What is the exact opposite of walking in Suffolk? Probably walking in the Scottish Highlands. I was told that early September is a good time to visit western Scotland - not so many midges and still a chance of some decent weather. So, I set off to spend seven days in the company of eight wonderful women I had never met before, and who had come from as far afield as Canada, the US and Australia, walking the 95 miles of the West Highland Way.
The Way was opened in 1980 as the first designated long distance path in Scotland and is still probably the most popular. It follows Loch Lomond, crosses Rannoch Moor, takes in Glencoe and Ben Nevis and ends in Fort William. For a walker like me, who had never before really visited Scotland and who spends most of the time in a comparatively flat landscape, it was a spectacular introduction to the world of contours. There they were on the OS map, crowded together in terrifying proximity. It was time to meet them foot to foot.
To find the start, you have to get yourself to a pleasant little town called Milngavie, just outside Glasgow. Most hikers arrive by train, which for the uninitiated involves asking to buy a ticket to "Milngavie" station. This results in a glance heavenwards, a gentle shake of the head, and a sighed "Oh, you mean 'Mull Guy'". Things are simpler in East Anglia (or maybe not - Glaswegians are warmly invited to ask a Norfolk native for directions to Happisburgh or Wymondham).
Like all popular long-distance trails, it attracts super-competitive sorts, as well as the ordinary mortals who just want to go for a long walk. The "seven day-ers" like us are in the majority, but some hardy souls undertake it in five days, or even three. The record, set in 2017 during the annual West Highland Way Race, is 13 hours, 41 minutes and 8 seconds, an achievement so far beyond comprehension and normal reality that it seems to belong to legend, like the Loch Ness Monster.
For "seven-dayers", the first leg takes you from Milngavie to Drymen, one thing we definitely were not by the end of the first day. Rather, we were Drenchedwomen. The rain which we had been promised arrived in earnest just as we posed for photos at the needle-like monument which marks the start of the Way. It carried on relentlessly as we climbed the gentle slope through woodland out of Milngavie and down what would have been a magnificent valley with mixed woods and pasture, topped by extraordinary volcanic peaks resembling smaller versions of St Lucia's Pitons. ("Would have" because we could see very little of it.)
At the end of the valley, the Glengoyne distillery was a welcome break before we continued along almost flat and almost paved paths through fields to the small town of Drymen. The Highlands seemed far off: I could almost have been back in Suffolk, walking through hedged sheep fields, complete with kissing gates.
That changed the next day as we climbed the long, slow and very rocky path towards the summit of Conic Hill. The hoped-for view of Loch Lomond was there somewhere behind the murk, but apart from one tantalising glimpse, the only photo opportunities were of driving rain and a white expanse of cloud 20 metres or so below us. The descent to Balmaha was down a rock-strewn path which had become a waterfall (the first of many, as we were to find out).
After a night at Rowardennan, we climbed out of another valley, through more driving rain, but fortunately in the cover of a conifer plantation. Finally, after a couple of hours, the clouds relented and we had our first proper views of Loch Lomond sparkling in sunlight.
After dropping down to the water at Inversnaid, we continued along the astonishing loch-side "path". It was more a wade, clamber, slide, teeter and scramble than a walk; over boulders, down mini cliffs, through waterfalls which should have been gentle burns, but which had been swollen out of all recognition by the rain of the last few days.
Luckily, the better weather held and the loch accompanied us the whole way, brilliant blue, streaked with white horses worthy of an ocean by the freshening wind.
A sharp, musky stench alerted us to the presence of wild mountain goats. They were a few yards above us on the steep slope, which stretched away into the distance towards Ben Lomond. They had hugely shaggy coats, more like yaks than goats, and fearsome-looking horns. They were unimpressed by us and skipped easily away along an impossible ledge.
Having reached the head of the loch, we might have been forgiven for thinking that we were somewhere near our hotel. We were not - it was still a two hour slog along watery paths along the hillside to Beinnglas. From the campsite there, we could see our overnight stop at the Drover's Inn, a short hop away. But there was no reaching it: a storm a few weeks before had carried away the bridge over the swollen river and we had to wait in the rain for rescue by the hotel staff.
