Blogs from Perthshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe

We started the day quietly and midmorning decided to find the William Wallace memorial tower in Sterling and while we took a bus to the bottom of tower, we did walk the 16 stories (over 400 steep steps) to the top viewing platform. The view was spectacular if not windy and cold. The walk down was the same stairs as the way up, so there was frequent encounters with other climbers. After what feels like abseiling back down the tower, we decided to have lunch at Friend of Mine in Bridge of Allan. This was recommended by our host, we loved this lunch. After lunch we drove down to find Andy Murray's Hotel, but instead found the back door and was chased back down the road by a tractor. Epic Fail! - we need to save ... read more

Monday became a quiet morning catching up on the blogs, however in the afternoon we went into Edinburgh for dinner at Loch Fyne Restaurant. We walked around the pier and after dinner went down the road to look at The Royal Yacht Britannia. We intend to come back to Britannia when we stay in Edinburgh. Tuesday had us traveling to Dunblane, which was only a 90 minutes from Edinburgh, so we decided to make a detour through Glasgow and on the recommendation of my barista at Meister on Collins St, we went to Ox and Finch for lunch and what a superb lunch it was. See the photos for some of the special dishes. We also found some street art in Glasgow at the SWG3 Studios which was hidden gem for Glasgow. In Dunblane we are ... read more

Thursday 7 July 2022, no walking rest day around Ardlui. Friday 8 July 2022, Day 5 on the WHW. Ardlui to Crianlarish. 9.75 miles by Garmin, 1132 feet elevation gain, 9 hours of walking. Our day off we lounged around the nice hotel, restaurant and bar at Ardlui Hotel. Things close down after breakfast at 0900 because they are short on help. The young man who serves us breakfast is a landscape architect from the Patagonia area of Argentina. He works remotely for a man in Chicago and works at Ardlui Bar and Restaurant. He was one of those so helpful to Jo the night before. There are many campsites and Park Model homes around this northernmost bay on Loch Lomond that are both for sale and for rent. Many boats and other water sports equipment ... read more

I had a bit of a hiatus of ideas over the summer and was patiently waiting for something decent to pop up. Then it happened! A group of us were assembling for the hill race at Killin Highland games in early August. Don Reid, Westies Stalwart and midweek race regular asked me if Killin was “K” in an A to Z of Perthshire. The seed germinated and after a couple of hours on google and using the appropriate OS maps, I had a plan which on paper looked pretty reasonable. A good mixture of running in beautiful places in an area famous for its autumn colours. A few days ago, I loaded Mogwai into the CD player and pointed the car north toward Aberfeldy. A fine place to start as I could do a circular run, ... read more

After a couple of stages which had been fraught with logistical challenge, I to M was a totally breeze. Indeed, I was so confident that I could pull this run off without any risk of becoming a Hitchcock style murder victim that I invited guests. Even better, we arrived on time so Don Reid, life long Westie , top trail runner Lucy Colquhoun, Otto and Isaac left the Iron Bridge after parking 50 metres away at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. I was confident this would be a run that Don, Lucy and the dogs would enjoy and the wee warm up to the John Muir Trust shop on the High Street gave a nice illusion of progress. Even better was to follow as we left the tarmac of the High St and found a wee riverside ... read more