Tuesday dawned a bit brighter, with patches of blue sky among the clouds. I downed yet another Full Scottish Breakfast, or the parts of it that I could stomach, while Sue stuck to her high carb ingestion of every piece of bread she could find. We were soon involved in the daily ritual of packing our bags, which, especially for me, took some effort on days where we expected rain. My pack just held what I was carrying, which meant some stuffing and cramming to get everything under the pack liner. I have to say that the system of pack liner plus dry sacks for our down pieces worked beautifully–although the dry sacks were overkill, since the pack interiors never even got damp.
At the Spar Market, where we laid in supplies for our first camp dinner, we ran into the guy from the Inn again. We told him that we were taking the shortcut up the road rather than return to the Way itself, and he replied that this might be a good idea, since there were suggestions that forestry work had closed the Way near Drymen.
The road took us on a long uphill amid sheep farms, and we finaly rejoined the trail at the crest, which was also the entrance to the Queen Elizabeth Forest, which sounded very promising.
As we turned into the forest, a couple came up the Way carrying daypacks–and we would see them several times that day and the next, and then again at Bridge of Orchy. We stopped to make a few adjustments, and we were passed by the guy from Boston…and, still in the forest, we passed yet another couple with large packs who we would see several times again in the next two days. This confluence of four walking parties would be one of only two times when we were in close proximity to more than one party, the other being when we emerged from the tiring section along Loch Lomond north of Inversnaid, and four different groups sprawled along the little beach on the Loch.
We soon met yet another frequent companion on our walk: a large section of extraordinarily ugly clearcut forest. it turns out that the “Forestry Commission” is not at all concerned with preservation, but rather with tree farming. We were walking through the first of what would be many conifer plantations, and this, one of the two biggest we encountered (the other, ironically, was on our last day as we approached Ben Nevis), had just been harvested.
Playing leapfrog with the other groups of walkers, we soon had our first views onto southern Loch Lomond. We crossed a couple of small burns, passed through a kissing gate, and found ourselves on an extensive and very impressive open moorland that stretched far into the eastern distance. It was bordered on the far left corner by Conic Hill, our first major climb of the walk. As we walked around, making a huge loop to the right, we saw a farmer on a motorized tricycle working with two or three collies, moving his herd. The walk through the moorland was extraordinary, with a lovely stream below us and old stone walls all around.
We were soon heading up Conic Hill, a climb of almost 600 feet which proved to be pretty gradual.
Emerging near the summit, the views onto the Loch gradually opened up, and we stopped several times to enjoy and photograph.
The walk down was much steeper than the walk up, so we were soon in deep forest again and making our way to Balmaha.
The Oak Tree Inn was packed–as was the whole town, since the day had turned intermittently sunny, and the Loch beckoned. We sat at a table outside and were soon joined by a rather odd older gentleman. We soon knew more about him than we really wanted to know. He was a U. Chicago trained mathematician who was now teaching “computer programming” at a college in Illinois. He was very anxious about finding where the trail left Balmaha, since he had gotten lost on the walk to Drymen (!) and had ended up following a controlled access road for more than half the way there. We showed him where to go and assured him that he couldn’t go wrong, and off he went. We were in the meantime eating a pretty good and very large cheeseburger with chips, since we were going to eat a cold dinner that night, and we were joined by the guy we had first seen the day before and then several times today. His name was John, he had grown up in Montpelier, VT, and he spent every one of his vacations on a walking tour, either alone or occasionally with a friend. It turned out that we wouldn’t see him for several days. Like many walkers, he had hired a company to make his arrangements: not just baggage service, but the booking of rooms in inns. So he was actually stopping in Balmaha and sleeping at the Oak Tree Inn. This made for a very short, 7 mile day for him, and meant that he would take nine days to walk the whole path. We would see him again at King’s House.
We were soon walking under lovely, scudding clouds and sun on a lane along the shore of the lake.
A way sign with a thistle soon directed us to the right and sharply upward over a hill. At the top, probably 200 vertical feet later, the signs stopped. Some sadist had thought that the climb was worth the view, because the trail then plunged back to the lane no more than 300 yards further along! The rest of the day consisted of lane walking interspersed with beach walks through campsites and some woods walking as we crossed small ridges that ran into the lake.
As we headed uphill on one of the woodsy sections, we caught up with the mad scientist, who joined us and jabbered on, coherently but with very random connections between the sections of his story: a slender female friend, a walk through Glacier by himself with bear bells chiming, songs from Brigadoon! It spattered a bit of rain and he stopped to put on rain pants, and we pressed on–hurriedly, it must be admitted.
When we emerged onto the road at Cashel Farm, I had been invigorated by the thought of a cup of tea that had been marked on the map. We saw an older couple walking their dog down a country lane, and I stopped them to ask if there was a teahouse nearby–which there wasn’t. But we had a pleasant chat and were soon joined by the mad scientist and the couple we had first seen early in the day and then again over lunch in Balmaha. They were German, and she was a good bit older than the younger man with his hair bobbed in back–unclear whether a couple or a family. They were planning to wild camp, which I explained wasn’t possible until beyond Rowerdennan, if then, and they hurried off, never to be seen again. This would also be the last time we were to see the mad scientist, and that worries us to this day. He was staying “one mile north of Rowerdennan,” which we took to mean Ptarmigan Lodge, but we don’t know if he found it, or whether he finished, or….
We popped into the little store at the Cashel Camping and Caravan site in hope of finding a cuppa, but no joy. As we rounded the corner back onto the lane, the gentlemen with whom I had first spoken popped out of the wood and asked whether we would join him and his family at their camper for that cup of tea. Keith and Sue were from a village near Manchester; he was a retired builder. His son worked in the facilities department at the University of Manchster, while his daughter-in-law was a primary school teacher. Their two kids were delightful: they served cookies and cakes as we sipped tea in comfortable chairs under the awning of their RV. They couldn’t have been nicer, and the kindness of strangers couldn’t have been more welcome–especially since they were all Man U fans!
After an enormously pleasant hour, we put our rubber to the road and were soon doing our last climb of the day around a big crag overlooking the lake. This really gorgeous stretch of oak forest was our introduction to Sallochy Bay, which, as we descended, proved to be a series of primitive campsites strung along the shore of the Loch.
We picked a nice one, pitched our little tent for the first time…and had our first midge attack, which drove Sue into the tent and me behind my midge net which, in combination with some bug dope on the backs of my hands, worked pretty well. The wind soon came up, it began to turn chilly, and the midges disappeared, leaving us free to sit by the loch munching on local cheddar, crackers, apples, and chocolate. We fired up the Snow Peak, which was soon roaring merrily, and we had a very nice cup of Starbucks Italian Roast.
We hadn’t been careful about our pitch–it had been too long since I had tented–and we slid downhill as we slept, our heads crammed against the tub of our little tent. I had imagined that I would be too hot, and started out with the bag as a quilt, and with my vestibule open. But the night turned very cold, and I kept waking up to zip more of the bag. I never got completely warm, but was never so awake as to get out and zip the vestibule. So we both had a less than optimal night’s sleep. That aside, though, the tent is quite wonderful. Yes, it is just big enough for the two of us and not a bit more, but, when pitched right, it is completely dry, completely silent, and very well ventilated. I love it!