Craigard Hotel Killin

... found the Ben A'an car park. In England it definitely would have cost me money. Not so in bonny Scotland :) There was one other car there, parked beside a tent, so it was safe to say that I would be the first of today's climbers. Good news - no one ambling down to pass and chuckle at my inevitable huffing and puffing. The trail began quite ...

... a couple of guys heading up the path who are "stretching their legs" before a round of golf back down at the bottom. The WHW doesn't actually go to the summit of Conic Hill but they show me the path and very sweetly take a photo of me at the top. No mean feat as we are all trying not to be swept off our feet by the fierce wind!
The rest of the route to Drymen leads away from the loch and indeed the Highlands, taking walkers through forest paths and ...

Today, I was planning to go to the youth hostel at the castle, but the Land Rover had other plans!!!

Oh dear, game over! I popped out to start the Land Rover this morning at around 9am and the engine was smoking like a trooper and sounding a lot worse than it normally does. I called the AA at around 10:00 and they turned up at at around 10:45 from a local garage. He told me that the engine is fairly terminal (piston problem ...

... will go out of their way to help a stranger.

Things that made me smile today:

The multitude of frogs and toads enjoying the wet ground
The two couples who gave me sponsorship at Inversnaid
Feral goats at Inversnaid - the book is not wrong about their smell!
All the lovely people I met at the youth hostel
The drying room - it was extremely hot and all my kit is now properly dry!

... is on the path today too.

This area also has links to some of the earliest Christian arrivals from Ireland, with the ruined St Fillian's Priory reported to be the site of the original monastic cells of St Fillian who arrived from Ireland in the 8th century and spread Christianity amongst the Picts. Certainly it was an important site - Robert the Bruce raised it to priory status and, even after its dissolution, local people kept up the cemetery.

Inverarnan, Scotland, United Kingdom charlief

... in a Little House on the (Scottish) Prairie kinda way. This is the view from the lounge/front garden (I challenge you to spot another house) and what the locals think of Blairhoyle (see small print)...



Anyway, there is no ...

... dry out a little! Heading over the hill towards Bridge of Orchy I turn around and am rewarded with stunning views of Loch Tulla and the hills behind it.

By Bridge of Orchy I'm pretty tired but there are a still a few miles to go. It's 3pm but I pop into the hotel bar, grab a sandwich to fuel me to Tyndrum and meet three walkers heading the other way who'd had the same idea. They're wild camping and at least one of them isn't looking forward to a ...

My planned rest day in Fort William has been scuppered by a real lack of accommodation for the next couple of days. The only way I can find anywhere to sleep on Friday night is to walk 23 miles to Kingshouse and then head off the West Highland Way (WHW) by taking a bus to Glencoe.

This section of the WHW has a reputation of being challenging due to the "Devil's Staircase" - a steep climb outside Kingshouse. Doing it backwards I've made it harder for ...

... Ok, so Friday, not much to tell, we got there, got settled, ate dinner (Fish and Chips) then had a meeting about the plans for the weekend and followed up with socialising. Nice relaxed way to start things off. Then we got to Saturday. Saturday was a day for the ages, the day which justified my buying $90 hiking boots before I left. We started hiking up Ben Ghlass around 10:30, 11am. Fairly near the summit, there reached a point where the leader ...

... what was rumored to be the largest army the world had ever seen. It stretched for twenty miles and shook the earth as it passed. And its goal was to hold onto Stirling Castle for England. The castle has quite a bit more today than it did then. Then it was maybe a building or two and some smaller thatched houses within the walls. Today, you can see a couple of palaces, one of which now holds the Argyll Highlanders Museum and supposedly a ...