West Highland Way Diaries: 16-19 June 2017
A bad decision, lots of walking, making a new enemy
16 June, 2017, Leeds, England
Today I spent my evening not in a pub, but on my knees in a park in the middle of Leeds. I was on my knees because I was trying to put up a tent, much to the bemusement of those who were using the park for more normal things like drinking or smoking lots of weed. I was trying to put up a tent because, in a fit of misadventure, I have agreed to walk the West Highland Way.
The West Highland Way is a 96-mile walking trail that stretches from Milngavie, a small town on the outskirts of Glasgow, to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. A few weeks ago I watched the film A Walk in the Woods, a fictionalised version of when the writer Bill Bryson and his friend Stephen Katz tried and failed to walk the Appalachian Trail. For some reason my flatmate Dean and I watched this and thought, ‘that could be us.’
The Appalachian Trail is over 2000 miles across 14 of the eastern United States, and even with our youth and overinflated sense of self-confidence, we did realise that a walk that long might be bit of a stretch. So, after a quick browse of famous walks, most of which looked both hard and expensive, we settled on the West Highland Way.
Our initial plan was to walk it in seven days, staying in hostels, bunkhouses, and hotels. Then last week we tried to book accommodation, and quickly realised that the West Highland Way is an incredibly busy trail, especially in the summer, and that we were fools for thinking we could try and find hotels no more than a week in advance. Instead we booked a couple of nights’ worth of accommodation where we could, and then went to the nearest outdoors shop to buy the cheapest tents we could find.
That is how I ended up spending tonight on my knees in a park. Our train to Glasgow is in two days, and I am, if anything, now worse at putting a tent up than I was this morning. I spent most of the evening wishing I was one of the normal people who were staring at Dean and I, laughing and drinking, and just generally having a pleasant time.
After a particularly unsuccessful attempt, I decided that one tent was enough for the both of us. We will take one with us and take turns carrying it. And, crucially, Dean will be in sole charge of its construction. Failing that, I’m going to spend as much money as it takes to sleep in a real bed.
18 June, 2017, Milngavie, Scotland
This morning we woke at an unreasonably early hour to catch a train to Glasgow. Well, a few trains. Because of the wonderful British rail network, it took almost the entire day, and then we caught yet another train a few short miles to Milngavie, the starting point of the walk.
We’re staying at a Premier Inn, and despite a small part of me wanting to spend the evening soaking up what sleeping in a real bed feels like, we did end up walking into the centre of town to get a beer and spot our future hiking buddies. This was not difficult, we just had to look for the people also wearing anti-sweat t-shirts and horrendous walking trousers. Some people had walking poles.
Should I have walking poles?
19 June, 2017, Drymen, Scotland
We ate breakfast this morning in a restaurant that looked like the canteen of the National Anorak Association. There was lots of rustling and shifting and comparing of equipment, and when our waitress asked us how we were feeling, I declined to tell her that I was shitting myself.
Milngavie (I have neglected to tell you until now that it is pronounced Mull-guy, for no other reason than I can think of other than to fuck with English people), really, really wants you to know it’s the beginning of the West Highland Way. It’s a town full of outdoor shops stuffed with equipment I refuse to buy, hotels, hostels, and, in the centre of town, a big obelisk announcing the beginning of the trail.
We waited for two men to finish taking their photographs, then also took ours to mark the occasion, and to provide a nice, high quality final photograph the local news can use should they need to announce our untimely deaths.
The first few miles passed through a leafy park, and despite our big rucksacks full of gear and clothes (and in my foolish case, a 1000-page paperback), we passed fellow hikers with reassuring regularity. Now, obviously walking the Way isn’t a competition, but when we passed walkers who were clearly only carrying day packs, what they needed to survive just the walk to their next hotel, our satisfaction turned to smugness.
