Sue had weaned me off the deadly dangers of the Full Scottish Breakfast, and I had settled into a nice routine of muesli, prunes, toast, and poached eggs.
The weather was gorgeous again: clouds and sun, cool, crisp, and perfect for walking.
No more than a mile from the hotel we discovered a gorgeous site for a wild camp alongside the lake, with a field of blue bells above and wonderful vistas to the other shore. If we had only known!
As the guidebooks had warned, the next four miles were very strenuous walking alongside the Loch. But the whole stretch was gloriously beautiful.
We passed “Rob Roy’s Cave,” an alleged hideout of the outlaw Rob Roy McGregor.
When we emerged onto a little beach about a half mile past Doune Bothy, we found another party sprawled out and relaxing; and we were soon joined by two more groups.
These four groups together was the biggest concentration of walkers we saw for the entire trip.
The flatlands behind the beach signaled the end of Loch Lomond for us.
We were soon walking up alongside Cnap Mor, a prominent crag that overlooks the northern end of the lake.
The trail wound its way over the fell and beside a small tarn, Dubh Lochan, and then kept to the heights in oak forests as the valley fell away. We had left Glenn Lomond and were about to descend into Glen Falloch. The pleasant descent through the woods finally brought us to Beinglas Farm, a farm that caters to walkers and offers not only campsites but wigwams, motel rooms, and food and drink.The soup was quite good, and pretty restorative, because the morning beside the Loch had taken it out of my legs. I stretched out on a bench in the sun and dozed for a good half hour before we started off again.
The walking through Glen Falloch wasn’t memorable. It was our first encounter with a military road, and the rather monotonous character of the wide path did little to relive the rather ordinary landscape of a river valley. When we reached the farm of Darrydaroch, we encountered the farmer leading a fairly crazed border collie toward the pasture.
After this, the walking improved greatly: we crossed first the river and then a major road and ascended onto the heights along the river’s left bank.
Here, moorlands soon gave way to a large and beautiful highland sheep farm, Keilator, bounded by an ancient six-foot wall that was an object of intense fascination for Sue.
We felt now that we had properly arrived in the Highlands.
We hadn’t yet learned of the clearances, and concluded that the land was too rugged and the soil too poor to sustain any more than these isolated, widely spaced habitations: it was interesting that every map gives the name of every farm.
Here, too, we encountered the fate of the working dog: the collies are kept in open kennels outside, and released only to work.
The wall eventually turned down into the valley as we continued to rise toward a low pass in the ridge that closed the glen; there we found a crossroads, with the lefthand path, the Way itself, leading toward Tyndrum, and the righthand path taking us to our B&B in Chrianlarich. Our legs were pretty done in by 13 miles of mixed walking, and we were dismayed to find that the path led steeply down to the village.
We did manage to survive, and, as we entered the village, we encountered our Czech friends, who had been the only people we had seen after Beinglas Farm. They had hoped to stay at the Hostel, but there was room only for women. We took them along to our B&B, Glenardran House, and they got the last room–which was obviously much more than they had hoped to pay. The landlady was rather distant at first, but gradually warmed up. And the room was just fine–though the bed was pretty lumpy. We had a nice view up the hill and it was very quiet.
Crianlairich is the halfway point: 48 miles in, 48 to go.
Both of us were unusually tired and our legs seemed shot. It wasn’t a crisis, but doubts had crept into both our minds–brought on by less than inspiring scenery and the cumulative wear and tear of the walk. We talked briefly about coming back to finish another year, but quickly rejected the idea. After our usual restorative siesta, we decided to brave the pub, the Rod and Reel. The food was actually OK–I had fish and chips, and Sue had roast chicken–but the space itself had all the charm and character of Princeton’s late and unlamented Carousel Diner. I had no complaints about the Tennent Ale, though–but Sue suffered through yet another glass of wine from Chile or Austrailia or South Africa.