The West Highland Way

Sunday 24^th Scotland

Margot and I drove up to Richard and Rosies’s ‘hut’ just north of Glasgow just getting there in the daylight. Hut doesn’t quite do it justice, with hot showers and central heating.

Its located a mile or so from the West Highland Way and Monday, after a morning run along the West Highland Way, we donned our walking boots and headed down to the Country Park in a northerly gale with horizontal rain pushing us southwards towards Mugdock Wood, and the Country Park  with its strange ruined castle. Parts of the original castle still stand but the Victorian mansion that was built in its heart is now gone except for an old cast iron stove standing isolated in the rain.  Fortunately while the old Craigallian House is also in ruins the Stables remain with a good coffee shop to warm us up.

Tuesday morning, we went into Glasgow to meet Rahab at the station. We visited the Museum of Modern Art first but just had time for a cup of tea and a quick look at the exhibition before getting turfed out when  the fire alarms went off. After meeting Rahab we went up to the Willow café with its Rene Mackintosh décor for tea before heading off to the hut.

Our aim was to give Rahab a potted tour of Scotland so Wednesday we drove up past Loch Lomond, to Inverary where we saw Para Handy’s boat the Vital Spark and Neil Munro’s birthplace, shown around by a self-appointed guide – a coach driver with nothing better to do whilel waiting for his passengers to come out of their meeting. From Lock Fyne (named after a fish restaurant in York it seems) we headed on to Glencoe, stopping for a picnic lunch by the river at Inverlochrie.

Glencoe was as forbidding as ever and we stopped at the visitor centre to learn the truth about the massacre (it was the English behind it all of course), after which down to Loch Leven to see the burial island and a last walk before it got dark.

The following day we went to Stirling, by way of Lock Katrine, to see the Wallace Monument and the Castle, taking in the Falkirk wheel on the way back.

Our last day was a visit to Edinburgh. We parked at Alec’s where we met Chris and Noah before catching the bus into town. We walked along Princes Street, admiring the tram tracks along the way, then up the Mound and the Royal Mile to the Castle where they were dismantling the stands for the Tattoo. We took in the refurbished Museum of Scotland before ending with tea at the Elephant House surrounded by Harry Potter fans.

We were very lucky through the week with changeable weather but our walks seemed to coincide with the breaks in the clouds. Not so on the way south with foul weather warnings proving true through the Lakes. We dropped Rahab off in Leeds – I think she was impressed by Scotland.

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