Today we left Drymen and headed for Inversnaid
We started today with no-one walking with us but would meet Graeme and Karen halfway through when Graeme would walk the rest of the day us and Karen would drive our bags to Inversnaid.
In the 18th and 19th centuries Drymen was used as a stopover point for Highland cattle drovers as they made their way to and from markets in central Scotland. One mile from Drymen is the ruins of the country house Buchanan Castle, owned by the Duke of Montrose, which was also used as a hospital in World War II, and which housed Nazi senior officer Rudolf Hess. At one time the estate was also home to the seat of Clan Graham.
We left Drymen, unbeknown to us, on the Rob Roy Way – a Scottish long distance footpath that runs from Drymen in Stirling to Pitlochry in Perth and Kinross. As the sun rose and burned off the morning mist the views were lovely, there was no traffic and then shortly before we reached Aberfoyle, we passed our 1000 km mark. We also spotted a couple of red squirrels – they disappeared up the tree so fast that there was no chance of a photograph.
We met Graeme and Karen in Aberfoyle to buy a sandwich for later and Graeme to then walk with us. We also met Lynn (a colleague from work) who had very kindly made us scones, brownies and banana cake and was waiting for us with coffee as well!
Aberfoyle supposedly originates from the Brittonic Celtic, aber poll or aber phuill (Scottish Gaelic, Obar Phuill), meaning (place at the) mouth of the Phuill Burn (the Pow Burn enters the River Forth at Aberfoyle).
Walking on, we passed many lovely houses, all in an excellent state of repair, and then many lakes and excellent views of Ben Lomond (974m and the most southerly Munro).
We spotted some Alpacas and then enjoyed our walk along the side of the lakes and marvelling at the views as we moved closer to our stop for the night. It also seemed only fair to include a picture of Graeme as he walked with us but wasn’t present for the early morning picture.
All in all, this was a really enjoyable walk, the weather was much better than advertised, the traffic was absent and it was good to arrive at our stop for the night in the daylight (last year we arrived here wet, cold and in the dark!).
Tomorrow we head for Bridge of Orchy along the West Highland Way – a challenge in itself in dry weather – but the heavens are proposing to drop their entire contents on us so I’ll report back tomorrow on how that goes.
