West Highland Way Diaries: June 20-21, 2017
A huge hill, a huge lake, and two become one
20 June, 2017, Rowardennan, Scotland
Conic Hill is inappropriately named. Sure, it might be a hill when compared to the peaks of the rest of the world, the Alps or the Himalayas. But put it in the middle of Scotland and it looks like the biggest mountain you’ve ever seen. It was our first serious test this morning, our first serious test of the whole Way.
Of course, it was my turn to carry the tent. We followed a long trail of hikers up the hill, who plodded up the slope. We had caught up with the Flying Dutchmen that morning, and the four of us grunted up in slow formation. Until we left Dean behind.
A quick insight into Dean, which should demonstrate why this was surprising: he’s fit and lean and goes to the gym regularly. I’m unfit and not so lean and go to the fridge regularly. I should have been the one being left behind.
When we got to today’s lunch stop, the village of Balmaha, we dissected what had happened. Dean’s blisters have begun to resemble small craters. He rebandaged in the pub toilets after our lunch (presumably leaving a mess resembling a major crime scene), but the outlook is less than positive.
I tried to remind him of a positive; that we had made it to Loch Lomond, and were entering one of the Way’s prettiest stretches.
This afternoon was very pretty, but it was also very hard. Although there was no big climb or descent, the trail constantly jerks up and down, and in unexpectedly warm weather, with the climb of Conic Hill already in our legs, we had to drag ourselves to Rowardennan.
I feel slightly guilty, but once again I left Dean behind. His blisters were slowing him, and I was really beginning to enjoy myself, despite the challenge, and I walked comfortably ahead for the last few miles.
When I reached Rowardennan I plonked my bag on a rock at the end of our campsite’s driveway and sat down to wait for Dean. And I waited. And waited. Then I waited some more and thought for a while that maybe he was dead, collapsed somewhere off the trail, and that I should go and see if that was the case.
But I was tired so decided against it, and instead I waited some more, until he finally trudged around the corner. He was in a bad way. His feet were, to put it charitably, not really feet anymore. When we had checked into the campsite and pitched our tent in a wholly inadequate piece of land covered in branches and bramble, he disappeared into it to perform some more self-surgery.
When he came out we went to get a beer and sat down and finally met the Flying Dutchmen properly. Rik and Seb are from Nijmegen. We were relieved to hear that they had thought the day’s walk was hard too, but were disheartened to hear they didn’t have the same plan for day three as us.
When you walk the Way, because of how the towns and natural stopping points fall, on one of the days you pretty much have no choice but to do 20 miles. Our guidebook says that day three is that day. The Dutchmen have decided not to do that, as they have heard the rest of the trail around the Loch is incredibly difficult.
This caused an already anxious Dean to re-consult our guidebook, and after a while he looked up and said, “shit.”
“What is it?”
“It says here, do not even begin the third day if you are not 100% confident you will make it to the end.”
“I take it that you’re not that confident?”
“I’m not confident of making it a mile past the campsite.”
We have decided to kick that rather pressing problem quite literally down the Way for the night, and are going to drink beers in the sun, swim in the Loch, and eat burgers.
21 June, 2017, Beinglas, Scotland
Before you read today’s entry, you should know one thing: today did not go to plan.
We awoke to rain. Not fast, hard rain, rain with some oomph, but that irritating drizzle so common in Britain, the rain that sparks debates about the necessity of jackets or umbrellas.
Our plan for the day was this: to stop first at the village of Inversnaid after seven miles, push on another six to Inverarnan, and finally leave Loch Lomond behind and finish the day another seven miles down the road at Crianlarich, which sits just off the trail and is the Way’s unofficial halfway point. A long walk.
It soon became apparent that unless Dean decided to walk the entire rest of the Way on his hands rather than his feet, he wouldn’t make it. He moved at a glacial pace and again I walked slightly ahead, hoping to act as more of a carrot than a stick.
I waited for him by boxes of Mars Bars and Irn Bru and Coca-Cola, honesty boxes left and ran by good samaritans that live along the Way. And while I waited and ate I was in turn being eaten by midges.
The midge, for the blissfully uninitiated, is a small fly found all over the world, but the little bastards really love the Scottish Highlands. The rain brought whole families of them out, and each time I stopped they descended on me like pensioners on a free buffet.
Today was the first time I wondered, with real feeling, why I’m doing this stupid hike when I could have spent a week in Italy or Greece or France or really anywhere that isn’t Scotland.
The trail didn’t help. It was more like scrambling than walking in some sections. There were slippery rocks that needed navigating, deep pools of mud waiting to swallow my walking boots, and constant undulating terrain that threatened to break ankles and wear out knees. I navigated it slowly, and finally, well after lunchtime, I saw Inversnaid on the horizon.
