Day 5: From Inverarnan, by way of Crianlarich to Tyndrum

This was the last day that I slowed down Debbie's morning progress. Not that I got any better—oh no! But after today (or maybe tomorrow, depending how you count it) it was no longer practical for me to join her in the mornings, because there were no longer convenient spots early on in the day where I could call it quits. As you get deeper into the Scottish Highlands, the scenery gets ever more spectacular but human habitation becomes correspondingly sparser.

The halfway point in today's hike was the village of Crianlarich. We got there in the early afternoon—not really lunchtime any more, but we found one place in town that was still serving lunch. After we ate, Debbie went on her way leaving me to figure out how to get to Tyndrum. Oh, … also Debbie asked me if I could buy her a knee brace, as she was having trouble with one knee.

First I checked the train station. When I climbed up onto the platform, there was a train sitting there with its doors open and a long beep sounding to indicate that they were about to close. I couldn't tell which direction it was going and I had no idea whether there was even a train from Crianlarich that stopped at Tyndrum in the first place. So I stayed on the platform and looked for schedule information. What I learned is that the train I had seen (which had just left by the time I found a posted schedule) did indeed stop at Tyndrum as its very next stop, and the next one would be something like five hours later.

Then I looked for busses, and found I had just missed that one too, though the next one would come along a little sooner than the next train. Sigh. So finally I went to find a knee brace, and found one in the nearest convenience store. (The convenience stores near you might not stock knee braces, but convenience stores along the West Highland Way stock a lot of things that hikers need.) So that was two strikes and one hit. Oh well. I settled down by the bus stop and waited.

Something else interesting happened right about this day. My phone stopped displaying a keyboard, which means that I had no way to type in a password to unlock it. In other words, my phone became suddenly almost useless. I could still use it to tell time, and it would still receive incoming calls. But I could no longer use it for outgoing calls, text messages (incoming or outgoing), or email. Actually strictly speaking I think that might have happened the day before, because Debbie lent me her iPad so I could still access my email. That lasted for a day, until my email accounts (both of them) suddenly said, "You are connecting from a different machine than usual. Let's send a text message to your phone to make sure it's you." Since I couldn't read text messages on my phone, I couldn't log into my email. Anyway, when I look in my Sent Mail folder I see that today—April 21—is the last day before I got home that I sent any email to anyone. So this must have been the day that my email seized up on me.

As a totally unrelated coincidence, April 21 is also the day Mercury went retrograde. Mercury is supposed to control communications. Also travel (and notice that this day I just missed both the train and the bus). But that's all a coincidence, right?

In the end, we both got to Tyndrum. I checked us into our hotel and retrieved our luggage. And we found a nearby restaurant (the nearest, in fact) which offered not only a full gluten-free menu (good for Debbie) but gluten-free fish-and-chips. Debbie remarked that she had not been able to have fish-and-chips since she was diagnosed with celiac disease many years ago. So we ate there, and Debbie had fish-and-chips. And there was much rejoicing.