Rowardennan | Taking Our Time

August 4 – What do we do on our rest day? We walk around, of course!

Today was our first opportunity to order a full Scottish breakfast, which is very much like a full English – fried egg, tomato, farm sausage, beans, black pudding (blood sausage), mushrooms and bacon (looks like ham). We pronounced it excellent.

It’s a beautiful sunny morning, but a chilly 50 degrees, so we put on our fleece jackets and set off to see the first part of the hike to Inverarnan.

Not sure what this is, but isn’t it interesting?

We met a Ukrainian who was spraying foliage along the trail. We asked what he was spraying for, and he told us that he was killing rhododendrons, which are very bad. We pressed: the shrubs with pink flowers in the spring? Yes – very bad. Huh!

We encountered a family – mother, son and girlfriend of son – having a jolly walk. What a good son!

August 5 – So here is our conundrum. The guidebooks all agree that the next leg of our journey is the hardest day of the Way. It is over 14 miles of rugged walk with lots of big hills. Jim is under strict orders not to let me die on this vacation. There is no bus, no Uber, no way to get north of here as the road ceases to exist on this (east) side of the Loch. There are no bridges or ferries that can get us across the Loch to civilization. What to do?

Jim, who always says there is no corner so sharp that it cannot be rounded, found a solution, of course. For a princely sum, we hired a taxi to take us 30 miles all the way back to a town at the southern tip of Loch Lomond. From there, we caught a bus heading north on the west side of the Loch, and in 45 minutes, presto: Inverarnan (In-ver-ARR-nun).

Once again, not a town, just a hotel and a campsite. Once again, we were given a cabin, very cozy and nice.

We spent the rest of the day walking south back down the West Highland Way to see a few miles of what we missed on the trail today.

Walking the trail, which is a stream. Lots of jumping on rocks to keep our boots semi-dry.

Our last views of Loch Lomond. We’ll miss you!

A wonderful day.

August 3 – After a hearty breakfast, we put Balmaha in our rearview, and walked on. Once again, it’s gray but not raining, temperature in the 50s.

Because most hikers do not stop overnight in Balmaha, the trail was quiet this morning, as we walked along the shore of Loch Lomond.

In a little while, the sun came out.

Even when the path moved close to the road, we could still hear the sounds of the nearby Loch.

A house flying the Scottish flag – St. Andrews Cross

We met a man from Bangalore, taking a holiday hike before starting his new job in Ireland. Lots of young people are hiking with big packs on their backs, and some are just out for the day.

Jim climbing some stone steps – I’m not far behind

We saw some Oreo cows – they are actually called belted Galloway cows. They looked content.

So we followed the up and down path throughout the day, ending up in Rowardennan (Row-ar-DEN-an) at the edge of the Loch.

There isn’t a town, just a hotel and a youth hostel. People come here to enjoy the Loch, or to climb Ben Lomond, a huge mountain that is, thankfully, not part of our plans. Rowardennan is literally the end of the road – there is no way to proceed north from here except on foot.

We hear Polish, German, French and languages we can’t decipher at dinner. I order steak and ale pie, which is neither steak nor pie, but chunks of pot roast in brown gravy served with mash (potatoes) and veg.