Day 16 – Ardleish to Rowardennan
Actual distance 21.28Km or 13.22 miles (or 425,600 Jammy Dodgers)
Total Ascent 683m (or 5,939 cans of IrnBru)
This morning we left beautiful Lochgoilhead with the lovely team there waving us off. We set off to start the logistical nightmare of getting 3 vehicles around to the other side of Loch Lomond where there are very few roads. We drove as far as Luss, leaving Dan to spend the day shuttle driving/ cycling to move the vehicles closer to our end point, a task that proved to be more challenging than he had anticipated!
Unfortunately traffic was slow back to Ardlui Hotel so we had to wait quite a while for the ferry back to Ardleish. Once off the boat, we set off quickly, powering along the path until we reached what can only be described as a bouldering course! The kids were like mountain goats scrambling quickly up and down the rocks. The olds took it a little slower, with Jennie often resulting in just sitting down to descend the steepest bits. We had only managed 4km by the time Ollie was simply too hungry to continue, so we found a lovely sandy beach for lunch (and to have a break from the climbing!).
Refuelled, we ploughed on and after a few more rocky climbs the path finally opened up, leading to the Inversnaid Hotel where we stopped for a quick soft drink. The path was slightly kinder out of Inversnaid, but continued to be filled with regular steep rocky climbs and narrow stony tracks through overgrown ferns. Each stretch of the West Highlands Way has definitely had its own unique challenges, but, maybe because our legs are a little tired today, this stretch felt the most difficult.
We finally left the forest path and joined a far wider track that migrated with the road to Rowardennan. The paths through Scotland have had a variety of different creatures on them, with fairly tame and curious birds, beetles, fat black slugs, slow worms and numerous frogs. As we nearer our end point there were several tiny brown frogs, then a gorgeous big frog sitting there watching us!
We finished the day at the Rowardennan Hotel where we had a very delicious meal, and they even had a gluten free lager on tap! We then jumped in the car and headed down to our campsite for the night. Dan had managed to get 2 of our 3 vehicles to the campsite, so the last task of the day was for Phil and Dan to go back on the long drive to Luss to collect the last van.
