Bridge of Orchy to Glen Coe 12.5 miles

I had a good night's sleep, but i woke up to the sound of running water... fortunately, it wasn't rain, Chris had left a tap running in the bathroom. It was a bit too early to get up so I lay in bed for a while reading on my Kindle app.

The day was gloriously sunny, and the forecast for the day was good. We went across the the hotel for breakfast and I had the full Scottish, though, once again there was no haggis. It was really a full English breakfast but marketed for tourists in Scotland, the fact that it annoys meprobably means i don't have enough to worry about in my life.

Meg and Chris had organised a taxi to take them about 5km further up the trail and avoiding a hill climb at the start. So, Kathleen and I set off on the trail. I had looked at the map and thought that it wasn't too steep, certainly not as steep as some of the hills on the camino - especially the climb up to Moclin. It turned out to be ok, it was a little steep in places but easy enough.

Kathleen is a great hiking companion, she is quite quick and doesn't talk too much. Although the first half of the walk was steadily uphill, the path was mostly quite level some section on tarmac. The drovers road section was a bit more uncomfortable to walk on as the path was quite stony and quite broken up in places, still we maintained a good pace. The scenery was spectacular and we stopped regularly to take some photos, we found a nice spot to sit down and have our lunch, and a rest and then carried on.

The weather got a bit more overcast and it was quite windy on Rannoch Moor, but the rain stayed off, as we got within sight of Glen Coe two young women came running past us, i told them they were making us look bad, they laughed and kept going and were quickly out of sight.

I was able to spoy Kingshouse, the posh hotel we were staying at. it is always good when you can see your destination, it gives you a fresh burst of energy, though it was further away than I first thought.

We arrived to find Meg and Chris already there, so we booked in but the rooms weren't read. The staff told us that they would come and get us when our room was ready but nearly two hours later (well past our guaranteed check-in time) they still hadn't notified us. I went and rejoined the queue because I had noticed that in all that time it hadn't gotten any smaller ad more and more hikers and other guests arrived. When I got to the front of the queue, we were given the keys to our rooms. It was a bad start, i have a food allergy and the staff in the restaurant had given me the wrong information about the menu which was less than helpful. It also turned out that there was no loo roll in the ladies toilets and the bins were overflowing. It was clear that they did not have enough staff to deal witht he number of guests, and since they knew how many guests would be booking in, it was an obvious management failure.

the room was nice and it was a great shower, so that was good. we went for dinner in the pub attached to the hotel and it was really busy, but a table sort of cleared (it was for six and four guests left). We grabbed our seats and I chatted to the lovely young Danish couple who were still at the table, they were watching their local football team play back home.

The staff in the pub were great, lots of banter, and the food was fantastic, probably the best haggis I have ever had.Les mer