West Highland Way July 2022

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Sunday 10 July 2022, our second rest day - no walking on the WHW today.

Monday 11 July 2022, Day 7 on the WHW. Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy, 7.3 miles by Garmin, 489 feet elevation gain, 3 hours 30 minutes walking.

Our rest day around Tyndrum saw bright sunshine and motorcyclists and more people enjoying this beautiful area. Tyndrum, although small, fits the description of a mountain resort community. The place is full of 'bikers,' hikers, and folks out just loving the sunshine in Scotland. We have our first introduction to a box breakfast. A paper bag with croissant, yogurt, juice, freeze dried coffee and a box of make your own porridge that once mixed up with boiling water, looks and tastes like wallpaper paste. We all head for the Real Food Cafe, for a supplement of soup as soon as we can.

Upon their arrival the three girls met the village massage specialist at the Tyndrum Inn and scheduled all of us for a massage the next day. Pat the masseuse was good and we all enjoyed our time under her touch.

There is a store called Green Wallys which reminds Karen of Wall Drug in South Dakota. It has a little of everything. But alas no more dried prunes. They do have Gorilla Super Glue which I bought at the gasoline station part of the complex. I cleaned Karen's boots and started the repair process. We hope this works better than the duct tape; but I am keeping the duct tape just in case it does not.

We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Tyndrum Inn bar, not to be confused with the Tyndrum Lodge where we are staying. Another nice rest day. Karen and I walk to the upper Tyndrum Train station after dinner. A walk that made the decision to take the bus.

Silvertoes notes: Rest day – Massage, Real Food Cafe, Grufalo

Pat Fraser, the masseuse, has a busy day with all of us using her services. Sandy is a licensed masseuse and says she is excellent. I am the last, 4:30, to enjoy her strong hands. She tells me a little about her life, inextricably tied up with Tyndrum. She came to the village when she was eighteen, to work in a big hotel near where we have lodging. This hotel now houses employees that work in Scotland’s only active gold mine, which just recently reopened. She says she cried every day for a few weeks but stubbornly stayed as she had heard her mum say to her friends, “She’ll be home in two weeks!” The house staff would get up at five and go to the kitchen where a roster of guests names would be listed and the time each room wanted their coffee. They would set up all the trays and deliver them, retrieve them, wash all the china and cutlery and then make up all the rooms.

Pat now has her masseuse parlor in what used to be the parlor of the old manse. The latter is part of the current Tyndrum Inn. She noted how things have changed in recent years. In the past travelers would come down to the parlor and have conversations, play cards, read and perhaps have an evening drink. She notes that now travelers will retire to their own ‘bubble’ room, be on their computer or watch their t.v. And of course, she laughingly says, ‘They make their own coffee in the morning!!”

We all have dinner together in the bar and watch reports of the final tennis matches at Wimbledon.

Now it's the day of walking.

11 July 2022 (Start of Day 7 on WHW) at 0730 we return to the Tyndrum Inn restaurant for a real breakfast. Then walk the half mile back to the Lodge to get packs and head for the trail. We walk beside the stream past the Lower Tyndrum Station and cross the stream and A82 just beyond Green Wallys and start the climb up the side of one of the two Beinn hills that are along our way. It is a nice walking track so we made good time even climbing. Karen is taking the bus today but the other 5 of us walk along.

We encountered more sheep and cows than we had previously seen. One is the long haired Scottish highland cows (Coos). Going up the road on the trail, Sandy catches the loop on the strings of one shoe on the hook on the other and trips. She has a bruised nose and shoulder but is otherwise OK.

When we arrived the restaurant at Bridge of Orchy Hotel told us they had a charter bus tour of 55 to serve and we will have to wait for anything from the restaurant. I find Karen in the lower level “lovely” lounge.

Silvertoes notes:

I joined part of the group for breakfast and saw them off on their journey. So, now, down to the bus stop. I stop at a little swath of green across the A82, the main road going north and south in the highlands. There is a little open shelter, almost like a child’s outdoor playhouse among the trees and some kind of wood sculpture next to it. My curiosity is aroused and I open the gate and investigate. It is the Tyndrum Community Woodland Gruffalo Trail. The sculpture is of a gruffalo. A fox, owl, snake, and a cunning mouse who takes a walk in the woods and outwits all his would-be predators, these are all characters from the famous children’s book, THE GRUFFALO. Such a great little trail for little ones and others who wish they were still little and could outwit the gruffalo!

Real Food Cafe–yum, yum. Right along the A82, this is a gem that is really hopping. Great soup, breads and other goodies. Ingredients locally sourced. All cooking is done in an open kitchen.

Photos and clippings near the restroom show the owner and her Iron Woman accomplishments. Her start of the cafe and success is an incredible story of conviction and confidence in oneself.

I step into a stall in the bathroom and there is a picture of a basic, rudimentary toilet in Malawi. On the wall near the sink area is a collage of approximately forty-seven toilets world-wide that Real Food has supported. Toilet Twinning is an initiative that invites people to “twin” their own toilet with latrines in poor communities. It ensures clean water, a proper toilet, and education about proper hygiene. I checked Charity Navigator but Toilet Twinning has not yet been evaluated.

The City-Link bus arrives, driven by a very lithe, tiny young woman. She is very capable and quickly has us moving along the narrow roads. We arrived at the Bridge of Orchy. She deposits me in front of the Bridge of Orchy Hotel and responds to my query about the bus for the next day in a torrent of words, only about one third of which I understand.

The hotel is the village.and the vintage building is right on the A82. An old military road crosses a 1751 bridge in back of the hotel. The military roads were built as a means of moving troops quickly around the interior to suppress rebellion by the Jacobites in 1715 and 1745. Simply put: Jacobitism was a 17th and 18th century movement that supported restoration of the House of Stuart to the British throne. A number of clans supported this movement and its leaders, the most famous one being Bonnie Prince Charlie. The British government was eventually the victor. What a convoluted history Scotland and England has. When you think you might have the major brushstrokes a new movement, major figure or religious intrigue enters the picture!!

Ah!, a wonderful hotel with ‘civil’ touches. It will be several hours before I can check in. Meanwhile I can relax in the lounge downstairs. It is a spacious room with many windows and many cozy seating arrangements. There is a crystal chess set on a table and puzzles beckoning. One wall has floating book shelves—old leather volumes, children's books, mysteries, tomes on Scotland and its history, current biographies. There is no one in the spacious room so I promptly find a sofa in the corner and doze on and off. The kitchen is downstairs and there is a jolly bunch, seemingly very happy at work—mainly male voices. There is a whir of beaters, blenders and clacking spoons as they prepare meals for the day. All food must be carried up from the kitchen using very narrow, steep stairs. And—the food is excellent. Harlan says we will be able to get soup after a large tour group, eating in the formal dining room, has left.

This hotel has had recent additions made to it and, of course, all upgrades and additions were completed just in time for covid closings. Ah, the vagaries of the hospitality business! Off the bar is a nice little eating area with photographs and explanations as to how the hotel became central headquarters for rescue efforts in the 1984 blizzard. The hotel was totally isolated. They had people sleeping on floors in every conceivable spot. It was written that the only provisions they ran out of were eggs and Guiness.

We have dinner in the lovely formal dinner room. All the extra tables and chairs that served the tourist bus for lunch had been whisked back to the bar seating area and we dined at a large round table with linen, beautiful glasses and heavy, well made cutlery.



Our waiter, whom we have talked with several times during the day, is from South Africa. We note that so many of the staff in the hotels and bars are from other countries around the world.

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Photos

snack break on a bridge norma sandy lee and jo
Bridge over Orchy River