After Niels, my best buddy from high school, and me arrived to Edinburgh late in the evening, we tried to get a lift to Glasgow with the help of a cardboard sign. We hoped to get a place in a car that someone rented out but the people in the baggage claim area have not reacted at all. Actually that was pretty much what we expected since it was so late in the evening. But giving up is always bad so I kept on walking through the airport hall with the sign in front of my chest. Suddenly out of nothing a Scottish guy came to me and gave me a bus ticket for three people to Glasgow! He told us he didn’t need it any more and said: „Guys, hurry up the bus is coming soon!“ Unfortunately I forgot his name, but thanks anyway you helpful stranger! Spontaneous life is sometimes working like a charm. 😀 … The bus had a delay of one hour and the night got even shorter, but we were much closer to where we wanted to be.
We also needed to solve the problem with the missing roof over our heads. I spoke to some people in the bus and met Meike, who was visiting a friend in Glasgow. As we arrived to the bus station in Glasgow she was picked up by Sonja and we introduced each other. After talking for a while she offered us a places on the living room’s couches. A really big „thank you“ for that! We drank some tea together and talked for quite a while before we went to bed. We needed to get up early the very next day. At 7 o’clock we took the City-Link bus to Fort Williams where we started our adventure.
The bus ride itself was really beautiful because of all the nice roads which made their way trough hills and around lakes. It felt like being slowly sucked into nature. Another reason for this feeling was the remoteness and the rising sun. It was quite bucolic to have these special sunrise colours projected onto the landscape with some hills still being covered by snow. We were asking ourselves if we would come across snowy sections during our hike.
We have safely arrived to Fort Williams and bought hiking maps, gas cartridges and food. At around midday we took the ferry to the other side of Loch Linnhe and started our hike, which started with a road parallel to this bay. After some time we finally turned right and landed on a gravel path. From this point on we got spoiled by beautiful views, a forest crossing and a lot of deer.
The path was going along a river, which created some descent and really beautiful scars in the valley. The closeness to the river was helpful for us because it gave us some drinking water. At this point we haven’t reckoned that we would be surrounded by puddles, rivers, streams, lakes and a lot of meltwater during the entire hike. All the puddles, which surely are the breeding areas for all the midges in summertime, have luckily just been occupied by frogs. That was a really good thing. 🙂 We haven’t encountered one single midge! During the hike our appreciation for that was increasing more and more since there were puddles everywhere!
The sun was going down slowly and after about 20 km hiking we started to search for a campsite. Easier said than done! As nice all the hills were looking in their green dresses, the worse they are suitable for setting up a tent. Every piece of earth was wet and soft like a sponge laying in the sink. We were permanently sinking in up to the ankles. But after a while we luckily found a place which was not as catastrophic as the others.
We have not made any nice dinner because we were quite tired and the motivation for cooking was gone. While laying in my tent I made the following note in my travel diary:
The river close to us rushed in its gentle and dovelike nature while a light breeze of wind stroke the tent.
Thus it was quite nice laying in the tent even though the wet from below made it quite cold. Maybe you have already noticed that otherwise the weather was quite nice, and the day was sunny and warm. It exceeded all our weather expectations of the Highlands. That is how it can go on! DerRené!
PS: The second day of the hike will be published in form of a photostory. Stay tuned! You can find it here.
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