How NOT to do the West Highland Way - part 4

Days 4 &5

Inverarnan to Tyndrum - then home.

Day 4

That evening at Beinglas once we were back in the tents I had to get up and go to the bathroom, but my feet were absolute agony! It took me a good 5 minutes to limp the 30 metres or so to the toilet block, by which point I was absolutely desperate. One of the German girls was there again and tried to speak to me but I just had to run straight into the cubicle. I never saw her again after that, so I felt quite bad afterwards. I didn't mean to be rude but I might have wet myself in front of her if I didn't get into the toilet when I did. By this point I was really worried about my feet, and would have crawled back to the tent if the grass hadn't been wet.

Monster portion of Haggis Neeps and Tatties from the Drovers the previous evening.

In the morning my feet weren't much better, so reluctantly I decided not to do any walking that day. We had a cooked breakfast at the campsite and got talking to a couple of guys who were cycling from John-o-Groats to Lands-End for charity. We shared some of our toast with them as we had way too much food to eat ourselves, plus they were planning on setting off on an empty stomach. 

Gerard Butler's guestbook entry. If only we'd been there a night earlier!

I decided just to get the bus to our next stop at Tyndrum, and hopefully get my feet up for a few hours. But I had the whole day spare so there wasn't really any rush. I relaxed in the campsite for half an hour or so, then limped up to the Drovers, just in time to see the bus pulling away. I had another hour to wait, so just went into the Drovers and sat with a soft drink to kill some time. It was still only mid-morning, so they weren't serving alcohol yet - a stiff drink would have been preferable to try and numb the pain in my feet!

When I eventually arrived in Tyndrum around midday I was looking forward to just checking into our accommodation - the wooden huts at 'By The Way.' However the welcome I received was less than friendly, and was downright rude. As I approached the reception area one of the female owners practically came running at me shouting 'go away!'  I tried to explain that we were booked into one of the huts but she told me they weren't open until 2 o'clock and to go away. I was rather taken aback by this as this was the first unfriendly person I had encountered on the whole journey so far.

 

I trudged slowly up to the café at the other end of the village and passed the time with a magazine and cream scone. The battery on my phone had died by this point so I had no way of telling whether or not it was after 2 o'clock or not. I waited on the benches outside for another half hour, just to be sure, watching a group of bikers setting off on their journey. 

I headed back down to 'By the Way' and tried to check in again. It was the same woman as earlier, and she wasn't in any better mood than before. I gave all the booking details, but because I did not have the credit card that it was booked under I could not check in. I tried to explain the situation but there was no way this woman was letting me into our hut. I asked if I could wait here until the others arrive, and her reply was that I could sit outside, but I would have "no access to any of the facilities". Great - the rain was just starting to come down and I had to sit outside. 

As I was leaving the reception another group of walkers arrived and had asked to collect their bags which one of the carrying services had dropped off. As I was walking out the door I heard the woman shouting at them - "How do I know who you are? You could be anybody!"  Either she was having one hell of a bad day, or she has some sort of anger management issue. In any case, she probably wasn't best suited to a career in customer service.

I decided to take a walk down to the end of the drive where the Way passes by, hoping to see my friends coming in. I shouted encouragement at a few groups of walkers who were passing, and asked whether they had seen a group of 5 girls and a guy - but nobody had. One man stopped to chat and explained that he'd set off at 6:30 that morning, so I knew my group were still nowhere near. Reluctantly I headed back up the drive to sit down on the wet grass. 

I'd only been sitting for around ten minutes when two of the girls arrived - they'd got as far as Crianlarich and decided to catch a bus the rest of the way to Tyndrum. One of them had brought me a can of beer, and at that moment I thought it was the kindest thing anyone could have done for me as I was feeling rather depressed. We went back to reception to try and check in for a third time. 

This time the woman said we can't get in without paying, which she hadn't mentioned before. If I'd have known it was money she was after I would have paid cash and got the money back from the rest of the group. We split it between the three of us and finally managed to get the key for the hut - it wasn't worth the wait. When we entered the hut all of the surfaces were covered in dead midges, and I'm talking hundreds, not just one or two. At least it was nice to get some shelter from the rain. 

We found the rest of the facilities to be quite restrictive – whereas all the other sites we stayed at had free washing and drying, at By the Way you had to pay for these. Granted it was only a few pence but still frustrating. If you didn’t happen to be carrying the correct coins then you wouldn’t be able to use anything. You even had to pay to use the cooker! Also there were signs everywhere telling you not to do this and that which felt as though they were dictating to you like some sort of schoolteacher and you were the naughty child.

The only good point about the huts was that they had an electricity supply which meant I was able to charge my phone. I’d only had it plugged in for about an hour when I checked it and found that someone had unplugged it and removed my charger. I asked everyone but they all denied having seen my phone charger, so clearly I knew someone was lying. I wasn’t sure at this stage whether it had been stolen or if it was a genuine mistake, so I left the issue for the time being. 

Anyway we decided just to have an early night, as I was still in a bit of a bad mood from earlier, plus the midges were so bad outside that it was impossible to leave the hut. I was hoping that after plenty of rest my feet would have recovered sufficiently to continue the walk tomorrow. 

Day 5

We had planned to set off early this morning as it was a long day ahead – 19 miles to Kingshouse. I woke up and began to strap up my feet while everyone else went off for breakfast. When they returned they told me that it was time to leave, even though I hadn’t eaten yet. I ended up storming off in the huff at this point, as there was no way I was going for a 19 mile walk without having something to eat first. I quickly gobbled down a tin of sausage and beans then we set off. I asked everyone again to check their belongings to see if someone had accidentally picked up my charger, but still everybody denied it. 

The weather today was awful, the rain was absolutely pouring down so we all had our waterproofs on, however within minutes I was soaked from the inside with sweat. Although my feet were much better they were still quite sore in places, so I soon fell behind the rest of the group. I think also that there was still a bit of tension over the breakfast situation so people were giving me some space. I was still a bit annoyed about this, plus the fact that someone had taken my charger. 

We had only been walking for about five minutes and were just crossing over the road at the other end of Tyndrum when I decided to abandon the walk. This was to be one of the most remote stretches, away from any sort of roads or transport links so if my feet had become any worse I’d have been stranded in the middle of nowhere. Plus I could no longer trust my group members, I could no longer charge my phone, and I only had £20 to last the next three days. I made the decision to spend this on a bus back home, rather than complete the walk. 

At the time I did not feel any sense of disappointment – only relief. I walked back down to the other end of Tyndrum again, and waited at the bus stop for over an hour. When the bus eventually arrived I fell asleep almost straight away, and only awoke when we were reaching the outskirts of Glasgow – I must have been exhausted. I had only enough battery in my phone to text my partner and let him know I was on my way home, before my phone died completely. The rest of the journey went very smoothly – straight off the bus and onto the train at Queen Street. Then straight off the train at Waverley and onto the no.31 bus. 

Even when I arrived home I knew I’d made the right decision. I had no regrets whatsoever until maybe a week or so later then it was only because we did not plan the walk properly and did not have the correct walking gear. My partner could only say “I told you so” as he had warned from the start that the whole thing would be a disaster.

I’m looking forward to trying the walk again next year though, and it is only now that I’m beginning to get excited about it again. It took quite a while to get over my bad experience last time, but now I feel as though I must complete what I started. Hopefully my next blog will be a success story rather than a failure! But by sharing this experience I hope that any inexperienced walkers who read this will not make the same mistakes.

Thanks very much for reading.

Ailie

Waiting at the bus stop in Tyndrum