Distance: Book says 22km but our fitness monitor says 26km
Leaving Drymen
The entire summer the weather across Europe had been sunny and dry...except in Scotland. Everytime we checked the Doppler radar, there was wet and rainy weather over Scotland. On the plus side, this meant that, while the rest of Europe was scorched and yellow, the Scottish landscape was green and lush.
On the not so great side, we woke up to a torrential downpour on our second day on the West Highland Way. Sheets of rain slanted just slightly less than sideways rain (we'd get that kind of rain later on down the trail). In hopes that the weather would let up a little, we decided to hunker down in cozy restaurant and have a big breakfast.
We headed to Skoosh because our guidebook mentioned they made great sandwiches which we planed to take with us to eat for lunch. When we're hiking, we normally hit grocery stores and make our own lunches, but with the weather being what it was, we thought it would be best to keep things as simple.
After inspecting the menu, I decided to go with a Coronation chicken sandwich. I'd never heard of a Coronation chicken sandwich before, so I Googled it and learned that it's a sandwich filled with pieces of chicken, mixed with mayonnaise and curry powder. The description didn't appeal to Baasje, so he ordered the other option on the menu:
Baasje: “I'll have the dry chicken sandwich, please."
Scottish server: “Just dry chicken?”
Baasje: “You don’t recommend it?”
Scottish server: “Well it’s just dry chicken, so it’ll be dry.”
And so we both ended up with Coronation chicken sandwiches.
For breakfast we could pick from either 5 or 7 choices. I went for 7 choices - fried eggs (2x) bacon, tomato, mushroom, sausage, potato scone, toast - and Baasje got 5 - scrambled egg, sausage (2x) potato scone, tomato. Delish!
On the trail
We got every kind of weather on the trail that day - pouring rain, bright sun, cold, hot. I was grateful I'd bit the bullet and splashed out a new Gore-tex raincoat before we left.
We briefly hiked through the farmland surrounding Drymen before entering a forest of beautiful big trees (and lots of signs of logging). After the forest, the trail split and we took the high route up Conic Hill to check out the vista of Loch Lommond (beautiful even though the views were partially obscured by fog and rain). It was definitely worth the climb!
Ate lunch in Balahama at the foot of Conic Hill - popular spot with tourists (lots of hiking groups).
After lunch the trail traced the shores of Loch Lommond. Beautiful
Arriving in Rowadennan
We had reservations that night at Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel (a converted fishing and hunting lodge). When we arrived at sunset we were famished and we were grateful that the hostel served a delish three course dinner. We both had the tomato basil soup (amazing!), Baasje had the chile con carne for his main and I had the chicken tikka. After dinner I soaked my feet in Loch Lommond before turning in early in anticipation of the next day’s hike (we’d been warned day 3 would be the the hardest stretch of the trail).
See more photos of our second day on the West Highland Way in our album on Flickr
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