Work, Save, Travel, Repeat...

Thursday. It was 8°C when we left the hotel this morning, Colin needed his thermal skiing underlayer! At least there was no need for midge repellent. We rejoined the WHW footpath which is actually through the High street to the new and official end of the walk. There were obligatory photos taken, we have completed the 96 miles. In the West Highland museum there was an interesting exhibition about the Commandos who did a lot of training in this area and also some amorphous paintings that only display their image when observed from a particular angle.  To our surprise we bumped into Caroline in this gallery. How lovely to see her again. She had stayed in Glen Nevis last night and finished today. We went for a drink together in the bar next door Garrison West to reminisce about our trip. She is catching the sleeper train to London tonight and then the Euro-star to Belgium. We liked this bar a lot (it was almost empty apart from one guy at the bar in the afternoon) so t...

Wednesday 15 Miles 8.5 Hrs 40,000 steps https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3441124/WHW-Day-10 It has been lovely spending the last 2 days with Annie and Andy at The Pier house, very sad to leave. Andy drove us back to Kimlochlevan to restart the walk. We must have been late starting today as we have barely seen a soul except Mrs Chicago who was walking to the village to catch the bus to Fort William. The initial climb out of the village was strenuous but very pretty and Colin the cuckoo said 'cuckoo'. Eventually the trees disappeared as we climbed higher and higher, the path snaked for ever and ever clinging to the hillside.  There were high mountain ridges either side which meant that the strong,cold headwind was like being in a wind tunnel. Hats, gloves, thermal underwear, fleece and coat, please can someone tell the weather it is June! Thankfully we didn't have any rain although the summit of Ben Nevis was obscured by cloud. Today is ...

Tuesday 8.5 Miles 5 Hrs 24,000 Steps https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3441099/WHW-Day-9 Andy kindly dropped us back at Kingshouse after an excellent breakfast to resume our walk. The footpath tracks alongside the busy main road for a mile or so, not our favorite type walk.  There were also many day trippers tackling the Devils Staircase (in fact we have done this ourselves on our last visit to Glencoe). The staircase rises 1000ft so warmed us up but there was a really brisk chilly wind on the top- our coats soon went back on again. Great views of where we had walked yesterday, as far as the eye could see and over the other side of the valley where we will be starting tomorrow. The descent into Kinlochleven was much quieter and we saw a few of our fellow WHW contemporaries. We will all be heading for Fort William tomorrow. Back at The Pier House we had to walk down the short pier, great views down Loch Leven and the bridge at Ballahuilish.

Monday 10 Miles 5 Hrs 24,000 Steps https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3441079/WHW-Day-8 James kindly drove us back to the Inveroran Hotel this morning for us to continue our walk. We have fantastic weather for the walk across Rannoch Moor which has the highest elevation so far 450 m.The sun is shining so suntan lotion and midge spray today although there was cool breeze on the top and a tiny bit of snow remains on some of the peaks. The journey was much easier underfoot than I had expected thanks to our old friend Thomas Telford! Under his direction there was a well made drovers road across the moor to Glencoe, he specified the road should have sufficient gravel that the livestock did not hurt their feet. This also meant our feet stayed dry, the incline was gradual and although we walked on top of them and out of site some great bridges. Glencoe Ski Centre was surprisingly busy but there was no snow here, camping site,cafe and paragliders. We reache...

Sunday 10 Miles 5 Hrs 30,000 Steps https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3441036/WHW-Day-7 We were shocked and saddened to see that a walker was struck by lightening and was killed in the Scottish Highlands (about 40 miles from us) yesterday evening. We had been walking in T-shirts and there was no forecast of storms so it appears to have been a freak event. There was a torrential downpour whilst we were in the Tyndrum Inn last night. Today is a relatively short day and generally downhill following a well made track through a wide glacial valley that has great mountain views. We were at the Bridge of Orchy by lunchtime, so had a drink in the hotel bar before walking another 3km to find a geocache (because we had plenty of time today). We were given a very warm welcome at our B&B by Jackie and James, they asked us if we were carrying on to Inveroran? We looked at them blankly and replied we were staying here!!!! Apparently what often happens is hikers carry ...

Saturday  12.5 Miles 6 Hrs 32,000 steps https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3441012/WHW-Day-6 An early start this morning because there was a threat of rain later in the day, however this didn't materialize and we have had the best weather so far, walking in T shirts. We saw slow worm warming itself on the path this morning, in fact I almost trod on it, the camouflage was so good I thought it was a stick, he played dead while Col took a photograph and then slithered off. A few moments later we spotted another one. The paths today were good either drovers routes or military roads from the 1700's but our poles were still useful. Falloch Glen and falls were delightful, we kept stopping to admire the scenery. Crianlarich is considered the halfway distance (we are on day 6 of 10 so have some long distances still to cover), it is also the watershed point of the country, rain that falls her either flows into the Atlantic Ocean or the North Sea...

Friday 7.2 Miles 5.5 Hrs (we took our time!) https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3440973/WHW-Day-5 One of the most enjoyable features of this walk is the people we meet along the way, unfortunately we rarely think to ask their names, yet strangely we know their nationalities. We are all walking to a different timetable and as we are taking our time we are losing some of our buddies each day. We met "The nice Americans" (our host called them that but we will call them Brad and Janet) on the first day and bid farewell to them yesterday although they wished they were stopping too. On day two we met a girl on her own, she was from Belgium, we will call her Ellie. She was travelling alone and staying in hostels, we saw her for 3 days but bid farewell today as she couldn't get lodgings near us. Also on Tuesday we saw a couple walking from the pub at Rowardennan, they were staying in our B&B. We had breakfast together, Sophie and Lionel were fr...

Thursday 7.2 Miles 3.5 Hrs https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3440938/WHW-Day-4 Today was a relatively short stretch of the WHW so we started with an extra walk around the Adenes Hidden History Trail at the foot of Ben Lomand and saw the first of many waterfalls.  The weather app was not wrong today, we had cloud, drizzle, rain and eventually sunshine - still perfect weather for midges. There are to parallel paths at the beginning of this stretch of the WHW, one along the shoreline of Loch Lomand and the one we chose an old military road through the woods, we had this almost to ourselves. As we neared Inversnaid the two converged again and due to the rain it became quite soggy in underfoot. We actually ate our sandwich on the move today because if you stood still there were clouds of midges. The rhododendrons are in full bloom around the falls next to the Inversnaid Hotel and the sun even came out for a while. As we were still in good time we...

Wednesday 8.2 Miles 4 hrs https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/route/3440912/WHW-Day-3 Many WHW walkers will cover the 21 miles that we have split over the three days in one go but we are happy with tortoise pace and enjoying the journey.  There was little elevation on our route today, often we were were walking along the shore of Loch Lomand or through woodland with the last of the Scottish bluebells, ferns and moss. The Scots have many words for the weather - Smirr best describes today - fine rain or drizzle! To be honest not too bad for walking but not great for photographs and ideal conditions for midges, I hope the repellent spray has worked.