Oh September! Why are you always so full of so many good things? I keep thinking I will have time to blog and then, something else comes up. You'll be able to see what we've been up to this month tomorrow when I write my "What's Up Wednesday" post but, for today, I'm writing about the remainder of my and Dave's eight day hiking trip in Scotland this past summer. For those of you just tuning in, I wrote about our first day, which we spent in Glasgow, here, and about the first part of our 96 mile walk, here.
So when I last left you, we had just reached the halfway point of our walk on Day 4. This was the day we discovered we could walk around 20 kilometres (about 13 miles) with no clear lunch plan! We'd thought we would grab a quick lunch in a little town, which we thought was along the way. However, it became clear that rain was coming and that the little town was actually about an hour detour off the path. So we ate some protein bars, some apples, and some trail mix we had in our backpacks, and just kept going.
I loved this bridge we got to walk under.
Our views were incredible this day (as they were most of time, to be honest), and while it's laughable now, I took the picture on the right to show "how muddy my shoes were."
I love this picture of me walking up a hill through heather.
The next day was one of our shorter days -- we only had about three hours of hiking. The signpost on the left is an example of how we found our way. The thistle symbol told us which direction to go, or let us know we were still on the right path. As I've mentioned before, the entire walk was very well laid out and we only took a slightly wrong turn once, on the first day, and very quickly realized our mistake. The Scots Rail train passed us as we walked, and again, this will have significance later in our trip!
I loved seeing all the foxglove blooming on the highlands -- so pretty! And this day we got rained on for about an hour. We thought we were pretty wet!!!
Our "short" day ended around 12:30 and we were staying at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel. It was a lovely spot, and right before supper, we walked down to the actual Bridge of Orchy. Our hotel is the huge white building in the background of the picture on the right. It was nice to have an afternoon off to nap, read, and just relax. We enjoyed a fancier dinner this night too. I had mussels and Dave had haggis.
Still fascinated by the heather!
This was the day we walked on the old military road across Rannoch Moor. It was also quite wet this day and by the end of the military road our feet hurt from walking on the hard, sharp rocks. Everyone we talked to this night said how hard the rocks were on their feet.
The moor was incredible though, and so very desolate.
Again, this was a shorter, rainy day so we had time to relax in the afternoon. We enjoyed an afternoon tea with scones and they were delicious!!!
Dave and I stayed in the bunkhouse, which was way cheaper than the hotel, but our accommodations made us laugh. They were very spartan! I had the lower bunk and Dave had the upper one. We had shared bathrooms, which we knew about, and this was the most "hostel like" place we stayed. I enjoyed hot lentil soup for supper while watching the rain fall.
We knew the next day was going to be quite rainy, but thought if we got a later start, we might avoid the worst of it. Spoiler alert: we were wrong. It poured down rain for about five hours straight and I have
never been so wet in my entire life. It was so wet, I just started laughing. This was one of the days which Dave found harder though as it was very wet and windy. And we had to climb the Devil's Staircase (which you can read about
here. Note: We had absolutely
no views this day as it was so rainy and cloudy.) At one point we had to cross a waterfall on the rocks and there was no way anyone's feet were staying dry! I got Dave to take a picture of me beside this rushing stream which also soaked our feet. That's the picture on the right.
This was the day I barely ate anything during our five hour hike because it wouldn't have stayed dry. Dave managed to eat a chocolate bar as we walked. At one point the rain was dripping into my eyes so badly, I feared I would lose a contact so I kept wiping the water out of my eyes which really hampered my walking.
We survived this day and it was the only day my feet didn't hurt by the end of the day because they were so wet and cold, I couldn't feel them! Hahaha! Also, the picture of my muddy shoes from Day 4 makes me laugh so hard now because my shoes got much much wetter and muddier this day.
After all the rain, I definitely enjoyed the selection of local gin at our stop for the night! I was also excited to see the map which showed how far we had walked, and I was astounded by the sun shining over the mountains at dinner. We had no idea what the views were as we walked because it was so rainy for most of the day.
We woke up early on our last day of walking and, honestly, this day was filled with so much nostalgia. "Get a picture of this because it might be the last one we see." "Do you remember on Day 1 when...?" At first, we had thought this would be the hardest day because it was 15 miles (24 km) with no services -- no bathrooms, nowhere to get water or buy food -- nothing between Kinlochleven and Fort William. But honestly, the day went so fast. We took two or three short-ish snack breaks and we were fine.
How can we be almost done this great adventure?!?!?
Some people have asked if it really was as empty as it looked. Some parts of the walk were definitely more crowded like Conic Hill, the Devil's Staircase, around lunch stops, and in and out of towns in the mornings and at night. However, for many parts of the walk it was just Dave and I. We definitely felt like we had the space to take pictures without other people hovering nearby and could talk without being overheard. However, we also felt like if we ever did run into trouble, someone would come across us within half an hour or less. We got to know people at the overnight stops and then we would pass each other the next day as we stopped for lunch or they stopped for a break. So it felt very friendly, but also private, if that makes sense.
Looking down on Fort William, where the walk ended.
The West Highland Way used to end a little before Fort William but now the official end is The Sore Foot Statue in the middle of town. We bought ourselves some finisher's medals and celebrated our accomplishment at the statue!!!
My FitBit stats from the week of walking, not including the last two days of the way. (167 kilometres is about 104 miles.)
We stayed overnight in Fort William and the next day, we took a four hour train ride back to Glasgow. The views of Scotland weren't near as impressive from the train -- hahahaha! Also, remember when I talked about seeing the train as we walked? Well, in the picture on the right, in the middle right, you can see some West Highland Way walkers from the train!
Arriving at the Glasgow train station. We stayed in a hotel near the airport, and the next day we said...
...Farewell to Scotland.
We are so thankful we had this opportunity, stayed healthy while we were walking, and had great people/camps for the kids to be with/at. This was a once in a lifetime trip and Dave and I still can't quite believe we did it!!!
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