon a sheep sale.

Miserable looking buggers. They must be German. I’m not kidding I’m going in the opposite direction to everyone else and there are hundreds of Germans and Yanks that I come across. Even, and maybe particularly, the young German couples are the ones who look most miserable and behave like it. They’re not enjoying being together, mustn’t be. Hateful looking Pillock with a beard walks ahead of his lass, almost ignores my greeting and she drags behind like a prisoner being led to her death. Why don’t they stay in Stuttgart and argue for a week?

Round the corner is St Fillan’s Priory ruins. Fascinating stuff.  Goes back to the 13th Century and the graveyard goes back to the 8th! Unbelievable.

It was a right long slog from there to Inverarnen and the legendary Drover’s Inn. A total of 21mile in the day. Down the valley to Inverarnen there were lovely little stretches of river where I would love to loaf around and spend an hour or two with a fishing rod.

After a long time I rolled up at the Inn and had a gorgeous warm bath. FIsh and chips and an earlyish bed. Knackered. The place has been going for hundreds of years and is haunted as hell. Not in my room though.

Night  night.

First time I’ve put the departure point and destination on since the blog started I think. And I’m not going to check. That would be sad. I’ll do it later. I got up in an inner tent covered in midges. How did the blighters get through the fine mesh? For blighters read bastards. I had breakfast in the hotel attached to the campsite and I ate for Scotland. I went to pack and take the tent down and was met with a mist of midges, blighters, which I countered with my stylish midge mesh hat which will be the talk of the town when I wear it at Bramall Lane for the first match of the season. 

Nevertheless I still got bit. The blighters got my legs below (and slightly above) the bottom of my shorts. Blighters!

The Co-Operative store produced sandwiches and crisps for later and I set off up the four mile hillside leading to the Devil’s Staircase. A pass in the hills with a steep drop down on the south side. The weather was poor but dry when I set off,  and it remained dry all day. The climb up was long and wearing; it’s far easier without a rucksack but it dunt matter.  The views were great. 

Finally I came up to the last pitch up the back of the Devil’s Staircase.

The view opened out from the top and it became an expansive valley rather than a constrained glacial glen. 

I was enjoying this walk. The views were great, the weather was cool enough for a dude with a rucksack and there were nice features. The Cape Wrath Trail is an experience. So is wiping your backside with a cactus but it don’t mean you liked it and want to do it again. Having said that I’m glad I did it, and equally glad I started the WHW. 

The weather brightened in patches and I passed by Glencoe and the skiing centre up there.

The road went ever on and on. 19 miles in total to Maurice’s place at Inveroran. He takes b&b overspill from the Inveroran hotel. I showered, heaven, hung my tent out on Maurice’s back fence, had haggis and beer in the hotel and got an early night. Maurice is great. Long haired fifty/sixty summat who retired from the Fire and Rescue service last year after a heart attack. He’s a highlander. Me too (when it’s warm and no midges).

Maurice’s place and views from it.

I like him and here. Night night. 

What a great night’s sleep. I fell asleep shortly after ringing ‘the wife’ as they say on Tipping Point (not that I watch it), round about 8pm or summat. I listened to the Incredible String Band doing ‘The Half-Remarkable Question’.  Just cop it on you tube or summat and you’ll share the joy of a song vying for greatest ISB song of all time, with ‘The Iron Stone’ and dozens of others. They do something to me. I then put on the Killers. As it’s on my iPad it switches off after the 4 classics I’ve got on there and I’m asleep before the end of ‘When You Were Young’. But I hadn’t done my teeth or had a wee so I woke up at 1am and got out of the tent. OMG!! This means Oh My God. It was that brief hour of darkness round here at this time of year. The clouds had lifted and the black mass of Ben Nevis was revealed to me. Not by an outline against the Universe; the cloud was lifted but not evaporated so it was black outside. But by a fabulous array of lights which were making their way up or down the mountain. It was magical and I wished I could watch for a long time but it was now cold. I weed and brushed my teeth, in two completely separate processes and went back to bed, after once again admiring the magnificent display of AA powered torches snaking up and down the highest mountain in the UK. 

This morning I packed in the rain, which had hung around since 4am, no doubt dousing the Elven lamps on the high mountain. The site has a chuck wagon and I had two breakfast rolls, big uns. 

Walking down to the river to pick up the West Highland Way (WHW) the bluebells were in belated beauty.

The Way rises up and passes through passes. The first one culminates in a high peak of an ancient fort,  Dun Deardail. It’s up there somewhere.

The route cuts south and then east to Kinlochleven, which I aimed to overshoot and carry on a few miles further. In the end I stopped at Kinlochleven. 

En route was a loch with a tiny island on which Macbeth was reputed to live before he became big time. You can see it at the far end. 

