Day 94 Loch Lomond

Today we walked along Loch Lomond. It was a most beautiful day, but it was also very tiring-the guidebook says yesterday and today are the most strenuous. I’m glad if that’s the case, as today was certainly pretty strenuous.

We left Rowardennan Youth Hostel bright and early and headed along the Loch. It was lovely-beautiful views, Loch side beaches and an easy path.

We meandered along passing and being passed by the people we had stayed with last night (a group of ten walkers), as well as a couple of wild campers. That’s people who camp by the side of the Loch, not wild people. We stopped to take photos and wound our way to Inversnaid where we admired the waterfall but shunned the hotel

We were feeling pretty good, the Loch side path was supposed to be one of the more difficult parts of the WHW but so far it was fine. Then it stopped being fine. It wasn’t any worse than some parts of the South West Coast Path, it just went on for longer

By the time the rocky part had stopped we were pretty tired. It was made worse by realising that the distance for today wasn’t twelve miles but fourteen. Always demoralising. We left the Loch and walked along the valley. We stopped and looked in at a bothy, then climbed a hill where the views back down Loch Lomond were lovely.

We had now reached the point in the day where one’s destination never seems to get any closer. Worse, it seems to be uphill. However we did get to the Beinglas campsite and set up our tents. The campsite was perfect for walkers. There were covered areas with kitchens, a launderette, and best of all, they served food all evening and breakfast. They also had a shop which sold everything one might want including sandwiches. We had a cheery evening chatting to Sam and Katriona and even the midges weren’t too bad.