Who needs Nessie?

So we were wondering, if there is a monster in Loch Lomond as well? It seems to be big enough since we’ve been walking along the shores for quite a while now.

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After a nice and quiet night at the Rowardennan youth hostel we got up to greyness and lots of rain. Since we didn’t need to cover too many kilometers on Thursday we were very lazy and didn’t leave our dry place until about noon. And we were lucky as it had stopped raining just before. It got even better as the train clouds moved on an the sun came out again.

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In the evening we found a nice spot at the lake side which was perfect for our first night of camping out in the wild. This was where we found the first evidence for the monster – lots of garbage everywhere. It must be throwing wild parties here every night. Let’s hope it’s not coming tonight! We cleaned up a little bit while Eric was preparing a campfire to cook our dinner. Somehow it took much longer than expected and we got to bed quite late.

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The night was rough – stormy and lots of rain, which continued most of Friday. After packing up in the pouring rain, we continued with our hike. Most of the trails had turned into rivers, and fields into swamps (and our shoes into sponges). At some point we lost the track and walked parallel because we couldn’t find it anymore.

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And then we got to the Drovers Inn. It’s the oldest Scottish pub (from 1705) and apparently it has been voted the best pub in GB from 1989-2011. Of course it’s well known among the hikers as well – the French people had told us about it. And here is where we got the definite proof for our monster: They have caught it and are selling the meat as “Loch Lomond monster burger”. It’s name is “Angus”, as mentioned on the menu. And it makes the best burger we’ve had for quite a while!

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A walk in the park

The day started out great. Usually I’m not a fan of oatmeal, but it was the only feasible option to take for breakfast. But what made it much better was the fact that we found a ton of blackberries just outside the campground. So we ended up making a delicious blackberry sauce.

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The next part of the hike led us to the real Highlands, partly protected by a national park in this area up to Rowardennan. After walking through a mountainous plateau we passed (and climbed) Conic Hill. It’s part of the continental fault line. Back in the days Scotland used to be part of the American continent. Back in those days the mountains in the Highlands were supposedly as tall as the Himalayas today. Wind, sun and enormous glaciers slowly eroded them to what can be climbed today.

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In Balmaha we had planned to do a little boat tour on Loch Lomond, but it was not operating today (or at all?). Instead were relaxing a bit at the shores of the lake before setting up our tent a few kilometers down the road at Cashel Campsite. Of course we met some of the people from yesterday. And we seized the opportunity of the last rays of sunshine to take a quick and quite refreshing bath in the lake. Of course we jumped right under the hot shower once we got out of the water.

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On Wednesday it was planned to be a short hike to Rowardennan. We wanted to keep our energy for the climb of Ben Lomond, the southernmost munro (mountain over 3000 ft) in Scotland. It has an ascend of about 800 m for a round trip of about 7 km. To tackle this, we left our backpacks at the youth hostel (our bed for the night) and went onwards. Without the weight of the backpacks it felt like a walk in the park.

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Contrary to the common route we chose to hike it clockwise to have the steep ascend going up and the moderate incline the way back down. It was definitely worth it, even though we met everyone climbing the mountain as they were coming from in front. It was also really easy to distinguish between tourists and real Scotsmen, because the later ones were only wearing a t-shirt with (mostly) constant winds of a magnitude of (I would guess) 7 Bft or more. We were really glad to have our thick sweaters and wind jackets with us…

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Dry men in Drymen

After Benno arrived on Sunday we went shopping for the next few days. And where do the locals go for shopping? Right, to Aldi. 🙂 Back at our AirBnb place we distributed everything – the full cart had been more than 12 kg! And yes, that’s without packaging (but no glass containers and just one little can of tuna). Let’s see how far we can get on this alone!

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On Monday we started out quite early. Unfortunately we had to learn that it’s not possible to buy alcohol before 10 a.m. Our plan was to get a little bit of whisky to fill our newly acquired flasks. We boarded the train without any alcohol. 25 mins later we found ourselves in Milngavie (pronounced like “Mulgey”, wherever that comes from). This is where the West Highland Way (WHW) starts.

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Our backs were still in place and our feet fresh. We were highly motivated. The WHW starts slowly with a long stretch through the woods. Along the way we found more people who were heading in the same direction as us. As previously in Australia and New Zealand, most of them were Germans. It seems like they’re everywhere! With three of them we went on a tour of the Glengoyne Distillery. However most of their whiskys are out of our price range for this trip (mostly because the taxes on alcohol are much higher over here). We did end up buying 200 ml of single malt whisky. The “single” indicates that it has been produced by only one distillery.

