Day 8: Rest day in Glencoe

This was our "rest day." But we didn't just hang out doing nothing. We took the bus from our hotel into Glencoe Village and walked around. There was a museum but it was closed that day. But we were able to buy some art and souvenirs. Debbie visited a yarn store that was attached to a café. I waited outside while she was buying yarn, but then joined her in the café for lunch. After lunch we took the bus back to our hotel, napped for a while, and then had dinner and repacked for the next day.

          

Day 7: Arriving in Glencoe and Ballachulish

This morning we had one last breakfast at The Real Food Café, and then waited for the taxi. Debbie had called them the night before to clarify the instructions: the driver was to take her to the Inveroran Hotel, and then was to take me straight on to the Glencoe Ski Center. The former was covered under our package deal with the travel agency; the latter required me to pay him in cash for the extra miles. But the Glencoe Ski Center was our planned terminus for that day. From there, our itinerary said that another taxi would drive us to the Ballachulish Hotel for the night. Two nights, in fact: when the agency first planned our trip and we asked for something more leisurely, they gave us a rest day in Ballachulish.

Day 6: More hiking and a GREAT conversation in a pub

The plan for today was to hike from Tyndrum to the Bridge of Orchy, and then take a taxi back to spend a second night in Tyndrum (since all the accommodations in Bridge of Orchy were already full).

The hike wasn't difficult, not the way Day 2 or Day 4 had been. Mostly the route followed an old military road from a couple of centuries before, so it was rocky and closed to cars but pretty much straightforward. But my feet still hurt from the day before, and after an hour I told Debbie I was giving up and going back to the hotel. (Of course the walk back took another hour.) The first thing I did when I got back was to take a nap. After that, I know I spent part of my day writing up notes on the trip so far. I forget if I ever bothered to get lunch.

Debbie called me early in the afternoon to say that she had already reached the Bridge of Orchy, and didn't really feel like sitting around for a few hours until the taxi was scheduled to pick her up. So she hiked on another two miles from the Bridge of Orchy as far as the Inveroran Hotel. Then she called the taxi company to let them know where she was, and to ask for a ride back to Tyndrum whenever it would be convenient.

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.

Day 4: From Rowardennan to Inverarnan and a haunted inn

After breakfast, a taxi took us and several other hikers to Rowardennan. On the way a conversation picked up, with the result that Debbie exchanged email addresses with one of the other women, and they each promised to visit the other at home sometime in the future. (To be clear, the other woman was English. Debbie, of course, is American.) Once we got to Rowardennan, we set off.

The route to Inverarnan hit a halfway point at the village of Inversnaid. And our hiking instructions stated clearly that there are two routes between Rowardennan and Inversnaid: an easy one that follows the road, and a hard one (but much more scenic!) that closely follows the shore of Loch Lomond. After my experience on Day 2, Debbie and I agreed we would take the easy way. But we never saw the road branch, and finally we deduced that we were taking the hard way. It really was profoundly beautiful; but it also meant that we were clambering over tree roots and crossing large rocks that had pre-empted the path. My progress was not fast.

Day 3: Debbie walks to Rowardennan

This day is a lot briefer to describe. After breakfast, Debbie walked to Rowardennan, and got there in the early afternoon. I stayed in Balmaha and rested my aching feet. I sat in the park by a statue of Tom Weir, wrote for a while, and decided to stay for the rest of the trip using the half-and-half approach Debbie had suggested the previous night. Debbie caught a taxi back to Balmaha and we spent the night there again. 

      

Day 2: From Drymen to Balmaha, by way of Conic Hill. Hosea breaks down.

We had breakfast at the Drymen Inn, around the corner from our B&B. I didn't understand the menu (that we were entitled to a large, hearty breakfast) and in any event didn't feel very hungry, so I ate lightly. (Spoiler alert: this was the wrong choice.) Then after we checked out of our B&B, we set off. 

The first couple of hours were pretty easy, and then we came to a fork in the Way. One branch went pretty directly to Balmaha (our next destination) by the easiest and most expeditious route. The other branch was described as "more challenging but more rewarding" and took the long way around, gaining a good bit more altitude and circling Conic Hill, but rewarding the hiker with tremendous views. Debbie definitely wanted to take the longer route, though she was solicitous of my well-being. I had already figured out that I was a lot slower than Debbie would be on her own, but I was still laboring under the delusion that slowness was my only problem. I thought to myself, Hey, I ran cross-country in high school and I put up with Wife for thirty years, so I can handle anything if you only give me enough time. Looking at the mileage we calculated that even in the worst possible case we'd still get to the hotel before dark, and so we took the second fork.