West Highland Way July 2022

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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 are here as well. We mostly just vegetated for the day.

We started our Day 5 of the walk by having 0800 breakfast so we could catch the 0900 ferry back across to the WHW trail. Besides the head cuts and black eye, Karen also has blisters on both heels. The trail is much more forgiving through the fields of ferns and more gently sloping ups and down with fewer spots for rock scrambling. The day has only occasional mist but not steady rain.

We complete the 2.5 miles to Beinglas Farm which has good camping spots and a store. We buy more duct tape to keep the toes of the boots intact. But alas, as we leave the tape comes off again. I have to resort to using heavy nylon twine to wrap the tape on the boot over the toe to keep it in place as Karen walks on. Now the blisters are hurting more. The path climbs almost continuously. We cross under a rail line through a viaduct (called a sheep crawl) that is so low that one has to bend over and crouch down to clear with our day pack (rucksacks) on.

Our map and All Trails route tell us the miles to the turn off point to go down into Crianlarish village. The fields have many sheep and are a beautiful green as the skies clear and visibility increases. When we reach the turn off the area has been denuded of beauty. It is a jumble of felled timber and uprooted trees. Some new plantings are visible but it is really ugly. The 0.8 miles into town is a very steep downhill slog. As we get to the highway I start my google map to find the Glenardran Hotel where we are staying. Norma and Sandy are next door at the B&B.

After checking in we find a bathtub and Karen takes a nice soak before we head over to the Rod and Reel for a nice bacon and chicken salad with hot spicy bowl of chili.

Silvertoes notes: Blisters–Sheep

Well, I never thought I would be carrying on about blisters of all things!! In all the miles we have walked I have not had to deal with them and now I can truly, truly commiserate with all who have experienced them. They are truly testing my patience!

As to other vicissitudes I think my depth perception is almost back to normal–thank you Lord!--I can now tell whether the step going down is 2, 4 or 6 inches. We reach Ft. Williams this coming Friday and I will find the local hospital to have the staples removed from around the eye.

And now to the sheep–the hills were beautiful today and speckled with white dots, here, there and everywhere. It is like a green and while polka dot fabric that covers the hills. Nursery rhymes about sheep come crowding into my head as I hobble along. I ponder the fact that so many nursery rhymes have political bases and start to fabricate rhymes that might fit our times. Alas, I am not clever enough nor, do I think, would today’s readers be willing to delve into the possibility of secondary meanings in contemporary rhymes. Come to think of it, how many still read today!

I am happy to report there are still bookshops in Scotland and there are still independent ones! What we would call branch post offices can be found in many stationary stores. And speaking of the stationary stores even the smallest have a wonderful variety of different cards. I could spend the greater part of the afternoon reading cards. As you can see, the mind does tend to wander while walking! As to the price for postage to mail a post card to the US it is about $1.60 plus the cost of the card. And we read that the price of postage in the US has been inflation adjusted upward as well.



Crianlarish is in the Trossachs area of Perthshire. It is the half-way point of the WHW.

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