I awoke surprised to find that the rain had stopped hammering on our tent and that the wind had died down enough to stop me thinking that we were going to be blown into Loch Lomond.
I rolled over to see James, still asleep, lay halfway down the tent, apparently we'd pitched over a tree stump and there was a huge lump on his side of the tent; looks like he pulled the short straw.
There's a great thing about pitching your tent in the pitch black. When you wake up in the morning the view is always a surprise, and as I poked my head outside I was hit with one of the nicest surprises of all. Straight ahead of me the moors dropped off and about half a mile down rolling hills lay Loch Lomond. I often hear of stories of monsters living in Scottish lochs, and the view I was looking at now made me think that these could be true.
A fine mist hovered above the surface of the giant lake, engulfing anything that lay on its still waters. Occasionally tree studded islands punctured through the shroud, giving the appearance of high mountaintops poking through a cover of clouds. To the left was Garadhban forest looking rather mysterious and to my right stood our next obstacle, Conic hill.
A short while later we'd packed up the tent and donned our still-damp over clothes, we snacked on a few breakfast bars and then we hauled our rucksacks onto our backs. Had someone put bricks in mine?! It was feeling mighty heavy today.
We started the day moving swiftly through the fields at the foot of Conic hill, crossing over swollen burns and passing happy hill-walkers on their Saturday strolls, everyone giving us a nod and mentioning how they'd walked the WHW in August last year.
(It's strange, August 2010 must have been a VERY busy year on the WHW. Just about every Scottish person we met (and we met a lot of Scottish people) mentioned that they walked the trail, in August. I'm glad we came in February and avoided the masses!)
We then started our ascent of the 360m high hill. The trail started off climbing a set of steep stone stairs before gradually easing off and following a well walked path up its slopes. Although the hill is 'the first significant uphill' encountered on the WHW, it was surprisingly easy going and within 30 minutes we found ourselves descending the other side and dropping into Balmaha. It must be said though that the view from Conic hill is exceptional. From the path you can see the noticeable division of Lowland and Highland Scotland and Loch Lomond stretches as far as the eye can see with snow capped mountains towering above it to either side.
After a fairly straightforward descent and a short amble through woodland we reached Balmaha, a quaint hamlet on the shores of the loch. It was getting quite late now (we'd started walking at 12 as we thought we deserved a lie in) and we decided we could do with some food so we stopped for a bite to eat in the Oak Tree Inn. It perhaps wasn't the best idea as after we'd dined we emerged onto the trail again just in time to see the sun disappearing behind the horizon.
Even so we were gifted enough sunlight to capture some beautiful sights from the shores before we had to don our head torches. The next seven and a half miles can be some of the most spectacular on the trail, however when they're walked under illumination of head-torches they're pretty nondescript, and for this reason I'll save you a pretty boring read.
The weather had been forgiving today, it was chilly but the sun made a few guest appearances, so it was only fair that it started raining towards the end of the night, soaking us just before we trudged into Rowardennan hotel at about 10pm. You'd think that hotel owners wouldn't take too kindly to two walkers smelling of sweat and damp demanding a room and drinks, but they were happy to oblige. The hotel was fully booked but fortunately for us a couple had failed to turn up so we had first dibbs on their warm, dry room, and in the morning a full Scottish breakfast would be waiting.
