tyndrum to london

Up early the next morning, we arrived at the Tyndrum train station a full hour and a half before the train did. The dead quiet was wonderful as we sat waiting. I caught up on the Dickens I had missed when I fell asleep while Sonya was reading aloud the day before.

The greatest blessing that the LORD granted me on this trip was traveling with a companion who travels in the same way that I do…arrive early for trains, don’t worry too much about food, and know that getting there can be enjoyed just as much if not more than actually being there.

Once we caught our train, we railed directly to London St. Pancras, walked to King’s Cross, and followed the underground to the home of a wonderful couple of Sonya’s acquaintance who not only let us stay with them, but fed us a warm, home cooked meal and, an even greater service, let us do a load of laundry.

invernarnan to tyndrum

The first day filled entirely with sunshine. We got up to find our boots dry from hanging over the heater…

…and the sun setting the surrounding hills to glowing.

Mentally ready to walk the next fourteen miles we had planned that day, the first five minutes proved that my knee, which had been increasingly painful the second half of the day before, would not take it. Unperturbed and quite happy with a quiet day, we settled ourselves next to the river, gazed at the mountains, journaled until we could journal no more, and read Dickens while we ate a can of peaches. The lambs in the surrounding fields were so small that their legs wobbled as they walked to their ewes.

We enjoyed ourselves heartily and then hopped on the bus at 16:15 to Tyndrum, our last stop in Scotland.

inversnaid to invernarnan

The day with the shortest distance and hardest terrain; my personal favorite. Three and a half miles of very rough going followed by three and a half miles of up-ish-ness. Up down around over under trees rocks rivers and sheep. The views were even more stunning than the day before.

The LORD was good to us and kept the rain back until we had passed the most treacherous parts of the trail. The sun started to play in beams across the hills beyond and cats’ paws flitted atop the water towards us.

12:00 noon saw us sitting atop a mossy boulder eating what food we had with us and then heading into the simpler second stage of the day.

The scenery continued to become more and more beautiful.

The Way carried us to the very northernmost tip of Loch Lomond, completing our walk of its entire length. After climbing up onto a crag, we looked south down the Loch and sang hymns about the greatness of our God. How I wish I could give you all pictures that capture the beauty, but this is the best I could do.

drymen to inversnaid

In the morning we hopped on a bus to Balmaha which is right at the southernmost tip of Loch Lomond and continued walking the next two legs of the West Highland Way.

The Way follows right along the water for a ways, and we took the opportunity to touch it for the first time. While we have generally kept the tradition of taking our shoes and socks off in order to better touch and experience new bodies of water no matter how cold they are (See the posts on visiting Howth in Ireland), we decided that that would not be a good idea due to the continuing rain and the importance of dry socks when walking.

 Next the trail heads up…

…and shoots into the hills beside the Loch. I have never seen so many colours in a forest. Deep orange branches, burgundy saplings, purple mountains, fresh evergreens, rich brown bark, white birches, lime green mosses, burnt orange ferns, and a strange neon pink fungus on a tree we passed. 

Pretty soon we were able to enjoy the height we had gained through rough climbing as we came upon gorgeous views of the Loch far below us.

Lunch saw us at the end of the road. This was in a very literal sense as we were entering into the section of the park where cars cannot travel because there is no paved road for them. If we wanted to take a bus (which, due to the constant, drenching rain, didn't sound like that bad of an idea), we couldn't have gotten one. I spent lunch writing down all the reasons I had thought of in the past four hours walking about how walking in the rain is really nicer than walking in the sun.

1. I would never have to complain about walking in the rain again
2. I would never have to complain about walking long distances again
3. Wet jeans are a good cooling system
4. My rail pass, though soaked through, would dry perfectly fine if left flat to dry
5. It wasn't windy
6. Each turn brought new color combinations
7. The water soaking into the woods brought out the most vivid natural colors I have ever seen
8. So long as you keep walking, you stay quite warm and hardly sore at all
9. My hat was working like a charm
10. When we finished the fourteen miles, we could say we'd really done something, and no one could say otherwise.

