Another beautiful day in Scotland, a few showers this morning and another one in my final stretch off the trail up to the B&B I am booked at tonight. Speaking of that B&B, it is 3 kilometers off the trail and uphill all the way as it is inland from the Loch (lake) that I have been walking along for the last couple of days. When I got to the B&B, an elderly lady checked me in by relaying all the rules, then her helper showed me my room, 3rd floor attic room, literally, it has a spiral staircase. Once in the room, I have about 3 feet in the middle I can stand up straight within, the rest is a slopping roof line. I have no internet tonight, so this won’t get posted till tomorrow. This was a nice place to stay, just really limited head space. This was probably the best sleep I have had on the trip.
Today’s hike was fun, basically close to the Loch Lomond shoreline, but in the hills beside it. Today had a ton of quick ups and downs, the challenge was that most of today was a single track trail, just enough room for one person. Also, fairly rough, the ups were rocky and the downs were also rocky. Rocks, when wet and muddy scare me, So at least on the downs, I went pretty slow, as did most everyone. Did I slip on any of the rocks, NO, but I almost took a tumble on a wet root that was large and nowhere else to step. Today was fun, a little challenging and pretty good weather.
I didn’t leave Rowerdennan until 9:30 as I couldn’t check into the B&B until 16:00 (4:00pm normal time). I got to Inversnaid, the stopping point about 1:30 and had a 2 hour lunch overlooking the Loch. There were fewer people on the trail and they seemed pretty spread out. Once I reached the lunch spot there were a bunch of hikers, some sitting around the bar/lunch room, a bunch in the room I was in, they call it the hiker’s room, it had 6 rows of long tables and barstools and also some outdoor tables. The lunch stop was the Inversnaid Hotel and it directs all hikers entering to leave their packs in a pack room and also remove their hiking shoes/boots and put them on racks in the pack room. As you can imagine the pack room was a mess……..It is polite for all hikers to never were their shoes into a house, hotel or inn unless the host says it is ok. You can image what mess those boots carry on them.
Many times on the trail, it is a nice time to sit and eat a long lunch. The view I had today was fantastic, the meal was good and the company was varied but fun. About 2:30, the hikers all left to go to their hotels or back to the trail. That gave me about an hour and a half to just read a book, not a physical book, but and electronic book. It reminds me that we all should read books every so often, there are some great stories that are written and just waiting to make our day.
Joshua 5:15 (but we are not on Holy Land, but we are on land the God created)
Quote – Unknown: “Dirt is just your shoes’ way of saying they had fun!”
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