Crianlarich to Tyndrum

Yeah we have internet two days in a row! We are in Tyndrum tonight at the Dalkell Cottage B&B only our second B&B so far on the trip. Its a really nice place and it looks like we might have a good bed tonight.

Our morning started out at the Crianlarich Train Station Tea Room for breakfast. The youth hostel didn't provide cooked breakfasts and we need a bit more than cereal and toast for breakfast. We have had a few days of continental breakfast and the trouble with that is we are hungry about an hour in the trip.

Kari messing around one of the many gates we have gone through

Today's walk started out with a lot of hills which I am not always a fan of. Although we did have some great views so that made it a little better.

Viewpoint after the first hill

Once through the hills and the forest, in which the midges were terrible this morning (I thought we were rid of them, guess not) we were back out into the sheep fields and flat ground once again.

One of the many arched bridges we have seen

Bridge to the sheep field

Sheep field with some big mountains in the background

This picture doesn't do it justice!

After this sheep field seen above we came onto a farm that was also a campsite with wigwams, which are sort of like the the yurts we have a the state parks. They are triangle shaped and have beds, lights and heat in them but you need your own sleeping bag so we won't be spending any nights in the wigwams. We spent some time at the camp store waiting for mom and dad to meet back up with us. We had a little friend that was after our crumbs. 

Mr Bird, our new friend

This bold little bird was not afraid of anyone and was hopping all over our table, our bags and at one point hopped on Chad's shoulder and then to the other side. He was pretty funny and would clean up any crumbs we left. He would even bring bugs that he caught to show us. He was quite amusing! 

Tomorrow we head to Invoranan and this day is going to be 9 miles, 3 miles longer than we have been doing the last few days. If we have internet tomorrow you will find out how we fared. Thanks for reading!

Funny additions: Dad forgot to shave this morning

Inversnaid to Invoranan & Invoranan to Crianlarich

June 27 Last Day Along the Loch

Sorry for no post yesterday. I thought we were going to have internet and unfortunately we did not.  Yesterday was the last day along Loch Lomond and thank goodness for that for many reasons.  No more terribly rocky paths and best of all, way less midges!

Inversnaid Bunkhouse, 17th century converted Church

Our stay at the Inversnaid Bunkhouse was one our favorites but the room was not the greatest for 4 people and their bags. The two guys working there were awesome and very accommodating. It has the best atmosphere by far. Nick, one of the workers gave us a ride to the start of the trail. We headed off and soon discovered we were going to have slow day. The first miles were on the banks of the loch and there was not much of a bank. We were mostly walking on rocks and through trails that were very rough.  Mom was having a pretty rough go and after a bit we decided to move on and meet up with them later. It took a while to get off of the rocky terrain but once we made it away from that it was smooth sailing. We made it to our next stop, the Drovers Inn around 2:00 pm. We checked in, had a pint of Strongbow (hard cider) and then walked back to the trail head to meet up with mom and dad. They made it in around 4:00 and were moving pretty slowly. We had already collected our bags and they were happy to just come in the room and get off their feet.

Very rocky path along Loch Lomond

Kari looking at the end of Loch Lomond

Chad arriving at the Drovers Inn

Drovers Inn as you can see from the picture is a pretty old place. We had an awesome room here, very large and there was space for us and all our crap! This place boasts they have ghosts, we were not visited by any. The pub was a true Scottish pub complete with a fire and kilt wearing bar people. We had one of our best meals here. I had Haggis, Neeps and Tatties (Haggis=Heart, liver and lungs of sheep minced up, Neeps=turnips and Tatties=potatoes)  and Chad a Steakpie with Guinness gravy. Very traditional and very yummy! 

