Second day – over Conic Hill and down to Loch Lomond
Awake but a little stiff after our first day of walking and first night in the tent, we set off for the second day of the West Highland Way. This took us firstly though Garadhban Forest, one of the many conifer plantations in this part of Scotland. In one of the sections that had been recently felled, we counted the rings on a few of the trunks – they came to about 26, meaning that this forest had been planted at the beginning of the 1970’s. Rather like the whisky which is produced here, which needs at least eight and more usually twelve or more years sitting in barrels before it is ready to drink, this is not a product which is fast to market. When I was still a twinkle in my daddy’s eye, these trees were already young saplings. When you see timber on sale or being used on construction sites, it’s hard to make this connection to the slow passage of time.
After lunch, we descended down into a shallow gorge before beginning the ascent of Conic Hill. The Dutch would probably call it a mountain, but it’s not quite tall enough for that name here. All the same, it’s quite a nice wee climb and there are some great views from the top.
Having enthusiastically scrambled up to the summit of the hill, I stupidly came down far too hard on my right knee while coming off it, meaning that I ended up with quite a lot of pain from it for the rest of the day. This made me quite worried, since we still have five days to go after today. Hopefully if I rest it and try and put more weight on the other side it will not play up too much.
The descending path brought us to the shore of Loch Lomond at the tiny village of Balmaha, where we stopped for coffee before pushing on the last wee bit to our camp site slightly further up the side of the loch. It turned out that I had not been so clever when arranging where we would stay, since this meant that we will have a lot more to walk tomorrow than today. If I had booked with another location further north, the distances would have been more or less equal. Unfortunately, the fact that we are using a baggage carrying service means that we are more or less stuck with a schedule of where we will spend each night.
