Today was relatively light on our feet, only a half marathon distance and all downhill. Rather than the mochy weather of yesterday, today was sunny with a breeze – utterly perfect. I like the Scottish word mochy, for muggy, it is reminiscent of constantly fighting your way though a Japanese starchy dessert to reach your destination. The other options – claggy, should really be reserved for the porridge and bruthainneach sounds far too poetic for the amount of sweat between our backs and a rucksack on a day like yesterday.

Breakfast this morning was also surprisingly good in the soft play cafe with excellent service that set us up for the day perfectly. Who could beat a bowl of claggy porridge with strawberry and rhubarb compote followed by smoked Scottish salmon…..

We also had inspirational messages on our route to lift our spirits.

At times though it felt like downhill was a good description of our mood as we wandered further from the open Highlands. Just north of Glasgow in Milngavie (pronounced Mil-guy) is the official start of the 96 mile long West Highland Way and for us, a reminder of all the places we have walked through over the last 6 days.

We’ve covered 192.7 miles / 308.4 km in the last 10 days since we stopped in Inverness  and the only people we’ve seen, pretty much, have been walkers or BnB staff.

The obelisk in the centre of Milngavie, surrounded by Costa coffee and the M&S food hall brought us back to civilisation with a bump. Cars, “normal” people in their hundreds, noise and quite often an unpleasant odour that wasn’t just us needing the launderette after 10 days of hiking in mochy weather with a limited range of T-shirts.

Despite clutching our phones more tightly in some of the Glasgow suburbs, there’s nothing wrong with Glasgow, quite the opposite. It even had the sound of lilting bagpipes as we walked down the canal, courtesy of one of the two completely unrelated piping festivals in town.

It has its own wildlife,

presumably drawn towards the classic tropical food on the outskirts of town…..

…and traditional hotel gratuities in the centre.

Hasn’t stopped us missing Glencoe.

For now though, we’re enjoying some Japanese food, which arguably would be hard to find in the Highlands and a well earned rest.

Distance – 22.69km via a new pair of leggings and a launderette.