Monday 27 July 2015

The West Highland Way, Scotland


The West Highland Way, Scotland 

Arriving to Glasgow by plan it was impossible to bring a gas canister with me, outdoors shop close earlier in Sunday so I had to go to a Tescos and buy a can of red bull and nail polishing to have a hot dinner. Even in train station doesn't sell disinfection alcohol because is flammable.

The starter was already raining, great ,  just start walking in the rain, leaving this Milngavie town.  Quickly I started to see some red deer here and there, pass a few lakes and had my few encounter in the midges, midges are like mosquitos, and are terrible in Scotland , never stop.
I just walk a few miles and camped in a nice place in the side of the trail , here more midges but with a great view. I thought it would get dark around 10.30 but it never get dark in Scotland. It just get into dusk around
11.30 until 3.30 . Not really need a headlamp. it is like a super full moon.



Next day some side road walk and get into this Iconic Hill where you have a great view of all the Lomon Lake with all its Island. Luckily is sunny, I realize that the resupply in this trail is pub to pub, I don't need more than 1 day of food and half liter of water, water all over.  This first part of the lake has camping restriction so I have to puss to leave this area and be able to camp.  I saw a car nearly falling from a cliff  not sure how driver put car over there , rescue team is on the way.
  
People carry super heavy bags.......not much sense of ultralight etc.........I had to camp just after the  camp restriction in the side of the trail.  This area could be quite cool to hike around and camp on the beach of the leak, very nice.  There is a water bus boat  running around the lake.

difficult terrain by lake Lomon
Second day started flat, there is quite a lot of dirty road walking , not much trail, dirty walk is easy because you do big mileage but really..... It got into a difficult area, up and downs by the lake, it pass by Rob Roy cave..where he used to hide. I saw people doing this area by bike. They have just to take the bike and carry it in the back, impossible to ride this area. The rest of the day has been quite a lot of walk close to the road, not very good really. you can see a lot of developments around. They are destroying the mountains....... I saw quite a lot of tree recovery plans around to bring back the oak and pines to the region.

campsite in the valley 
At the end I camped in the top of a hill, In a farm land. while cooking I did a time lapse , see below. I am now half way of the way but it would start raining from tonight.