Mischief in Europe: The Way

This is gonna be a long post. Pictures at the bottom as usual, I feel I had a hard time capturing the grandiose scale of the highlands and there is a file size limit to the pictures I can upload, so no giant panoramas either, just little ones.

I read about the West Highland Way when I was in Liverpool. It's roughly 95 miles, starting outside of Glasgow and ending in Fort William. It goes through the highlands and some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I decided to do it. My trip didn't initially start off so well. I arrived late at night and my hostel didn't have 24 hour reception. Crap. Park bench for the evening it is. After leaving Starbucks (they opened first at 6:30) I headed towards my hostel which opened at 8, I opened my bag to double check the street and address. Out comes tumbling my camera that I had so hastily stashed in there in my rush to leave Liverpool. I cannot express how devastated I was seeing it fall to the concrete and hearing it crack against the unforgiving sidewalk. What's worse is my very new and very expensive lens was on it. I scooped it up as quick as it fell. I cradled it in my arms and told it I loved it and that everything would be alright. Both camera and lens work perfectly, except for some cosmetic damage and a dent that has now permanently attached my CPL filter to it because I can't unscrew it. What all this means is that there were some concepts I had that I wanted to do along the way that I was unable to do because I couldn't change filters. I hoped my time in Glasgow wasn't foreshadowing for the entire trip. The rest of my time in Glasgow was uneventful. I bought the gear I would need and shipped non essential items like my laptop and extra clothing ahead to Fort William.

There isn't much to say about the actual hiking of it except I went up some very pretty mountains and down some very pretty mountains. A lot haha. The first night I camped on top of a hill over looking Loch Lommond. It was super windy. It was super picturesque, if only I could get something other than gray skies. Along the way I met two German fellows, Marcos and Stefan, we were staying at the same hostel one night (I was in a no camping zone and it was really cozy). They asked me the magic question "Mer-elle, you vant to go dreenk bee-uhs?" Well sure! We walked to the inn and had a couple brews. At one point during the conversation we were talking about local music, and of course the first famous RVA band I thought of was GWAR... Excitedly Marcos started gesturing wildly with his hands creating a fictitious mask about his head! I was so thrilled to know a middle aged German engineer knew who my town's most ridiculous band was. They were happy with my non existent knowledge of the German language which I summed up to them as "Mein Deutsche est kaput" I later flexed my linguistic muscles with "Mein panini est gut" and of course "PROBST!" I learned from them that bagpipe in German is dudelsack.

While hiking one day a couple of fellas in kilts came trotting by quick as a fox. I was stunned and thought these highlanders make light work of this. I was meeting up with some other travelers I met along the way at a campsite. It was there I saw the Scotsmen carrying enormous packs AND the packs they had with them when they breezed by me. They were paying someone to portage their bags ahead for them. Minus 50 authenticity points. I immediately felt smug about carrying all my own gear and hiking the trail like a man, and not paying someone to do the heavy lifting for me. In addition to the Germans, Marcos and Stefan, I hung out with another group of 4. "Doogie" (I think that's a Scottish accent for Dougie), Jens from Germany, Ben from Germany, and Ben's girlfriend a wonderful lass named Rosie. This was Rosie's sixth time hiking the way. She knew where to stop so that you could easily hike to a nearby inn or pub for some hot food and cold drink.

One night she took us to the Drover's Inn. It's a haunted 300 year old inn just a few hundred meters off the way. It satisfies every rural Scottish pub stereotype I ever had. The candlelit interior looked like nobody had changed it in the 300 years that it had been open. Awesome! There were swords on the wall. Of course! Bar staff wearing kilts. Naturally! Everyone there was exceptionally friendly (everyone my entire time in Scotland has been that way actually). It turns out it was a Friday night (I had lost track of days, I thought it was a Wednesday) so there was a musician and he played my pub favorite Galway Girl. At one point Rosie convinced me to dance with her, I agreed under the stipulation I get to request the song. She loved idea of an old punk song, I get the feeling old punk rock is what she grew up with. The musician played Teenage Kicks by The Undertones. It was a blast! I met up with them later down the way as well. But the night at the Drover's was my favorite.

Unfortunately my camera battery died half way through the trip and I had accidentally shipped my other battery ahead to Fort William. In accordance to Murphy's Law it died before the MOST beautiful part of the trip. My feet were killing me the whole way. Upon inspection my boots just weren't wide enough, the sides of my feet were black and blue. I wore them around Glasgow when I got them but they didn't bother me then. Oh well. It was still gorgeous, even if it was slightly painful. Not much grows up there, but there was a certain particular plant. It was yellow and smelled of coconut. When they covered the hillside they would make the entire mountain and valley just smell intoxicating.

I met some amazing people and saw some of the most gorgeous unmolested landscape ever. Oh, and lambs. Sweet adorable little baby lambs.