A question we have asked ourselves many times today, starting at breakfast, while staring at the eclectic decor in our hotel.

We were trying to shorten our route today to recover from yesterday’s technical climbing. A couple of guys at our hotel this morning, doing the West Highland Way south to north raved about Conic Hill and said that once you’d done the base you might as well carry on up to the top to enjoy the views. There were just two problems with that, 1. It was chucking it down, so the view of the clouds is pretty much the same at sea level and 2. They hadn’t done the treacherous path north of Inversnaid yet, and, as per my first point, our route did not need more elevation today.

So, we followed the B road slowly, for as much as possible today, and this picture tells you everything you need to know about how interesting our day was.

You’ve got to hand it to the Scots, back on the road and the waypoint markers were back too:

And it wasn’t all terrible, we did get a few brief glimpses of Loch Lomond, but we are unanimous that this has not been our favourite loch.

For the first time in 17 days, we also saw people walking in the same direction as us! Ironically this happened at a passing place – good job walkers can use these too as the West Highland Way is one of the most popular national trails.

One of the guys had done the West Highland Way (as advertised) south to north and then a friend had later decided to do it and so he agreed to join him if they did it north to south, just to switch things up a little.

Like Mark, his friend had also taught science for 10 years so he and Mark geeked out about the science curriculum in schools and how not brilliant it was. We also asked him how his pupils did in their A levels as today is results day. His pupils were getting BTEC results but his reply surprised me, “I’ve switched off my email, I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, they’ll be what they’re going to be”. While I applaud his ability to switch off his email completely, I can’t even imagine Mark not spending the week running up to the publication of results worrying about whether his pupils have got the grades they deserve. These guys looked half our age but were twice as jaded about their day jobs, which ironically they were still doing just as we have retired.

Almost to prove the point we stopped for a drink en route, to raise a glass to Mark’s pupils and his teaching skills, in a petting farm (yep, weird). More than half his class have got As and Bs for their A level Physics, which is amazing. It’s equally amazing that we didn’t realise how close we were to Glengoyne distillery, which was a missed opportunity. We knew that our destination tonight does not have a bar or restaurant, but perhaps, in Mark’s words, “had we gone to the distillery, we may not have reached our accommodation tonight”.

It was fun to chat to different people though and swap stories of walks in different parts of the UK. We’ve realised that before walking the length of the UK, the last time either of us did a proper long walk we were both at school doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s award. We are also both adamant that this trip does not mean we are now “hikers”.

So now we have reached our accommodation safely, and it is, indeed, as advertised, a bizarre mixture of a garden centre and soft play centre.

Given our extensive experience of these types of venues with both our mothers knowing a lot about plants and three children of our own, it’s clear that this place could only be enhanced by the addition of a bar. If the petting farm less than 10kms away can sell hard cider, then here has no excuse.

However, the en suite bathroom has a mixer tap and a shower not made by Mira and the cafe (open until 4:30pm) actually serves salad. OK it’s a pulled pork salad and it’s covered in deep fried bacon, but it was very good.

Also, while we’re looking at a view from our window, here’s another one. Where are all the parents of toddlers around here?

This place is weird, but perhaps this whole part of Scotland is weird. Tomorrow is Glasgow……

Distance 33km, thereby stealing 2km off Strava’s initial estimate. Go us.