Scotland day 2: let's hit the road ....

As usual, the early start is not what it could be, and Paprika and I are beetling it to Glasgow at around 12pm.

We're picking up Mowgli and The Cadet outside the Barrowlands:







So Paprika gets to see the Barrowlands on a Saturday, a Glasgow experience that should not be missed.

When Mowgli comes out of his flat, he's already in his kilt. It's going to be a good weekend. We're heading off on the well trodden path towards Loch Lomond. We can't get our tape adapter to work with the laptop so we're tuneless for once. Instead we just have to take in the scenery:











The weather remains undecided when we get out at Inveruglas for more irn Bru and a few photos. I love taking people to Scotland for their first trip. You head up to Loch Lomond and they are awe struck, and I start to get really excited, cos I get to imagine their faces when they see Glencoe.

After a quick stop at Tyndrum, and the serenity and solitude of Rannoch moor, we see the familiar sight(well familiar to 3 of us) of Buchaille Etive Mor on our left. From the flatness of Rannoch moor it looks like a gateway....







We have some fun at Glencoe, flashing random cars in our kilts as we take photos at a view point... everything is so green compared to the snow covered peaks that Mowgli and I saw(climbed) in April.







This time we drive on past the Red Squirrel campsite that we were at last time. We've decided to head on round to Oban and see what we can find to do round there. Thats not before we stop at my grandmother's house in Appin. She's not in(She's down in Glasgow for my brother's graduations... remember), but we get to take some picturesque scenes of Castle Stalker and Loch Lhinnie in her absence.








It looks as amazing as always, and it's even more impressive to those who haven't seen it 1000 times before on family visits...

From here, we trundle on through the early evening light to Oban. we're going to go camping.....

We drive round and round Oban trying to find a campsite that will let us have a camp fire on the beach, we give up and make do with the campsite that has a view over the Loch:








Once we've set up camp, we head back to Oban in the car to get some supplies from Tesco. Following this, we treat Paprika to a traditional scottish dinner of Omega-3 oils wrapped in complex saturated fat molecules.... otherwise known as the "Fish Supper"



When we are sitting looking out to Mull and the islands from Oban High Street we realise just how large a fish supper this is. Several onlookers comment on the size of the fish compared to the size of Paprika....

After the fish supper we feed the rest to some extremely aggressive seagulls, who wolf it down as their regular evening meal.

We get back to camp and head down to a jettu on the Loch side for the second course. We bought cheese and wine in Tesco and we sit and let the sun go down as we slowly get chessily drunk:











we drift off with full bellies ready for more adventures in the morning.......

1km closer to god.... well almost

I wake up with the alarm and start to organise the day....

My sister is coming to pick us up in Glasgow at 10am. I get up and The Cadet provides me with poridge and coffee - the perfect start to any day on the mountains. I feel reasoanbly okay given that I may have had one to many Jack and Cokes the previous night. The Cadet appears to be fresh enough for Rock N'Roll too....

I start the difficult task of finding out where Mowgli and Иiña are..... EVentually after trying both of them for a while, it transpires that Иiña is awake and in her won hoem and Mowgli left not to long after us and should be in his own home also.... We're doing well so far. Several more phone calls to Mowgli suggest that he ain't climbing no mountains today.



We make it to the rendevous point and meet my sister. Иiña is not here as she promised and luckily I have chosen a meeting point which is just round the corner from her home... We head to her door - the scene of the party..... After phoning ringing, buzzing and doing the famous five trick of throwing stones at her window... I eventually get let in. She is not a well lady and looks like nine inches of Hangover has taken away her climbing legs too..



So my plans are shattered.... The skys however are blue, and it looks like good climbign weather. We set out on a climbing exhibition of three to the cheesy sounds of Queen Greatest Hits II to wake us up:



This is enough to keep my spirits going..... but the Cadet is asleep on the back seat before we are out of Glasgow.

Once we have travelled the well worn road up to Loch Lomond, it becomes obvious that fog could be a problem today. There is a layer of fog covering ground level up until about 200m. This could make for some lovely views, but it could also make things unsafe. We drive on to Inveruglas and see:



When we get to Inveruglas, our normal views along Loch Lomond have been replaced by misty mystery:









There was some concern that it was too cold to go munro bagging....so I have ensured that there are lots of layers of fleece and wool for everyone. As a result, when we start off walking along the road to the mountain path, we are leaving a trail of sweat behind us.

Any hills I've done befoore have had a clear path, but for this oen, I'm following insturctions I printed off the internet, and I've got an OS map as an extra back up should I need it. The instructions seem to be clear... follow the path up and get good views. The fog is present at the moment, but not a problem. We are walking along a tarmac road, so we can't go to far wrong should anything happen.

We continue along th path and it gets steeper and steeper:






It's a really nice walk and far more Forresty than walks I've done in the past, about an hour in, we start to get a little confused:



We had expected to walk up the east side of Ben vane, and we are now wallking around the south side of Ben Vane. My instructions said follow the path, and I'm starting to suspect, that either the instructions were written before this path was built this far, or the instructions are wrong.

We decide to settle down and have some lunch while we work out what to do. We've got quite high up and we are standing between Ben vane and another ridge, it's very pretty. The path continues out towards a saddle, where we can basicallly go no further. We sup on some filled rolls and the Thai Curry soup I made. The views are nice and we are now fully wrappped up due to the sub zero temperatures:



We have definately missed the path, and should we be able to find it again, we have spent to much time getting lost, so it looks like we aren't going to bag a munro today.

We head back down to Inveruglas. As we do, we notice people coming off the path to Ben Vane.... We really overshot it. I'll know next time....

Back down at Inveruglas, The Cadet is starting to feel a little rough. While, the walk has knocked my Hangover right out, her's seems to have got worse, and she also thinks that the next day would be better spent doing uni work that marvelling at the wonders of Glencoe...

We drop her off at Crianlarich so that she can get the train back to Glasgow:


We head further up the road, and have a nostalgia stop at The Green Welly shop in Tyndrum..



It's where we always stopped on the road to my grandparents as kids... It is the one excuse for civilisation in an otherwise non stop game of tetris that is Scottish travel when you are a kid. My sister and brother were usually carsick(Which is why my sister is driving on this trip.) The journey seems so much shorter now. The weather isn't great, but there are still some great views of Beinn Dorain:



The rannoch moor onto Glencoe:



These views meant so very little to us when we were kids. The only enjoyment was Glencoe , cos you knew the story of Kilted warriors fleeing for their life up the hills, which we now know means calves and thighs of steel.

Eventually we are through glencoe and we pop out on the serenity and calm of Loch Linnie.

From here, it's a shoirt drive to Appin to visit my grandmother and take her out for dinner, we have a nice emal in a local hotel and then settle for the night after a couple of glasses of wine......

Caledonia

Loch Lommond
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

In Scotland for the weekend. Here's a gratuitous Loch and mountain picture