Lots of people on the route, all coming in the opposite direction. Mostly Germans, as in the south west. Miserable looking as well. It dunt cost owt to be happy and smile. Jesus! 

The rain was intermittent and the glen twisted south and then east. It was through here that the Campbells retreated after a bloody defeat in 1645, pursued by the MacDonalds. With fries. 

Poor little buggers. 2nd February. Must have been bitter. And they lost and saw their mates cut to pieces. 

The sky cleared a little after I passed the cairn marking the point where the  MacDonalds gave up the chase of the stragglers, looking back down the glen.

And now looking forward and south.

It was now the usual grind towards Kinlochleven, a further six miles.

Kinlochleven sits at the end of a sea loch and as I dropped down into the town there was a campsite over the road at the bottom of the hill. Tent up, washing done, showered, watered and fed. The view is impressive. I stopped because I was tired. I’ll be strong tomorrow after an early breakfast in the hotel whose grounds contain the campsite. A long way south and aiming for the Bridge of Orchy. We’ll see.

Night night.  

Well, I’ve now been along the Cape Wrath Trail (Been There) and climbed up Ben Nevis (Done That). 

To recap I had breakfast and left the B&B yesterday as dear Elsie, the owner, had a doctor’s appointment. I wandered into town and came across the end – being the beginning for me – of the West Highland Way. 

It took me longer to find the end of the Cape Wrath Trail. Mostly because it isn’t a trail for many miles along the way; it’s difficult to follow when paths don’t exist! But it’s an embryonic trail and an attraction for devoted walkers. So it deserves it’s unmarked roundabout conclusion, shared in true Caledonian fashion with a stalwart of the glens – McDonalds!! I kid you not, this is the published start/end point.

I made my way along my new trail – The West Highland Way – up Glen Nevis to a campsite where I pitched my midge-proof tent. Thank you god that I didn’t bring Wilson (although he was sick) as I would have been bitten to buggery. I made my way to the camp restaurant/bar and had haggis, neaps and tatties and a coupla beers.

Oh that aromatic haggis!

I was keen to get up Ben Nevis, as the highest mountain in the UK, and I couldn’t get a glimpse of it in the low cloud. 

I got an early night, got up and had a Scotch Egg and Prawn sandwich, which I’d bought at Morrisons, the previous day, for breakfast. What a treat!

I set off at 7.30 and made my way up this amazing hill. It’s not that high compared to the Alps or Pyrenees, and Puig Campana that I’d climbed in Spain earlier in this blog is higher, but it’s high enough. It’s also very north, so it’s colder and more desolate, particularly in low cloud. 

The path up is hard and steep, and being almost the longest day in the year and a Saturday the mountain was crawling with charity walkers, several hundred of them; and there’s only one safe path. After 3 hours of slog I reached the snow line and it had turned windy and very cold. 

Where else can you find a group of nuns at 4000ft?

It was knackering walking through snow in those conditions but everyone plunged on. There’s a great, supportive camaraderie going up mountains. Strangers sharing words of encouragement. 

A bloke volunteered to take my photo.

It’s just a question of keeping your head down and grinding away. At 11.15 I finally made it to the summit, with the charity crew.

To eat my Morrisons 69p pork pie I had to lean against the leeward side of the stone cairn at the summit, with other pilgrims, to avoid most of the icy blast. 

On the way down I saw another group of charity walkers together crossing the snow and it was a great, evocative photo.

When I got down to the lower levels of the mountain the views up and down (to my camp site) were great. 

I got down at 13.30, doing a not bad 6 hours. It’s warmer in the valley, and the midges are delighted. Loafing about and ready for tomorrow for the start of my journey South on the West Highland Way. 

Bite Bite. 

I woke up earlyish in the tent and tried to pack as much as I could in the inner tent, which keeps out the midges. I had a sandwich left which I’d bought in Inverness and a Bounty bar so breakfast was provided for and I’d surely come across a shop at some time before Fort William. Sadly my water bottle top wasn’t fixed tightly enough and most of it had leaked in the bottom of my rucksack. I took a couple of mouthfuls, packed the tent and set off up the footpath into the mountains at 8.15. Not a bad start. It was raining and my boots were still wet inside from the previous day but my feet and legs were in reasonable shape. 

I followed a Scottish Right of Way through up to the top of a pass and down to some ruins of an ancient and small farmhouse. I expected the spectre of an old Highlander to appear on the photos: the place had that feel to it. Particularly with the skeleton of a sheep in one of the two rooms.

It was a difficult walk to the ruins, across a waterlogged plain with very deep peat bog ‘holes’ where the unwary would disappear up to their thighs. After that it was less boggy but straddling a steep mountainside for a couple of miles. I found a decent crossing of the river, it didn’t matter too much as my shoes were sodden, and went downstream reasonably quickly into a pine forest with a decent woodland path through it. All the time a mechanical banging was growing louder. 

