Milngavie to Drymen, 12 Miles

Lovely morning for a walk! The sun was out and the weather was mild.

Starting the West Highland Way today was NOT an original idea. We sat in the cafe next to our hotel this morning and watched walkers pour onto the trail head. No worries for us, as there’s plenty of trail to share and we’ve booked accommodations for every night of of our stay.

We had initially planned to camp for a few nights, as we did on the Coast to Coast walk, but several people with experience on the West Highland Way advised against it because of the midges. For those who dont know, midges are voracious biting gnats (like no-see-ums in the States). We’ve had the good fortune to miss them so far on this trip, but they come about in mid to late May.

We’re armed with the repellent the locals claim works

We stopped for a light lunch along the trail at a bakery called Turnip the Beet. We enjoyed a sandwich and some spicy fried onion fritters (delicious!) and I ordered a very tasty elderflower wine.

Turnip the Beet was worth the stop!

By our current standards for distance, todays walk was fairly short (12 miles is a walk around the block!) and there was very little elevation gain or drop. We made it to our stop for the night in about 4 hours. Fortunately they were able to get us into our room early…

Ann from C2C thinks we’ve accidentally been put up in a Rabbit Hutch for the night.

We settled into our hut just in time for the skies to open (but first we had to kick the hobbits out). We lazed around for the afternoon, reading and napping - a luxury we’ve rarely been able to experience so far.

It is actually quite comfortable on the inside…

We walked into the town of Drymen for dinner and enjoyed food, ales and whiskey at the ‘oldest licensed pub in Scotland’ .

Check out the Day 17 photos in the gallery for a glimpse of our delicious meal. First course was haggis bonbons!

What we’re drinking

On our first day of the Coast to Coast, we had full intentions of chronicling our beverages along the way. This fell by the wayside when Bob lost count and I found the crisp and refreshing Aspall Cyder on draft at every single pub we entered. At the encouragement of Mr Justice, we are going to sample as much Scotch as we reasonably can. Today we had the following:

1. 2004 Tobermory, aged in an Oloroso Sherry Casks

2. 1997 Tamdhu

Hands down, we both preferred the Tobermory. Very warming and spicy. Bob said it made his tongue drunk.

Now for a 20 minute walk back to our Hobbit Hut.

Wishing everyone a good night!