June 28 Sheep and Cow Country

Today was another short day, 6 miles and we headed out onto some moores. I think this type of walking much better than rocky paths or forest lined areas. It the most Scottish looking and I don’t feel like I am in Oregon.  Today was pretty uneventful and the walk was pretty easy. We did have a very large group of kids that we would meet up with every once in a while but we never did figure out if they were a school group or a camp group. There were a lot of them we were guessing there were about 60 total.  They walked into the Crianlarich (Cran-lar-ic) just shortly after we did in 3 very large and noisy groups.  Today we are staying at the Crianlarich Youth Hostel which is part of the Scottish Youth Hosteling Association. The other two hostels we stayed in were also apart of SYHA. This one is the least interesting and is not an old building but it has the best room. We are in another quad room and it is huge. Finally some space to move around! Tomorrow we head another 6 miles north to Tyndrum (Tin-drum).

Chad walking to Crianlarich

Check the map to the right to see where we are along the way! 

Balmaha to Rowardennan & Rowardennan to Inversnaid....

We have now walked about 40 miles since leaving Milngavie 4 days ago. Actually if we count our walk from Glasgow to Milngavie we have walked about 50 miles so far. So technically we have still not made it as far as Eugene yet!

Loch Lomond our primary scenery for 3 days

June 25th...The Midges are Coming!

Yesterday and today our walks have been along the shores of Loch Lomond (low-mond). Its a beautiful lake that is 30+ miles in length and fairly wide in some places. I would consider it similar to one of the Great Lakes. Our evening accommodation in Balmaha was just near the lake and we stayed in the hotel's bunkhouse. These rooms are generally have 2 bunk beds and small bathroom. We are finding these bunkrooms or quad rooms as they are called in the hostels are really small and sometimes its difficult to move around when four people are trying to do different things. Its been quite an experience though and interesting when mom and dad are both snoring.

Our morning in Balmaha started with a cooked Scottish breakfast which seems to the be same everywhere and we have had it several times on this trip. You get an egg, one sausage, bacon (which is almost more like ham), baked beans, baked tomato and sometimes if we are lucky, black pudding! Black pudding, for those of you don't know, is a mixture of blood, usually from a pig, onions and oatmeal congealed and served patty style. It looks an overcooked sausage patty. Today I had some Black Pudding and for the sake of needing as much protein for the trail I ate all of mine.  I found that mixing it with my eggs and beans makes it taste better and for those of you who know me I don't usually mix my food! 

After breakfast in Balmaha (no black pudding that time) we set off for our 3rd day of walking. After going over Conich Hill we were looking forward to an easier day. After about 5 minutes outside we discovered our new problem of the day...MIDGES! Midges are little tiny bugs that looks like gnats but bite like mosquitoes. When you stop moving they descend on you like flies to a cow pie! There is no getting away and bug repellent doesn't seem to work. We usually walk ahead of mom and dad and wait for them to catch up after a bit. Well after walking a while we stopped to wait and were attacked quite quickly by a swarm.  It only takes seconds for them find you as they are attracted to body heat. We had let ourselves get too far ahead and couldn't wait for fear of being eaten alive. As long as your moving they won't bother you since they are so small.  So we kept pace and ended up arriving in Rowardennan with out mom and dad.  There were several large hill climbs and since we were moving pretty quickly we ended up waiting for an hour half for them. Luckily there was only one pub in town so it was not hard to find each other.  We had a lot of nice views of the lake but due to the midges we didn't stop for long to enjoy any of them.

Chad posing for a quick picture for before the midges got him!

June 26th: Super Soggy

We spent our 4th night in the Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel which is right on the banks of Loch Lomond. We were in another quad room, this one was small but manageable. There were a lot of other people staying as well since there is not a lot of accommodations in the area. The place used to be an old hunting lodge and a view of the lake that any high priced hotel would love to get their hands on. The beds were saggy and the dorm style showers were hard to take in but the place was pretty cool anyway.

Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel

After another Scottish breakfast we headed out on the trail prepared for the midges. First half of our hike was along a gravel road and the second half was narrow trail. Nearly halfway through the road piece it began to rain, nothing major but it was a steady rain. Rain is good because it keeps he midges away because they cannot fly in the rain. We had our rain gear on happy to be midge free. It only took a few hours of rain walking for the water to begin seeping into my boots and then into Chad's boots. As the rain continued you could feel its seeping through the seams of your rain gear. The most expensive set of rain gear was not going to keep you dry today. The last few hours of our walk was pretty soggy. Even though the midges were gone, that did not leave us problem free. The issue of the day was the heavily running streams,sometimes waterfalls that crossed the trail and there was not bridge to assist. Four different times we had to cross a stream, running as quickly as a river by hoping rocks. Mom was not enjoying this and each stream crossing had to be team effort, but we made it over each one without an issue. 

We made it into Inversnaid (In-ver-snade) around 2 and had lunch at the Inversnaid Hotel. Its a pretty fancy place and they don't really like dripping wet walkers coming in but since its the only place in town to eat they kind of have to let you. There is a separate non fancy entrance for walkers but that was closed for the day so we did have to go in the main entrance. All walkers have to go into a back reception room just off the bar where you can stay for a while and order food from the bar. You are not allowed in the dining room for regular food because you are not dressed properly. We didn't really like it but it was dry and they had hot food. 

I look happier than I really am, this was a large waterfall that did actually have a bridge to use! 

Our last stop of the day was a ride up to the Inversnaid Bunkhouse, where we are staying tonight. We are in the smallest bunkroom of the trip. You can barely turn around. However, the place is a converted 17th century church and is pretty neat as long as you don't need to hang out in your room. There is a bistro/pub upstairs where we ate dinner and will have breakfast tomorrow morning. If it weren't for the small rooms these old places would be perfect. We are hoping for a little better weather in the morning. Thanks for reading and I think I will be able to post again tomorrow! 

Milngavie to Drymen & Drymen to Balmaha...19 miles walked!

Dad and Kari starting the WHW

Day 1 Milngavie to Drymen (Drim-men)
Yesterday, June 23rd was our official start to the West Highland way.  The hike began in the town of center of Milngavie.  After a short stop in the visitors center and trip the Marks and Spencer grocery store for some snacks to pack we were on our way.

The Fam in front of the WHW obelisk, the symbol is used on trail markers throughout the walk

Early in the day we didn't encounter to much trouble. We were mainly getting used to the idea that we are walking long distances and had several stops to readjust boots, remove our "water proofs" (rain gear) or depending on location put on or take off of coats. The day was filled with some amazing views and we are not even to the good parts yet.

 Early in the day when no ones feet hurt

 Kari on top of a hill taking in the view

Our first stop of the day (after 7 miles of walking) was Glengoyne (Glenn-goin) Whiskey Distillery. We had to walk through a sheep field and through some sheep poo to get up there from the trail, but it was worth it.  We took a tour which includes a "dram" (shot) of 10 year old whiskey. Their 10 year old whiskey is the youngest they make, the oldest being 21 years. They are unique because they allow their whiskey to mature much longer than other distilleries.  Three years is the minimum age in which you can legally call it whiskey. So Jim Beam is not as good a we think. Glengoyne whiskey is sipping whiskey and we were specifically told you were not to use it to make mixed drinks.  An interesting tidbit is at a certain point in the whiskey making process the whiskey (its not really whiskey yet) is put in large wooden drums for a few days.  These drums are made out of "Oregon Pine" or Douglas Fir from Oregon. You know Dad jumped all over that one.  In the shop I bought a small souvenir and Dad ended with 2 bottles of single malt whiskey and some Glengoyne glasses in which he had to pack the remaining 5 miles. Dad has never bought whiskey in his life but we now have two bottles for when we get home.    

   Glengoyne Whiskey Distillery 

After our trip to the distillery and lunch at the Beech Tree Inn just a mile down the road we headed off for the last leg of the trip. At this point we had been walking on paths but they were hard and almost seemed like pavement. The last 2-3 miles of the walk were on a single lane pavement road with huge hedges you couldn't see what was coming in either direction. So, you have to dive in them when a car was coming! Since we had already been walking 10 miles every step was agony at this point and we don't have a lot of pictures since the mood was not great. We found the bed and breakfast and quickly crashed. This is why I didn't not blog about this day yesterday, there was no more body function!

