West Highland Way - Day 1

Sunday 4 June was to be the first day for Jen and I of walking the West Highland Way (WHW). After 3 days in and around Glasgow we were familiar with the various forms of transport and knew our way around Central Station.

After packing the final items into out suitcases and ourbackpacks we heded for the station. The forecast indicated that there could be rain and there was certainly enough gray cloud around to support that forecast.

Our train to Milngavie (pronounced Mul-guy by the locals) left at 9:04am so it was a fairly leisurely start to the day. While waiting for the train we chatted to a pair of Canadian sisters who were also about to walk the WHW.

Right on time we arrived in Milngavie and were please to see the Go Haggis van (Go Haggis were doing out baggage transfers) and we handed over our cases and headed off into the centre of town (or is it actually a village?) and the start of the WHW.

Not knowing when our next pit stop would be we availed ourselves of a cup of coffee before commencing the walk.

The start of the WHW is well signed.

Now it was on our way.

We were sharing the track with quite a few cyclists and an 8 mile Milngarvie  running event. There were also plenty of dog walkers and other out enjoying the day.

When I was doing my walk on Saturday I had seen shopping trollies is some odd places. Here is one we saw quite a distance from any easy access points:

So it would appear that Scottish shopping trollies are as wayward as ours!

We came across a heap of gates that we need to pass through.

There were some stunning views

There was evidence of stone walls from a bygone era. These are being replaced by more modern ones.

There were lots of plants in bloom including a heap of wild dutch irises

Originally we were to stop at Carbeth, a walk of a mere 8kms, however we had decided if we were going OK we would walk on to Drymen, where we were staying for our first two nights. The further 11 kms to Drymen would allow us to break our day 3 which was going to be a tough day with 24kms and quite a bit of climb as well as some difficult track.

So, on to Drymen it was.

We did have a break at the Glengoyne Distillery although we decided that we would not do their tour, which would have taken an hour.

To get to the distillery we had to cross the A81 which took a bit of time with cars whizzing past in both directions at speed.

The distances here are in miles. There are times that each half mile seemed to take forever. Somehow kilometres pass much more quickly than a half mile!

By the time we got into trudge mode we were pleasantly surprised by our first sighting of Loch Lomond.

We were pleased to see the welcome sign at the entry to Drymen.

The weather had varied from overcast, with the odd spot to warn us that it might rain, to glorious sunshine.

All up we clocked up just on 20km.

Overall, it was a pleasant days walking through pretty countryside.