West Highland Escape

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My long awaited and much anticipated walk through the beautiful Scottish countryside did not work out as planned. Not for the reasons you might expect given my aversion to serious training and lack of rest/recuperation time after our flights and festivities. No, it was a rotten cold with mozzarella mucus and convulsing coughing that put my plans and me to bed.

This is not the first time my plans to walk the west highland way have been thwarted. As a student I had twice made arrangements with friends to tramp across the trossachs and twice I couldn’t do it. Now I know what you’re thinking, I wimped out. But a badly dislocated shoulder with torn rotator cuff muscles isn’t conducive to carrying a camping backpack, nor is a painful, itchy and unsightly case of shingles I experienced at the next attempt.

As we sat excitedly aboard the train to Bridge of Orchy, trepidation settling in about our preparedness for the next few days of walking, I started sneezing constantly. Very quickly I had blown through 2 packets of travel tissues and started swallowing shards of glass. Ever hopeful I thought a good sleep preceded by a good (volume not quality) glass of wine would provide the panacea. It did not.

Next morning clad in my expensive new hiking gear I forced down a half hearty breakfast and smiled through streaming eyes at my blindly eager husband. I didn’t want to let him down as much as myself, maybe more. Walking from the dining area to collect our stuff I started to wonder if I could make it to the room, let alone the first 20 km of our 60 km walk.

We started our walk and for the first half hour, up a very steep incline and between bouts of nausea, I pondered bitterly that back home I would not have emerged from bed feeling like this. My sense of impending failure and embarrassment spurred me onward through the oft barren beauty of Rannoch Moore to the mist swaddled munro’s of Glen Coe. As we practically skipped down the final slope to meet the shuttle bus our spirits rose and a lightness eased our weary bones. I was proud not only of making our first destination, without needing air lifted out, but of our youthful pace. Elation infused with serotonin and sudafed made me giddy with glee. This gilded glee quickly turned to brass when we looked around to find no bus and no walkers at the presumed meeting point. We were early and fast, but I was sure there were people quicker than a pair of over weight 48 year olds. We were in the wrong place, thanks Alan. As I had booked and planned everything, he had been tasked with reading the literature and keeping us on the right path. Fail! (said with love and frustration)

Dragging the instructions from his backpack and repeating them ad nauseum, he surmised we had over shot our destination by 2.5km. Oh and those 2.5 km were to a ski resort, that’s right, up hill all the way. My previous lightness and ease of pace had turned leaden, every step weighing on my will to continue in spite of, or maybe because of Alan’s attempts to rally my spirits and make light of the situation.



Sickly and sullen the rest of my escape consisted of coughing with a side of spluttering, wheezing through the nights and falling asleep in bars whilst awaiting transport to my next bed. In contrast the rest of Alan’s escape was spent racing past every walker, trying to catch up with his youth and of course celebratory beer. He reckons my third failed attempt to walk the west highland way is an excuse to go back and try again. How sick does he want me to be next time.

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