In a sudden clearing I came across a dam building project for a hydro power facility. In the middle of a remote area. I hadn’t met another walker yet. 

It’s not just a small dam that’s involved. As I walked down the project’s dirt track there were massive machines laying waste to trees, planting huge pipes, crushing rocks and spreading them to make more gravel roads in what on e was a lonely landscape. But for a good, sustainable purpose. It’s ok. The machines were in touch with each other and knew I was coming. They don’t get many walkers but they all stopped before I arrived and started up after I passed, over the course of a country mile. 

The track then dropped down to Clunes and Loch Lochy. I got there about 3.00pm and walked down the loch to the end where a river flowed out and the Caledonian Canal paced it side by side. 

The barren, desolate and dangerous Cape Wrath Trail then becomes a canal towpath until its conclusion at the end of my journey at Fort William. Nevertheless this domestication didn’t produce a shop or cafe or pub or nuthin.  I was starving.

After phoning 27 B&Bs in and around Fort William darling babe Maggie found one that had a room for a foot-soaked, fatigued furquahar. I rolled in at 7pm, absolutely exhausted after summat like 25 miles, had a decent meal in a local bar and slept like a baby. I woke up every hour crying and wetting myself! 

Cheers.

It’s raining again. Inverness was good, I had a long night’s sleep from 7pm to 7.30am. However I’d had a few beers with Jimmy from Texas on the train to Inverness and a couple when I got there. Jimmy was a lad. A tall, athletic bloke but a lad. Likeable. His hobby is shooting wild pigs on a mate’s ranch using night vision lenses. He says you look through the lenses and sometimes see 40 hogs (as he calls them). Then the coyotes appear downwind of the hogs; they hear Jimmy coming and know that it’s party time. Jimmy and his mate have  M16 rifles, which were the US army’s answer to the Armalite. They look like this.

They’re not machine guns but they reload automatically and Jimmy typically shoots four hogs before the rest are gone. They weigh up to 200lb because somebody bred a cross with Russian hogs and they’re flipping huge. Jimmy then cuts a strip off the back and leaves the rest for the coyotes. He says the M16 is the rifle of choice in the US. He sometimes doesn’t take any meat as the hogs are rampant vermin and need to be culled. If I was him I’d pop a few coyotes at the same time to show them there’s no such thing as a free lunch. 

I got the 9.15 bus from Inverness to Skye and got off at the Claunie Inn, where I  quit the Trail in May. From there I was to cut south over the hills to Loch Garry and then dog-leg south again through the hills to Clunes on Loch Lochy. From there it’s a 12 mile dap down the Caledonian Canal to Fort William. Flat and boring but a terminal challenge for us Highlanders!

I alighted from the bus at 10.40 at the Claunie Inn, had a quick ginger beer (you heard) and set off down the trail over the hills. There was a lot of snow on the tops over 2000ft and it was peeing down, which it did for the next 36 hours. 

This shot looks back to the Claunie from the start of the hill track. 

I struggled to get down the first hill range as the Trail sends you in an epileptic zig zag routine. I spent far too long trying to find crossings for a river and several streams. However a stag furnished testimony on the foolishness of taking too little time.

It’s knackering, climbing uphill particularly, with a heavy rucksack. Downhill is ok and you can appreciate the waterfalls, which are all over these mountain ranges, running from melting snow or pouring rain, or both as in this case.

I finally got down to Loch Garry, with a laughable sign saying that I’d only come 9 miles from Claunie and that the route was potentially dangerous.  It did’nt do the stag much good.

In the end I got a few miles further and pitched my tent (you heard) by the side of the footpath. Wilson got a sick note from his mum that he couldn’t make it this time; signed “My Mum”. Good job. When I got up in the morning my body heat on the ground – no lilo – had brought a swarm of midges to life. Bar Stewards. If they’re too small to bite then they get in your eyes. 

By the way, on the train, before I got tiddly with my mate Jimmy, I did the Daily Mail Scrabble Grams and got 129. The Par Score was 85-95. Now I’m not a typical DM reader in any aspect apart from age but I nailed it.

See you Jimmy.  

Hello Peeps, I’m back again in Inverness to finish what I started.

I set off from home this morning by train and Edinburgh was great.

I took a connection to Perth and from there to Inverness. I’m there now and all is fine. Tidy little town. I’ll check into the B&B in an hour and get some food and sleep and get a bus tomorrow morning to the Cluanie Inn and walk down to Fort William over two or three days through a landscape, desolate. Can nature make a man of me yet?

Still a bit of snow around.   

 Bye Bye