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In the evening we set up our tent close to Drymen (say “Drimin”), at a little farm. Once again, most people there were Germans. The three of us were still dry men, compared to the three French guys, who emptied a whole bottle of whisky that evening – they were celebrating the end of their tour, as they were doing the WHW the other way around. They were also quite helpful and gave us some tips for the tour.

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Gaelic or Ghoulish?

Our next stop was Glasgow. We had decided to take a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around the city. Luckily our next AirBnb host is living close to the science center, one of the bus stops. However, the bus was really full so we had to take our heavy backpacks on our laps and weren’t able to see much on the first ride.
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As we got off the bus we saw more and more houses with Scottish, English or British flags, saying “YES” or “NO” in big letters. It’s part of the Scottish vote for independence, which will take place in September. It’s quite interesting that lots of people openly declare their opinion like that. Especially if your neighbor has a different opinion…
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We dropped off our bags and headed back to the bus to have a look at the botanical gardens, the university and the Kelvingrove art gallery (the latter two just from the outside). By the time we got back downtown there were only two buses left for the day and we hadn’t even had the chance to get to see the other side of the city.
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Additionally we found a great guiding channel on the bus – “Ghoulish Glasgow”, which we thought was the tour in old Scottish language (Gaelic). But it turned out to be ghost stories of Glasgow, told by two ghosts living at the bus terminal. We thought that was pretty funny and stayed on the bus for another full tour. By the end we even had goose bumps, but that might have been due to the reason that we were sitting on the open top deck of the bus with the wind blowing quite cold.
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At the end of the tour we hustled to the Necropolis (we didn’t have enough of ghosts yet) to get a nice view of the sunset, which was indeed beautiful to look at. With the cathedral being closed for the day we walked back downtown to look for a pub.
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I chose the bar by it’s name – Ben Lomond – as we won’t be climbing Scotland’s highest mountain. It ended up – by chance – being the one and only bar that Eric had been at 11 years ago… It was full of locals. We sat at a table with a middle-aged couple, where the guy was already super drunk and urged us to have 1 and 1/2 of his drinks that he wouldn’t be able to finish anymore. We tried talking to him, but we didn’t understand anything. As he was trying to communicate with his other neighbor she asked: “Do you come with subtitles? Because I have no idea what you’re saying… ”
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Edinburgh – where Scotland meets the world

Welcome to another trip of mine :). This time I’ll be in Scotland, as you might have guessed. I didn’t do much research on this trip, but I’m already liking it a lot. Let’s start with the airport – I was flying on my own, Benno and Eric are joining me later. But of course I wasn’t all alone and apparently summer was flying with me, because there was someone waiting for summer. As I was heading to the bus station the guy had vanished, so I assume summer has arrived. Sounds promising!
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Once in Edinburgh it was quite easy to find Anissa’s apartment. Since there were only numbers on the door bells, I rang a few to get into the house. The first apartment didn’t know her, but I was lucky and shortly after a friend of hers came to let me into the apartment. It was really big and clean. Anissa arrived ten minutes later. She is French and best of all, she works at a bakery. She managed to find a map of Edimbourg – that sounds familiar. Although my French is limited, I was able to make out the most important informations. 🙂
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I left the apartment shortly after and headed for George Square, where a festival was taking place. I was getting quite hungry, and here is where Anissa and the bakery were very handy: Free sandwich and free strawberry tartlets. And latter ones are really amazing! (With vanilla pudding, pistachios and a tiny piece of chocolate!)
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At the festival I was greeted with a remix of “500 miles”, which was turned into “500 kilometers”. Very fitting for our trip, but still three times as much as we’re planning on doing. The strange thing at the festival was that you had to pay to enter through the side entrance, but the main gate was for free… Of course that’s what I did. Inside there were quite a few people. Some tents were set up for several shows, most of them were with admission. One tent though offered free 20 minute shows. The first one I watched was “Russia’s best kept secret” – a girl named California doing hula hoops with 15 or more hula hoops, pretty impressive!
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But afterwards it got even better – it was time for Charlie Caper, a Swedish magician, who won the silver medal at a worldwide magic competition. He performed some really cool tricks, like turning a 5£ bill into a 10£ bill or putting little balls under a glass cup or refilling an empty can of coke. They were definitely much better than they sound in writing!
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Unfortunately it started raining during his show. It didn’t matter during the show, because it was inside, but it didn’t stop raining until I got back to the apartment. And Scottish rain is the worst – it’s falling as quiet as snow, but you get as wet as if you went swimming with your clothes on… Fortunately everything dried over night 🙂 . By the time that Eric arrived at the apartment it had stopped again, but at 23:30 neither of us felt like going out again tonight, especially because we booked an early bus to Glasgow for tomorrow.