Wednesday, July 30.
Our plan to leave Dryman just about 9am worked well starting with a nice hot breakfast and enough coffee.
The Buchanan Arms Hotel is about 1 mile off the West Highland Way. The weather was cloudy with no rain, and a nice light breeze blowing. It felt good after being in our room which seemed stuffy and too warm.
As we started toward where the WHW (West Highland Way), continued we saw lots of small groups obviously heading in the same direction. We would not be alone on this trail.
The trail cut past large pastures and fields. Then as the way headed up toward a low ridge, we came to a forested area. This continued for several miles as we walked along gravel roads through this managed forest much like ours at home. We did run into a few sprinkles and a reason to put on light rain gear for a short time but that passed and the weather changed to broken clouds and some blue sky.
Later we started to climb a bit more as we traversed toward a line of hills in the distance. The trail led us to these hills and then on to the base of Conic Hill. We were surprised as dozens people were coming up the other side from Balmaha (ball-maw-haa).
We took the side trail up to the summit of Conic Hill and were pleased by the tremendous views of Loch Lomond and the surrounding terrain. After returning to the main trail, we descended seemingly unending stone steps. Finally, after leveling out and coming to the car park, we went across the main road to The Oak Tree Inn for some food and refreshments. The Innis & Gunn Whisky Barrel beer was the best we’ve found so far. Along with the fries and Salt & Chilli Chicken sandwich, we rated the lunch very yummy.
7 1/2 more miles along the shores of Loch Lomond with some unexpected ups and downs we arrived at the Rowardennan Hotel at just before 5pm. We had enough time to shower and clean up before a dinner of steak and ale pie with a side of broccoli. The beer we ordered was too light for our likes as we still could not order the drinks we had in mine. We hope for a better drink selection down the road somewhere soon.
Back to our room to debrief and prepare for the challenging 14.7 miles to Inverarnen tomorrow.
Dogleggers on the Trail 