Some of the heartier hikers choose to walk the 10 miles from Glasgow to Milngavie. However, since we were still on Seattle time, we opted for the 15 minute taxi ride to the official start of the WHW. Once we transferred our luggage to "Travel Lite" (a sherpa service), we checked out the WHW Information Center and got all the latest details on the trail. We found out that the walking season was really slowing down, midges were almost nonexistent and September is the best walking weather of the entire hiking season! Yay! After Rhonda purchased a red rain poncho (just in case) and getting the obligatory official start photo at the West Highland Way Obelisk, we headed through neighborhoods to Mugdock Country Park, leaving the city behind. It was early in the morning and the sun was shining! The day promised to be warm. We passed many locals out walking their dogs in the park and exchanged "hiyas", a common Scottish greeting. Seems as though everyone was smiling and cheerful!

Our first stop was to be the Glengoyne Distillery followed by lunch about the half-way point at Beech Tree Inn, a pub in the tiny hamlet of Dumgoyne. Since we had taken our time along this portion of the day's walk, we opted out of the tour. The scenery was beautiful with sunny skies, puffy clouds, a beautiful lake with fishermen and we passed through the first of many pastures.

After lunch of a sandwich and a pint of Tennet's Lager, we resumed our walk. At this point we had about 4.5 miles to go. The day's weather just got better as we went along and the scenery continued to be breathtaking, but we were anxious for this day to end. We looked forward to turning in early.

Photos l to r: Heading into the Highlands, a typical farm and one of many streams to cross

The trail is marked sporadically with a yellow thistle carved into the top of a wooden post and were fairly easy to spot. There was one as we entered the outer region of Drymen (pronounced "Drimmen"), but we needed to ask a local how to find the town center so we could locate our next B & B, The Hawthorns. We arrived at the B & B and were shown to our room which was at the top of a very long flight of stairs....the good news: our bags were already in the room. The host directed us to a pub for dinner and thankfully it was just around the corner. We celebrated the end of our first successful day of walking by indulging in a hot Irish Whiskey at the Winnock Hotel.

Photos l to r: Flowers and shrubs along side Winnock Hotel, The Clachan Inn Pub, View from our B&B window.

Exploring the 'lands' of Scotland, Ireland and Iceland

To commemorate my 60th year, I wanted to go on another adventure. I had hiked the Chilkoot Trail when I was 50 and another "hike seemed the right choice. However, I don't think I will wait 10 years between hikes!

My good friend and proven traveling companion, Rhonda Sleighter (Juneau), and I chose to hike the West Highland Way in Scotland http:www.west-highland-way.co.uk/home.asp which is a 96-mile route beginning in Milngavie and ending in Ft. William.

We departed Seattle on Iceland Air for Glasgow after having Rhonda's traditional "Beginning of Vacation" Bloody Mary.Travel time to Glasgow was almost 12 hours. We changed planes in Reykjavik, Iceland and again in Manchester, England. the time difference between Seattle, WA and Glasgow is eight hours with Scotland being ahead of the U.S. Even though we landed at 1:40pm, it still felt like 5:40am to us!

We took a taxi from the airport to our B & B, Amadeus Guest House and waited for our hostess to check us in. We were directed to a neighborhood restaurant for dinner. The food was delicious but we were tired. After re-packing suitcases and organizing backpacks we headed to bed and looked forward to the first day of our walk. We did question the sanity as to why we thought a12-mile walk would be a good thing the day after arriving in Scotland, but felt we could handle it.