There are a few companies on the West Highland Way that will take a fee to transport your luggage in between each of your destinations each day, so that you can walk unencumbered and enjoy the scenery. Dean and I, being idiots, but also, crucially, incredibly cheap, have decided that this is the easier and more expensive thing to do, so clearly we won’t be doing it.
It doesn’t matter that those carrying day packs are quite often clearly not far from collecting a pension, I’m sure that the satisfaction we got when one of the old boys we passed motioned to us and said to his wife, “they’re doing it properly!” won’t leave us for the whole week.
This satisfaction did leave briefly today, however, when two tall, athletic men stormed past. They strode with purpose and athleticism and made it all look very, very easy. Worse, they had even bigger bags than us. I caught a snippet of their conversation as they passed, and the six months of Dutch (don’t ask) that I took at university helped me identify their nationality. As if it helped explain their superior speed and athletic prowess, I nudged Dean, and with a knowing look towards them said, “Dutch”.
We ambled through fields and along an old railway track and made good progress. Sometimes we would see the two Dutchmen in the distance, only for them to swiftly disappear around a corner or behind a hedge. We lovingly christened them the Flying Dutchmen.
We finally caught up with them (because they had stopped) at the first rest stop of the Way; the Beech Tree Inn at Glengoyne. It’s a pub that sits about halfway between Milngavie and Drymen, where we have set up camp for the night.
The Flying Dutchmen were also sat in the beer garden, and one was peering at a menu with a look on his face that suggested he’d just seen two Scots doing something unspeakable in the bushes. He looked at us for the first time and exclaimed, “deep fried mars bar?!”
“Scottish delicacy,” I replied.
He gave me a doubtful expression.
The afternoon was uneventful, we spent it just within sight of the Flying Dutchmen, and despite a few minor hills on the section that led into Drymen, we made good progress. So good, in fact, that we found ourselves reaching our campsite by mid-afternoon. By the time we put our bags down and Dean had pitched the tent it was not even four o’clock. We sat and took stock, slightly incredulous. We had walked about twelve miles, and though we felt tired, we had held up remarkably well. Or at least, I had.
I felt so good that I decided to take a stroll into the centre of Drymen to scout out somewhere for dinner. I imagined it would be just over the hill, but it turned out that the campsite was a mile from Drymen, and I discovered that if there’s one thing you don’t want to do after a hard day’s walking, it’s more walking.
It was quaint and quiet, exactly how you imagine a rural Scottish village to be, and I made straight for the local shop to get an ice cream. I picked one out, found a small notebook, but couldn’t see any pens. I went to the till and asked the woman behind it, and as she reached for one I said cheerfully, “say, that campsite isn’t really in Drymen, is it?”
“Drimmun,” she replied sharply.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s pronounced Drimmun, not Dry-men.”
“Oh, sorry,” I replied, “well, that campsite is quite a way isn’t it?”
“Are you hiking the Way?” she asked.
“Erm, yeah.”
“Well you should be used to it then.”
That was me told. She then proceeded to ask which snacks and food we had with us, and when I would list an item, she would tut and point to something on her shelf that we should have bought instead. I politely declined her wares and just asked for the pen, which, as you can imagine, pleased her greatly.
“Blue or black?”
“Either’s fine, thanks.”
She picked one up, scrawled on a notepad to test it, and thrust it upon me.
“Thank you,” I said meekly, before paying and making a swift exit.
I wondered on the way out why she kept her pens behind the till, but then I thought that if that was how she talked to every customer, I couldn’t have been the first who had briefly considered impaling her with one.
I scouted out a restaurant for dinner, which didn’t take long, considering there were two in the town, and wandered back over the hill to the campsite. I arrived back at the tent to find Dean performing some minor surgery on his feet. He was sterilising a small knife, popping his blisters, and then liberally applying some bandages.
“Everything alright there, Dean?” I asked, declining to make a comment about how many blisters adorn his feet after just twelve miles.
“Oh, just a few blisters, nothing to worry about.”
I’m sure this will work out fine.