Wednesday, May 5
So we packed our bags, ate the continental breakfast (including genuine porridge) included with our booking, parked our bags with tags attached in the hotel lobby, and headed into town to buy sandwiches for lunch. The weather, unlike yesterday, is wonderful. There are clouds in the sky, but we're seeing sun. There is no wind, and the temperature is balmy. The guys hike in long-sleeved shirts, and I in a shirt and fleece jacket open at the front. This is more like it!
Vendors are just setting up for the Wednesday Farmers' Market in Milngavie. There are specialty meats, fish, the first tomatoes of the year, and and a variety of baked goods, including some tasty looking pies. We head for the bakery/deli spotted yesterday. B and I select an egg mayonnaise sandwich (egg salad) on a dark whole-grain bread, and a cheese and onion pasty. We are too early -- the meat pasties won't be out of the oven for a while yet. Lunch secured, we head for the trail head, just down the street. A kind lady takes a picture of the four of us with my camera, but she's slightly intimidated by it. The picture turns out blurry. Oh, well. Perhaps the one she took with T's camera will be better.
We climb down a short staircase and cross a small car park (parking lot) and head out on a paved trail. The trail is mostly flat, but there is some uphill into Mugdock Country Park. There are flowers on amongst the grass on the verge. Some trees are starting to leaf out, but others are still just budded. Among the sights we pass is, of course, a golf course. 
There are wildflowers and bunches and bunches of daffodils.
Walkers pass us and we pass other walkers. At one point, I walk wiith a British gentleman. Dumgoyach, a 492 ft. high crag, is in view. He tells me that it was the first mountain he ever climbed -- when he was 11 and in Scouts. One of his mates got into a nest of hornets and was stung very badly. Today is the first time he's seen Dumgoyach since then. He and his friends take a walking trip every year at this time of year. Last year he did a trip in the Cotswolds that ends in Bath.
We have moved into farm country. There are frequent gates, and the occasional stile. We are careful to close the gates securely. Eventually the valley opens out, and we see the Glengoyne Distillery in the distance. We are about half way - 6 miles of the twelve are behind us. A clearly marked path leads us from the Way to the visitor reception. We take advantage of the facilities (yes!) and buy a ticket for a tour.
The tour is quite interesting. There are some similarities to winemaking, and a great many differences. The best job in the distillery, the tour guide tells us, is the guy who "marries" the whiskeys to make 10-year-old, 17-year-old, and cask whiskeys. All he does all day is to "nose" the whiskey and decide what to marry (never say blend!) After the tour, we taste the 10-year-old (ho-hum) and the 17-year-old (much better). This distillery, founded in 1833, does not smoke its barley with peat. Historically, there was no peat in the area, and the distillers continue the tradition. It brings out many other flavors in the whiskey, our guide tells us, that a peaty taste would obscure. Our guide, it turns out, is Swedish. He's been in the UK for a month, and has held this job for 3 weeks. He's quite good -- even able to answer our questions.
Whiskey-fueled, we skip back down the path, across the pasture, and back to the West Highland Way. We decide that the built-up berm is a fine place to enjoy lunch. So we break out our sandwiches and pasties, but decide to skip the bottle of wine that B has carried all this way. D has blueberry cookies for dessert (good) and I contribute some pistachio-almond-hazelnut nougat. This turns out to be a box of tiny bars of nougat, just right for hiking.
Lunch over, it's now 1:30 p.m., and we have 6 miles to go. This part of the trip is truly bucolic; lovely, rolling green pastures dotted with fluffy white sheep, and even some cattle of the more common varieties. The gates are closer together, and often come in pairs as we cross a farm road. When we are nearly to Gartness, the route drops us into a narrow lane. We walk on the road now rather than a trail, for the remaining 3 miles or so to Drymen (sounds like drimmen). We're tired, and even hot and sweaty. We elect to find our B&B, dump our packs, and head for the pub. Showers can wait.
And we do exactly that. Our hosts Joe and Kath welcome us to the Braeside B& B, just off the Square. Macs Adventure, with whom we booked this trip on the West Highland Way, has delivered our bags, and Joe has carried them up to the 1st floor, where we have double rooms with en-suite bath. These are lovely rooms, very comfortable.
And right across the street is the oldest pub in Scotland, the Clachan. We repair there for Scottish ale. All of us are tired, and a couple of us (me included) have a tendency to yawn and even nod off. One pint down, we repair to the B&B for showers and nap. We will return to the pub later, or rather to the restaurant in the same building, which we are told has spectacular food. I will be ready to eat hearty tonight!
Tomorrow's hike is a long one, two 7-mile segments, about 15 miles total. The first seven miles take us through a conifer forest, the the second seven miles or so takes us up the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.
Today's pictures start here.
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