Day 2: Drymen to Balmaha

The beast of the day is Conich Hill. 

Conich Hill...you can see the trail going up

The start of the day was relatively easy.  We have a few miles of pavement walking but we took a small short cut to take about a half mile off the trip.  Which doesn't sound like a lot but at the end of the day every quarter mile counts. We had a late start again because we ended up walking past a health clinic and mom opted to stop and get her barbed wire wound checked out for good measure. Everything was fine and I was commended for my handy first aide.  She had a tetanus booster and was prescribed some antibiotics just in case. The whole thing only cost about 53 pounds or $90 which is pretty cheap for a doctors visit. 

Chad and Kari just about to go up Conich Hill

After we were out of town we walked through some forest land which looked a lot of Oregon and then out on to a sheep covered moore to the base of Conich Hill. Which should not be called a hill! We took it in check points so that Mom didn't have a much trouble keeping up.  It was a long haul going up and a long haul going down.  It was very similar to our fell walk up Walla Crag a few days ago. After several breaks and a snack at the top we we headed down.  In this place going down is just as hard as going up because there is no such thing as switchbacks here. Straight up and straight down.

We ended up in Balmaha around 4:00pm and checked in the the Oak Tree Inn and I am sitting the in bar having a pear cider and writing to you all. I am pretty tired so I will sign off for today. I am not sure about internet tomorrow, doesn't look promising but we should have it the next day.  Thanks for reading! 

Glasgow to Milngavie

Arrived by train in Glasgow, Scotland yesterday morning. Once off the train we began the task of trying to figure out how to get to the Glasgow Youth Hostel from the train station. After Dad was accosted by a homeless guy for money (in which Dad's reply was: I only have American money which will do you no good) we figured out which bus stop to head to and which one to ride. This would have been pretty simple had it not been pouring down rain when we arrived. Getting on the bus was easy enough but once on we figure out they didn't tell you which stops were coming up so we had no idea which was the correct stop to get off at. Thanks goodness for kind locals because the lady sitting behind us told us she would tell us where to get off and another lady told us where to walk from the stop. Through the rain we found the hostel with no problems.

Chad and I in front of Glasgow Youth Hostel

Mom and Dad in front of the Glasgow YH

The hostel, as you can see, was a very nice place.  It has previously been an old hotel and was a maze of hallways and rooms.  They had a nice lounge, a TV room, game room, dining room, self-catering kitchen and much more.  It was a great place to stay and didn't cost much. We figured out this neighborhood we were in had to be quite "posh" since this was parked just a few doors down. 

Ferrari parked down the street (this was taken on the fly as we thought the owner was watching us)

We spent most of the time at the hostel making reservations for accommodations for the walk and was able to get half of the trip scheduled. Had the weather been better we would have liked to walk around Glasgow a little bit but there was steady rain all day. We had a late dinner and then headed back to go bed to be rested for the walk to Milgavie (Mill-guy) in the morning. Our room was called a quad room, but we had no idea what kind of room we were going to be in until we arrived. 

Mom and Dad making up their bunks in our quad room

The room was pretty small and beds pretty uncomfortable and for four people with four backpacks and three large bags things were pretty cramped. We made do, the other amenities and neat public rooms made up for the smallness of our own room. 

In the morning after getting situated with our bag carrying service (our bags will be moved each day to our next location so we don't have to worry about them while walking) we headed off through Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park to a path that would take us to Milngavie.  The West Highland Way doesn't officially begin until Milngavie but Dad thought it would be "neat" to walk there instead. We did see some cool things during the first part, but we also walked through some nasty trash filled places too. It was a good intro to what the new few weeks will feel like. Mom had a mishap with a rusty barbed wire fence that required some first aide. She slipped while trying to avoid a large muddy puddle and her arm hit the fence and barb went straight in. She got a pretty nasty puncture wound and we did our best to disinfect and clean it out.  We will have to keep an eye on things for the next few days to make sure nothing more serious develops. The rest of the way went smoothly and we had lunch at the Tickle Trout Pub and then walked the remaining 2 miles in Milngavie. We quickly found our B & B which is amazing and has a lot more room than our hostel room.  I think we will sleep well tonight.  Tomorrow we officially begin! I will post again at the next internet access site.  Thanks for reading!

