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Ardlui to Tyndrum (somewhere in the region of 14 miles)
The American group we had been playing leapfrog with on day 2 reached the Ardlui hotel an hour after we did - in fact we saw them coming down the hill as the ferry left. They walk faster than us, but take longer breaks. We went back to the east side of the lake with them the following morning though the ferry was delayed because "Jerry" wasn't ready. We sat in the boat, in the rain, while people tried texting and phoning Jerry to tell him to get a shift on or they would leave without him. We didn't see a lot of them after that, except for a brief glimpse around lunchtime when two of them were waiting for a third who had been delayed on the path. Just as we were wondering if something had gone wrong, she turned up, annoyed that they hadn't continued without her since she had sent a text.
Anyway, it rained all day - not so many photos since extracting the phone from waterproof locations was a pain.
The first couple of miles (which were part of the previous leg) took us away from Loch Lomond over a rise and then down the other side to Inverarnan. From there we followed the River Falloch up past many waterfalls, on a path that varied from one person wide, to something that was clearly an access route to a hydro station.
A "sheep squeeze" - not as low and narrow as the guide book led us to believe - took us under a railway. We then went under the road that goes from Loch Lomond to Crianlarich and, from there, into the Highlands. I am familiar with this road from many holidays on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula as a teenager. We then climbed into a large plantation of trees that took us up and down a fair bit as we skirted Crianlarich. Then back down again, across the road once more and through some farmland where I saw my first (and so far only) Highland Cow.
This stood, without explanation, at the entrance to the Tyndrum Community Woodland.
It was, by this point, about 3pm and the rain was finally easing off. The way ambled over and along the river, back alongside the village of Tyndrum, back across the road, back over the river and across the road once more to the Green Welly Stop (which is, honestly, a glorified service station but one which I had fond teenage memories of). Next to the Green Welly Stop was the Tyndrum Inn, a basic hotel very much geared to walkers, where we stayed the night.
It wasn't, to be honest, as hard a day as the walk around Loch Lomond, but it had been long with over 600m of ascent, mostly in the rain and were pretty tired. Finding that some websites mysteriously didn't work on our computers (though they did on our phones) didn't help - we've since worked out that the hotel must have been maintaining a white list, but that this was circumvented by the university VPN running on our phones.
I was alarmed to realise, on removing my boots, that a big toe nail had come loose. I didn't even realised toe nails could do this! B, who has a medical degree, was quite blasé about this and said it would probably just get pulled off at some point and then regrow. 24 hours later, I can report that having wrapped it up in one of the large number of Compeed plasters I was carrying with me (along with another toe which, on closer inspection, appeared to be suffering from the same fate) and abandoned the practice drilled into me since childhood of wearing two pairs of socks inside walking boots, that everything still seems to be in the right place. In fact, dropping the second pair of socks has made walking a whole load more comfortable in general. I had been coming to the sad conclusion that my new boots (recommended by the deputy head of department) were a little on the small side - despite leaving my feet a lot less sore at the end of the day than my previous boots. However they are obviously fine if not double-socked. My feet are currently a bit of a mess of blisters and floating toe nails - but actually not that painful. That said, B managed to stand on my big toe (yes the one with the loose toenail) when I took my shoes off at supper and I've not taken my socks of since to inspect.
Anyway, it rained all day - not so many photos since extracting the phone from waterproof locations was a pain.
The first couple of miles (which were part of the previous leg) took us away from Loch Lomond over a rise and then down the other side to Inverarnan. From there we followed the River Falloch up past many waterfalls, on a path that varied from one person wide, to something that was clearly an access route to a hydro station.
A "sheep squeeze" - not as low and narrow as the guide book led us to believe - took us under a railway. We then went under the road that goes from Loch Lomond to Crianlarich and, from there, into the Highlands. I am familiar with this road from many holidays on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula as a teenager. We then climbed into a large plantation of trees that took us up and down a fair bit as we skirted Crianlarich. Then back down again, across the road once more and through some farmland where I saw my first (and so far only) Highland Cow.
This stood, without explanation, at the entrance to the Tyndrum Community Woodland.
It was, by this point, about 3pm and the rain was finally easing off. The way ambled over and along the river, back alongside the village of Tyndrum, back across the road, back over the river and across the road once more to the Green Welly Stop (which is, honestly, a glorified service station but one which I had fond teenage memories of). Next to the Green Welly Stop was the Tyndrum Inn, a basic hotel very much geared to walkers, where we stayed the night.
It wasn't, to be honest, as hard a day as the walk around Loch Lomond, but it had been long with over 600m of ascent, mostly in the rain and were pretty tired. Finding that some websites mysteriously didn't work on our computers (though they did on our phones) didn't help - we've since worked out that the hotel must have been maintaining a white list, but that this was circumvented by the university VPN running on our phones.
I was alarmed to realise, on removing my boots, that a big toe nail had come loose. I didn't even realised toe nails could do this! B, who has a medical degree, was quite blasé about this and said it would probably just get pulled off at some point and then regrow. 24 hours later, I can report that having wrapped it up in one of the large number of Compeed plasters I was carrying with me (along with another toe which, on closer inspection, appeared to be suffering from the same fate) and abandoned the practice drilled into me since childhood of wearing two pairs of socks inside walking boots, that everything still seems to be in the right place. In fact, dropping the second pair of socks has made walking a whole load more comfortable in general. I had been coming to the sad conclusion that my new boots (recommended by the deputy head of department) were a little on the small side - despite leaving my feet a lot less sore at the end of the day than my previous boots. However they are obviously fine if not double-socked. My feet are currently a bit of a mess of blisters and floating toe nails - but actually not that painful. That said, B managed to stand on my big toe (yes the one with the loose toenail) when I took my shoes off at supper and I've not taken my socks of since to inspect.
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Thank you for sharing!
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I imagine there will be reckoning when all the plasters come off - but at the moment I'm living in blissful denial.
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