I literally dropped into town. Instead of walking down the steps that led to the village, my right foot decided we would slip and skip them entirely, and I bumped all the way down the steps, my backpack mercifully taking most of the hits. I got up, dusted myself off, checked that no one had seen, and then wandered gracefully down to the waterfront.
I thought two things as I did so. First: where is the rest of it? Inversnaid is billed in the guidebook as a village, but all I could see was an enormous white hotel and a few outbuildings. There looked to be a few cottages in the hillside, but clearly the writer of our guidebook and I have different definitions of the word village.
Second: I’m the youngest person here by at least sixty years. Almost everyone in the village, and almost certainly everyone who wasn’t a hiker, is absolutely ancient. Even weirder is that all the olds are all from different European nations. I heard French, Italian, Dutch, German, and a little bit of Spanish. It’s like every European nation has held a meeting and decided to deposit all of their old people in Where the Fuck, Scotland.
I sat down on a bench, wondered how I get myself into these situations with such alarming regularity, and waited for Dean. More old people pootled about around me, saying Bonjour or Guten Tag as they wandered by. Finally, a speck on the horizon appeared, Dean. He plodded on down the trail, did not, to my chagrin, fall down the steps to the village, and plonked down beside me, defeated.
“I think,” he said after a while, “I need to go home.”
“I agree,” I said gently.
I had known this was coming, and despite the fact that it was raining and I was damp and cold and hungry, something took hold of me.
“I’m going to carry on,” I said.
I didn’t have time to worry whether this was a terrible decision, as the Flying Dutchmen soon caught us up in Inversnaid, and decided I would walk with them. I could have kissed them. They were only going as far as Inverarnan today, and since they were now the only two people in Scotland I could call a friend, I decided I would be stopping there too.
This afternoon was even harder than this morning. Had I set off alone I almost certainly would have descended into crisis, and would probably now still be in a foetal position somewhere in a bush by the Loch. Thanks to Rik and Seb I’m in a tent near Inverarnan.
According to my guidebook, the town of Inverarnan stands just before the Beinglas campsite on the Way, so you can imagine our surprise when we walked through a gate and saw a sign welcoming us to Beinglas. We looked behind us, confused at how we’d managed to miss an entire town. It didn’t matter too much though.
“Good enough?” asked Seb.
“Good enough,” Rik and I agreed.
We made straight for the reception, and while Seb was sorting out tent pitches I consulted my guidebook again. It definitely had Inverarnan sitting just before the campsite, and so I said, offhand, “I think we must have missed Inverarnan guys, but not to worry.”
Neither Rik nor Seb had time to reply before the enormous gruff bald man who had been serving us said in a fierce tone of voice, “this is Inverarnan.”
It turns out that my guidebook, as I have slowly been realising, is a bit shit, and fails to note that the Beinglas campsite is actually one of Inverarnan’s premier attractions. Really, its only attraction.
I thought I would be forgiven for not realising a town could almost solely consist of a campsite, but when I paid for my tent pitch the man behind the counter still looked furious. I have decided to make it a goal to not insult anyone in at least the next few towns.
We pitched our tents, Rik and Seb with ease and me with great difficulty, and headed to the campsite bar to do one of the two things you want to do when you realise you have to spend a night in Inverarnan, get drunk.
(The other being leave).
We were quite successful at getting drunk. We ate an enormous meal and spent the rest of tonight shovelling pints down our necks.
We certainly had more fun than a party of three across the room. The woman was sat with her head on the table, quietly sobbing, while a man who looked like her partner was trying to cheer her up, or pick up her spirits, or at least persuade her to stop crying in public. The other man was sat sipping his pint and wishing he were anywhere but there.
“I’ve seen those two before,” Seb said, “she was crying then too.”
“What about the other guy?” I asked.
“No idea,” he said, “must be some friend they picked up along the Way.”
We all agreed that he was very unlucky but decided that we were absolutely not going to get involved, lest we end up being the ones doing the consoling, and went to the bar to get more beer. When we stumbled out of the bar into the night the rain had almost stopped, but my tent had a surprise waiting for me.
When I unzipped it, I saw that most of my belongings were underwater. Rain had leaked through the roof and the inside looked like a poor recreation of Loch Lomond.
“Oh shit,” I said.
“What’s up?” said Seb. I stood aside and let him see for himself.
“Oh shit.”
“I know.”
We lifted the back of the tent and let the water cascade out. It sounded like a small waterfall. My worldly possessions for the week are, as I write, in the dry room next to the bar, and I am going to try and sleep and dream of Greece, or Italy, or Spain, or any other warm country that I could have spent this week visiting.
Some housekeeping
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