TGOC25 Day 5 - to NW end of Loch Katrine

(I've remembered that I can post to this blog via email (been years since I last did that!) So I don't have to fight with Blogger and hopefully a couple of photos will also have appeared)

Distance and ascent: 18km, 300m

Weather: another glorious hot day with just a few fluffy clouds.

I started my day with a phone call to the doctors' surgery; the response I received was both friendly and helpful and I was given an appt for 1045.

Check out at the hotel was at 1000, and the doctors' surgery was less than a mile away. So I got back into bed for an hour and sat writing blog posts, leaving the hotel at the last moment. 

Slowly strolling along the edge of Loch Long, I belatedly twigged that with a tide line of sea weed, this was a sea loch. Day 5 of my cross Scotland walk, and I'm still technically on the W coast!

The doctor was friendly and helpful too, and at 11am I left the surgery clutching a bag of antibiotics (it was about 2km later when I realised with horror that I'd not paid for them, before then remembering that prescriptions are free at the point of delivery in Scotland).

The next ferry across Loch Lomond was at 1145, and I had a 3.5km walk to get there. Doable, but I had a heavy pack full of supplies for the next four days, and I also needed time to buy a ticket. Not wanting to feel rushed, I decided not to even try for the earlier boat. Instead I took my time stopped for any number of faffs (and to buy my ticket online), after all of which I arrived at Tarbet just as the ferry pulled away from the pier.

My plan was to have something to eat in the café there, but it turns out the café is really a kiosk and they only sell sandwiches, plus a few cakes, none of which appealed.

So I sat on a bench, ate the food I had with me and even had to put my wind shirt on as, in the shade, the wind felt cool, rather than pleasantly cooling. 

An hour and a half later, I thought I'd go and buy myself a cup of tea before wandering down to the pier. First, however, I availed myself of the toilet facilities -and came out to find a queue of eight people waiting for drinks! Where'd they all come from?!

I abandoned hope of being served in time and went and got on my boat.

Half an hour later I alighted at Inversnaid and finally, at 1420, I was ready to start walking (because somehow the walk to the ferry from Arrochar didn't feel like part of the same walk).

A couple or three dozen WHW walkers (judging by appearances) were sitting outside the Inversnaid hotel, and more were encountered in the 100m or so that I followed the Way, before I turned off onto the Great Trossocks Path.

There's an Honesty Tea Room at Garrison Farm and on another day I wouldn't have hesitated to stop, but it being so late in the day, and having only just got started, I walked on by. As it went, I wouldn't have even gone past the farm had I paid attention to the map as the path there leaves the road to climb up behind the farm, only then to immediately descend almost back to the road. I would have just stayed on the tarmac for the tiny extra distance and cut across the field to gain the path, had I noticed.

Other than the pointless up and down, the path was rather pleasant and the surroundings were stunning, although I'm sure I've failed adequately to capture them in a photo.

Reaching the turn off the road for Loch Katerine, I discovered that the track that goes around its edge is a tarmacked private road. It goes past some stunningly located properties.

On reaching the shore of Loch Katrine I was almost opposite the point at which I wanted to leave it, less than 1.5km away as the crow flies, but 8k around the edge. Where's a chap in a fishing boat offering a lift when you want one?!

The walk along the road was quiet and uneventful except for the lack of water in the burns. When I finally found one with a trickle, albeit not looking particularly appetising, I filled my bottle, filtered and chemicalled it, then predictably the very next burn was flowing well and looked good. I couldn't be doing with repeating the process given the time of day, so made do with what I had. 

I didn't end up going all 8k around the loch. When I got to the NW point, where I was to turn back on myself down the far shore, there was such a good pitch on the riverside that I paused to give serious contemplation to stopping. I was 8k short of my intended destination, but it was gone 1730, meaning it would be late by the time I got to my intended night stop (the last 3k looked like they were going to be hard work).

Just then a chap in running gear appeared beside me, asking if I was lost. I didn't point out that I'd have to be the worst navigator in the world to not know where I was given all the visual clues around me, but reassured him that I knew where I was. He clearly didn't believe me and in the conversation that ensued he tried to direct me back onto the West Highland Way!! He also seemed rather dubious of my intended route and my statement of 'but I may just stay here and nip over that hill in the morning' (whilst pointing to the ridiculously steep side of Meall Mor).

It was the enticement of Meall Mor* that finalised my decision. I popped the tent up on nice cropped grass, and spent much of the evening examining the hillside in front of me and the map, trying to decide on the route of least resistance. Based on what I could see (it's not just a steep hillside, but craggy too) I plotted three potential route variants on my map. Then, just before bed, I thought, why not just go straight up the burn in front of me? I could weave around on a slightly shallower line, but if that involved trogging through rough terrain, then maybe straight up, through the lack of intermediate contour lines, was the better choice?

Other than the passing chap, the only other passers by during the evening were a Waitrose delivery van (I was 5km from the nearest road!) and a fox that didn't seem to be at all afraid of my presence. 

(*I now realise in reading this back through that I didn't explain that I opted for my FWA (foul weather/feeling weary alternative) today. Not actually so much because of the loss of half a day, but because my planned route was another hard one, that I didn't feel inclined to do with such a heavy pack. I hesitated to put it in my route at all, knowing I'd be tired after the hills of the first few days, but as there was no guarantee that weather would have allowed me all of those initial hills, I included this day so as to give me the option. Meall Mor was included in that route, but approached and exited via the ridge, whereas I was now looking at going up one side and down the other.)