It was lovely when we started this morning, but got quite hard when we hit Loch Lomond. When I hit the ground on the very steep shore of Loch Lomond, that felt harder still. The route around Inversnaid is 100% not flat and there are definitely some bits that should come with a nearby first aid kit, specifically the twisty root/slippy rock combo I tripped over. This could be a national service, like a defibrillator booth everywhere else, but just for stupid hikers who haven’t brought their own first aid kit. Injuries sustained:

• One skinned little finger. I stemmed the bleeding with the breakfast napkin that previously held two tiny pain au chocolats.
• One skinned knee, held intact by Sweaty Betty’s houndstooth leggings that I am gutted have a hole in now.
• Scratched glasses, more of a financial rather than physical injury I suspect, for when I get home.
• Bump on the head, tiny, not even broken the skin, Mark not in the least bit impressed, no sharp intake of breath.
• Bruised ego – huge. Coupled with logical understanding of how a centre of gravity works, but unable to prevent a backpack from taking me down quite so effectively at the tiniest twisty root/slippy rock combo.

Let’s backtrack though. This morning was gorgeous, a proper Trossach National Park view: rolling hills, stone walls, a tiny isolated house by a group of pine trees and clear skies. Gorgeous.

It was a bit like a gorgeous, proper Glencoe view but landscape rather than portrait in nature, because Glencoe has taller hills.

 

We walked up what we thought were steep bits and across bridges we thought looked tricky, we even saw a real live bothy, so we felt very much the proper explorers.

When Loch Lomond opened up in front of us it was all good, especially with Mark singing the hauntingly beautiful “Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.”

We briefly forgot that Scotland is trying to kill us and I thought that checking Mark’s legs for ticks would be the hardest thing I would have to do all day.

Then I tripped and fell.

Most of the bits of the route I could trip and fall on I was clutching a tree or very solid rock for dear life, not my camera, so I can’t show you what these dangerous bits looked like. The photos below are the bits that looked “OK” by Scotland-is-trying-to-kill-us standards.

3km from our hotel for the night, the path levelled out to the usual calming pine tree forest pathway we’re used to, probably because the trees aren’t native to Scotland so aren’t trying to kill us. 

Thankfully we are now installed in the Rowardennan Hotel, purveyors of everything I need, including a cloudy eclipse.

Before I leave you for the day, some of you may be thinking, “why didn’t you just use walking poles?”

STOP RIGHT THERE.

The right answer is simply, no.  We’ve narrowly escaped death by random walker coming in the opposite direction carrying poles they’re not using and we’ve had a lengthy discussion about this. Poles redistribute your weight very, very slightly, especially when going downhill, in favour of your upper, rather than lower body. However, you can’t eat snacks and you have to look like an idiot all day, walking with poles on either level ground where you don’t need them, or slippy stones where they would also, slip.

Mark even consulted AI to check the value of using walking poles and Gemini agreed that it would not use poles at all as they were solving for a problem most people don’t have. I pointed out that Gemini was a piece of software and was ill equipped to tell us that it wouldn’t bother using poles while hiking. Gemini agreed again, noting that indeed, it was just software on a server somewhere, but also said that if it was able to magically grow legs and join us, it still wouldn’t use walking poles. So, no.

Distance – 35.72km, NOT, 33.4km as originally promised by Strava, because as Mark said, “Strava doesn’t count all the little wiggles up and down”. Thanks Strava.