By this time, we were becoming used to the idiosyncrasies of hostelries in this part of Scotland, but nothing prepared us for the Drover's Inn. Think Natural History Museum meets the Addams Family, with elements of Star Wars thrown in (mainly in the bathrooms). If you walk the West Highland Way, you have been warned.
The next day's walk to Tyndrum was a gentler ramble through wide, open valleys and gravelly paths under conifer trees. In the woodland areas, the path was lined by an extraordinary number of fly agaric toadstools. It is not hard to see why these fungi have been associated with fairy folk and witchcraft - they looked like cities of tiny, red-roofed houses set among miniature mountains of lime green and red spagnum moss.
Unfortunately, the rain came back next morning as we left Tyndrum. Drenched and cold, we were tempted in for a coffee at the Bridge of Orchy, where the welcoming wood-burning stove made it difficult to find the will to continue. But continue we did, as we had 19 miles to cover this day, most of it across Rannoch Moor.
This is a famously bleak and wild landscape. It is rare in the British Isles to look at a far-distant horizon and see absolutely no sign whatsoever of human habitation. There were not even any sheep. Or, it seemed, even any wild animals or birds. The whole land was stone, swiftly running dark brown water, tough-looking grass, the occasional thorn tree. It did not need us.
But late in the afternoon, it blessed us with a perfect double rainbow and let us pass through unharmed to our overnight stop in Glencoe.
The rainbow was truly the sign of better weather. The next day was bright, sunny and almost warm. The menacing landscape of Glencoe was transformed and Buchaille Etive Mor and Buchaille Etive Beg (the Big Shepherd and the Little Shepherd) loomed over us almost protectively.
We were glad of the weather's help as we tackled The Devil's Staircase, up and over the ridge out of Glencoe. The sun had brought the crowds out to play in the hills and the famous Staircase was so busy it was more like an escalator, but the view over the valley, drenched in sunlight rather than rain, was simply stunning. The other side of the pass, we had our first glimpse of Ben Nevis, its head in the only cloud in the otherwise perfect blue sky.
The sun stayed with us all the way down the steep slope into Kinlochleven, the first proper town we had seen, with rows of modest, semi-detached houses and its hydro-electric power station. Apparently, this was the first town in the UK to have entirely electric lighting.
The electricity produced by the thundering water from the dam on the river Leven used to drive an aluminium smelting plant. That's the kind of nature they have around here: not timid or fragile-looking - it has the power to melt metal ore. The aluminium plant is now closed, but the mountain water's force is still being harnessed for the national grid.
We were treated to a breathtaking sunset over Loch Leven (the photo at the top of this post is the view from the bar that evening) and the promise of more good weather for the last day of our walk.
The last leg started with a super-steep climb out of Kinlochleven over stony terrain. In some ways, this was more difficult than the Devil's Staircase. We continued down a long, wide valley, with high hills on each side. As we stopped to rest at a disused sheep pen, it was clear just how many people were out walking the path today, which was Sunday. It was to get busier - 600 marathon runners had to be avoided, helped through gates and issued with cheerful encouragements throughout the rest of the day. Some looked as though they had left their last legs somewhere way behind and it was astonishing that no one sustained a serious injury on the steep, stony descents.
The landscape along this part of the path had been stripped of trees and had a melancholy feeling, probably because it was such a contrast to see the hand of man so clearly after many days of wildness. The final descent into Fort William, however, was stunning, with Ben Nevis looming hugely somewhere overhead, its summit still hiding in its personal cloud.
Fort William is the end of the West Highland Way and, to prove it, has a statue of a sore-footed man sitting on a bench (actually, he looks not so much like a sporty hiker as an old-age pensioner rubbing his bunions, but that doesn't stop everyone wanting to have their photo taken with him).
Fort William is also the start of the Great Glen Way. Now that the Highlands have me in their grip, I'll be back for that one.
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