Walla Crag Yesterday...Solway Coast Today

Yesterday was half lazy and half not. We had what is called here as a "lie in" and had a lazy morning sitting around, sleeping in and playing on the computer and messing with our pictures.  Andrew and Victoria showed up at lunch for our afternoon excursion.  The evening before Dad and Victoria worked out a Lake District hike for us to do a test run before we head to West Highland Way.  We began our trek at the "car park" near Derwentwater Lake and walked about a half mile path to the start of the trail to Walla Crag.  A crag is the north England word for a large rocky mountain.  At the start of the trip Dad said it was only 2.5 miles.  Didn't sound too bad, I should know better than to believe the distances he gives me.  We walked and walked and then found the grade was quite steep and all up hill.  I was not really enjoying his choice of warm up hikes but we all trudged on just the same.

Walla Crag..yup we went to the top of that!

Even though we had some difficulty going up the views were very well worth it.  We walked across the top of the ridge and down the other side, which consisted of several sets of stone stairs. We didn't take any pictures because it required some concentration to come down that side as it was twice as steep from where we went up. Once down the trail went along the lake and back to the car park. It turned out to be almost a 5 mile walk and at the highest point the elevation was 1243 ft.  From the bottom near the lake to the top of the crag we changed about 1000 ft in elevation...twice! Once you got over all the hill climbing it was really fun.

View from on top of Walla Crag 

After having a busy afternoon yesterday, we had another fairly busy day today.  We toured the local school this morning.  David (another cousin, Andrew's father) is a retired history teacher and made arrangements for us to see the school.  I toured this school once before when I was here 11 years ago but my interests were different at 18 than they are now.  We had a 6th Form student (equivalent to our seniors) give us the tour.  He was very knowledgeable and did a great job showing us around. There seems to be more subjects offered, the technology is amazing, students work harder and the discipline is much better.  I was considering becoming a teacher in the British school system when I was done seeing that place.  We didn't take any pictures as we didn't want to be more of disruption that we already were.  Once we return from our walk we have the opportunity to arrange to spend a full day in the school observing lessons in our subject areas if we like. We have not yet decided but it does sound like something that would be really interesting. 

In the afternoon we took a short trip to the beach in a little village called Allonby (pronounced Allen-bee) that is only about 10 miles from here.   We spent a short time walking the beach of the Irish Sea and mother and I has some fun treasure searching.  We found lots of shells like on any other beach but also found lots of broken bits of china like from cups, plates, saucers etc.  We are not sure it they are something that might be old but we don't generally find ornately painted china pieces on our beach so it peaked our interest. Once our treasure hunting was over we had an ice cream at popular shop and then went back to Wigton for dinner and rest.

Chad on the beach at Allonby

Kari searching for treasures

More adventures begin tomorrow.  We head for the 10:43am train from Carlisle to Glasgow, Scotland tomorrow.  We will be staying the night in the Glasgow Youth Hostel and then walking 10 miles to Milngavie (pronounced Mill-guy) which is the official start of the West Highland Way. I am not sure at this point how much internet access we will have along the way.  I will attempt to blog each stage of the walk but might have to skip days if internet access is sketchy.  Post again soon and thanks for reading! 

Ahh.. Jet Lag

We have been very busy for the past few days and have not been able to make time to get on the computer. We have a netbook with us but after arriving discovered that our UK adapter won't take the charger plug.  Thank goodness our cousin is very electronic savy and is going to hook us up with a UK plug for the netbook. In the mean time you will have to wait for some pictures to be posted as we get the netbook charged back up.

