Slept well but a really wet night outside. Again thankful for this tent which doesn't let a drop in. Porridge for breakfast, a Mars bar for Graeme and then we found we could have cooked in the enclosure where the toilets were. Indeed we could even have hung up our dripping tent there, like some girls did, until we were ready. As it was we set off in the rain with a heavy wet load and damp clothes, a great start to the day. For a while the rain eased and it was a quite pleasant walk on easy and obvious tracks to Balmaha. One thing about the WHW is that there is no real difficulty in route finding, the little thistles are well sited and keep you on the right road. Conic Hill was closed, as expected, for the lambing season, which was a bit of a relief for us. Not exactly suffering but we were weary and I certainly hadn't relished the idea of a great trudge over that hill. Although easy walking it was again coming down in sheets and we were glad to see a cafe sign at a gardening centre in Balmaha. I looked at Graeme and words were unnecessary, we were in like a shot for a cup of tea and crisps. Oh what a delight to get the pack off and sit out of the rain, merrily steaming away. The cafe man was obviously used to walkers coming in and had no objection to us dripping all over his floor. Some women at the next table told us they were waiting for some walkers. There were, I think, about ten walkers doing B&B and meeting up with their 'supporters' every night. They had all pre-booked all along the line (which explained how folks we met later had problems on lodging). Off again and by now walking alongside Loch Lomond. Mainly easy walking but every so often the path moved uphill for a bit and then back down to the lochside. No obvious reason, I think it was done just a) for variety and b) to annoy. The path continues good but this had been a long day and we were tired. Stopped off at the big campsite by the loch for soup during a break in the rain, really welcome. A further stop at Rowardennan for coffee, a busy little place. I wished by now I had joined the Youth Hostel Association, it would have been so nice just to stop at Rowardennan. At this point you get a choice of route. One way goes along the loch, is muddy, difficult and has some scrambling. The other way goes along a wide easy forest path. Guess which one we took? Graeme by now seemed to be in a bad way despite the easiness of the path and I don't think I was much better. However the path wasn't too long and after a short backtrack on the lochside path we reached the bothy we had planned to stay in. Some Dutch people welcomed us in but it was Carnmore all over again, an empty room with dirt floor. At least this had a platform for sleeping and a fireplace. The Dutch offered to move up to allow us space but we didn't feel like sleeping in there and elected to camp outside. The bothy was an old house re-roofed in a village of ruined cottages about 100 metres above Loch Lomond. We put up the tent, dodging the rain, just in front of one of the cottages. It looked sheltered enough though we worried a bit as the forecast was for worse than today which had been bad enough. Cold and snow they said.
Back into the bothy for dinner which took a long time but was OK. This time we had brought quite a few of the noodle/ Heinz dried foods, chilli for tonight. They are alright and a darn sight better than the Raven breed. A problem had come up. The support strap on Graeme's rucksack was starting to come apart at the seam. This was really dodgy as this is the one that steadies the sack on your back. The Dutch guys had some needles and thread but it was too fine. It needed a really heavy duty thread. Nice of them to offer though. In fact they were a very friendly bunch, all of them well over six feet and muscle-bound. One of them had a Japanese look but appeared to be the brother of another who definitely wasn't Japanese. Some of them had been to Scotland before, over on the Cairngorms. They had walked in the Alps but still reckoned Scotland a great place to walk. Why the West Highland Way, though, we never quite fathomed. Sometime later a girl arrived, shyly looking in to see who was there. Why shyly I'm not sure as she was pretty brave, or stupid, to be coming into a bothy on her own. Perhaps she worked on the basis of safety in numbers i.e. the more people around the less likely anything would happen. Not sure what accent she had, sometimes sounding Australian, sometimes English, she seemed to be in a bit of a mess. Much of her gear was wrong and looked thrown together, and her feet were soaking wet, which didn't say much for her boots. We stayed for a while as it was relatively warm and one of the Dutch guys managed to get the fire going. It wasn't brilliant as the wood was wet but some of it caught and I was able to hang some of my soaking clothes up. They steamed but never really got dry. Later on another couple of English lads turned up making seven people for sleeping in the bothy. They had smelled our fire long before they even saw the bothy. Back in the tent I had a strange night, sleeping fitfully. I went to bed wondering if the village had any ghosts and if I would be waking at every noise. What happened though was weird. At one point in the night I got the strange feeling that the people from the village had come to me and were trying to explain to me what life was like in their days. Mainly they were trying to show me that they had good social times. I felt I was at a dance in the village where people from other farms or villages had come along for dancing and social chat. Everyone was friendly and happy and enjoying themselves. The message they seemed to be giving me was even if it was a hard life they still had good times and good company. It was a nice feeling when I woke in the morning, as if I had been entertained by friends. If they were ghosts they were nice, friendly ones.