With seven miles down, seven more to go, and a puddle on the pub floor to prove we’d been there, we set off with extra chocolate rations in our pockets and determination enough to reach the warm beds awaiting us.

With the continued rain, the trail was constantly coming upon waterfalls, some of which had overtaken the trail. We have many snapshots like the one below depicting rivers which are actually the trail we were supposed to be walking on. We gave up on dry socks.

At last we arrived at Inversnaid and our favourite of the hostels we stayed in. An old converted church, it had everything we could have desired. A restaurant up stairs, a warm cozy room all to ourselves, and, most importantly, a dryer room, which is a glorious thing in which one can put any wet item in overnight, come back in the morning, and find it completely dry. Sadly, it didn’t work for the letters I’d written and left in the top pocket of my pack, but I’m sure they will understand.

That night I climbed into my bunk and just sat still, feeling the buzzing hum in my legs and the peace in my mind from having the time and space to let my thoughts wander where they would all day. Foot rubs, Charles, and bed.

milngavie to drymen

Our first day of walking!

It didn't take us long to realize just how beautiful our coming days would be as we began to pass through a countryside so varied and beautiful I lost count of the things I wanted to write about when we stopped for lunch at the six and three fourths miles mark.

The West Highland Way is marked by posts with a thistle symbol on it. How it warmed our hearts every time we saw it! Because the Way is made up of park trails, roads, and sometimes fields, it wasn’t always completely clear whether you were on it or not. However, whenever we saw one of those glorious posts, we knew we were alright.

We left around 8:00 and it began to rain at 10:00. The wind whipped between the hills and over the flat lands as we walked between fields and along stone walls. Without surrounding trees to soften it, our waterproof hoods got minds of their own and proceeded to go wherever they wanted. For a while only one half of our bodies were wet, but with the twisting trail and changing winds, we were soon wet through from all directions. There was no longer any pretending that we could keep any semblance of dryness as our jeans became waterlogged and our waterproofs began to let in water. So long as we kept walking, it was easy to stay warm.

Just as there were no worries about being cold, there were also no worries about turning back. Every turn that we followed opened up to us new beauties.

It finally stopped raining around 13:00 and our last two hours we walked through a wind which dried us off completely. If we were particularly lucky, the wind would be blowing in the direction we were walking and would pick us up and push us along. The last stretch however was along a raised road with the wind coming from the valley below and crossing against us. We were still able to go forward if we leaned into it, as Sonya here demonstrates…

…andI have a much greater appreciation for the old farewell which wishes the traveler the good fortune of always having the wind at their back. After having walked 13 miles since 8:00, we arrived at our hotel in Drymen at 15:00, muddy, tired, dry, and very happy.

Little did we know that we would be walking into quite a posh hotel. The valet gave us funny looks as we walked past him into the lobby to pick up our reservation. The receptionist kept his cool but for one slip up when he asked us whether we needed a valet ticket. We looked at each other under the brims of our sweaty hats, felt our feet, and thought about the huge packs on our backs, turned back to him, and said “no, we hadn’t any car.”

That night we began our after-walking routine which was foot and back rubs while reading Charles Dickens’ Little Dorret. A foot rub has never felt so wonderful before.

oxford to glasgow

Out the door at 7:30am, hugging everyone we were leaving behind and trying to keep the tears from coming while simultaneously getting jittery from excitement.

So began the backpacking phase of my travels around Europe after Oxford!

The first day was a simple jaunt from our home in Oxford, up to a Headington self-storage where we left my suitcases, back down to the Oxford train station where we caught a train to King’s Cross London, along the underground to Paddington Station where we caught an express train to Heathrow where we left Sonya’s suitcases, back to Paddington, onto a second train which took us up to a Glasgow train station in Scotland from whence we walked to our first hotel. Waiting for us was a hotel tea spread to warm our hearts and the peace to sit and eat the food we’d packed: a carrot, green beans, banana bread from a wonderful friend, digestives, oranges, nuts, and, of course, chocolate rations.

It also gave us the time to think about how heavy our packs felt even while walking the short distances we went while not on the train. We both made little piles of things to leave…a sweater, large toothpaste, leggings, etc for Sonya, and a pair of nail clippers for me. Every little bit makes a difference, right?