Over the past two days we have had several adventures and have been trying to adjust to the time change all at the same time. Our first night in London was an interesting one.  We tried to stay up a long as possible but just couldn't do it.  Chad went to bed at 5pm and I followed at 7.  We slept for what felt like hours, only to discovered it was 9pm.  We were up at 11pm, then 2 am and so on for the entire night.  We gave up on any more sleep at 4:30am, we got up and was ready for our 7:30am train by 5:30!  We took the train from London to Carlisle which took about 3 hours.  The train was moving so quickly and our train car seats were facing backwards so it was hard to see much on the way.

We were greeted at the train station by Andrew (our cousin) and his girlfriend Victoria.  They took us to Wigton where we have been staying while we are getting used to the time change. Wigton is very small little village in Cumbria and everything is with in walking distance.  We had nice lunch of Fish and Chips and then a home made dinner of Cumberland Sausage that evening courtesy of Victoria.  Yesterday we spent part of the day walking around the shops in Carlisle (which is about 8 miles north of Wigton) and had a nice lunch at Victoria's flat.  I was nicely surprised with a chocolate cake for dessert complete with some candles for my birthday.  We spent the afternoon in the Lake District, a very beautiful place that looks like something you might see on a nature show.  It is a very popular holiday spot for the locals. I have included a picture of us in front of Derwentwater, just one of the lakes in the district.  We will be taking a hike near this lake later today. We finished off our day with a meal in a local pub just outside Wigton, so far we have had some great British food but haven't stepped too far outside the box yet. 

That will be all for now, we will be heading out on the West Highland Way on Tuesday.  I will be posting again soon.

Arrived

We've arrived. We're staying at the Belgrove hotel the first night, which is in an area described by our cab driver as where the "pimps, drug dealers and prostitutes" hang out. Its alright, really small but it works. Has two beds, a bathroom and a shower. Kind of reminds us of a dorm room. Great experience, one of those places that we'll be able to say "we stayed at this one hotel in downtown London" story. It is right across the street from Kings Cross Station which we'll be visiting later tonight.  We'll post pictures as we get them. That's all for now.

*I wrote this last night but didn't have internet to send it so it's a little behind where we are in our actual timeline."

Chad

Hello London!!

We have arrived in London but not with out some delays.  We arrived in Calgary without incident and decided that we were not fans of the Calgary Airport.  After checking into customs and having to gather our bags, even though we weren't staying there, we couldn't find the gate for our London flight.  Three separate people tried to send us back through US customs and the signs leading places terrible.  We found our gate in the nick of time as the plane started boarding as we arrived at the gate.  We thought all was well until they announced there was a lightening warning and all the runway workers were instructed to take cover.  We had to sit on the plane for about an extra hour before we were able to take off.  We arrived in London at 11:30 am local time, which is 3:30 am PST!!

We took a train from the airport to Paddington Station and then a taxi to our hotel where we will be for the night.  The hotel is a story in itself.  Located on a side street just across the street from Kings Cross Station its been converted from several row houses into a hotel. Sounds all cultural and neat, but those of you know know what its like to live in dorm room you get the idea. Our taxi driver also told us not to go out at night in this part of London.  He was not all impressed with our hotel choice.  Can't complain its only for one night and its a bed.  We will be up at 5:30 and out by 6:00 am to catch the 7:30 train to Carlisle.

Airport

Well we are all checked in at the airport. We're waiting for the first leg of the trip which is a flight to Calgary. This one will be short and then the 8 hour flight to London which will be really enjoyable (not so much). We'll tell you more when we get to Calgary. Talk to you soon.

About Ready to Go

Welcome to Chad and Kari's blog page. Feel free to share this with people whom you think might enjoy reading about what we are doing.

We will be heading out Wednesday afternoon and will arrive in London Thursday sometime. We will stay the night and take one of the morning trains to Carlisle in the north of England. We will be greeted by one of our wonderful sets of relatives and stay a few days at their home in Wigton, Cumbria while we get used to the time change. We will head to the West Highland Way around the 20th of June.

Well, I need to get back to packing, doing laundry and cleaning. We will post again when we arrive in London!