Milngavie

If you are ever flying into Glasgow and your plane almost clips a BNB situated on a promontory just north of Glasgow on it's landing descend, you will know where I stayed last night. Glasgow airport also doesn't seem to have night time landing restrictions. Throw in the fact that the room was warm because Scotland is having a warm spell and the Scottish houses are designed for cold weather and not hot weather, I didn't sleep that well. I really struggled out of bed in the morning. Fortunately I was met with a very hardy breakfast and headed off to start the WHW. I snapped an additional photo of the start marker and I was off. After about 15 minutes I caught up to two couples who looked like they were from the US from the way they were dressed. I said hello and asked them where they were from and they replied Calgary. I looked more closely at them and realized that one of them was an old medical school classmate from my days at Western University. I said I know you, you're Winnie Meeweise, we went to school together. He looked very surprised. I said I'm Rob West we went to Medical School together. Winnie was someone I didn't get to know very well at University but probably should have. It's funny who you get to know in a large class and who you don't. Winnie works as a sports medicine doctor in Calgary now. He and his wife and friends are hiking the trail over 7 days while I am hiking it over 8. After chatting a little I hiked ahead as they were moving a little slower. They had flown in yesterday and I think were a little jet lagged. Hopefully we will cross paths again. The trail was fairly flat and followed some secondary roads. It was very well signed but I was happy to have the map. I checked it a couple of times to ensure I wasn't going the wrong way. I stopped to eat my lunch at the Glengoyne distillery. I had just missed the tour but as it was a hot day all the doors were open and I could look into the distillery and see much of the workings. Often I find these places have nice gardens which I quite enjoy. The grounds were well kept but no garden. I chatted with one of the workers in a storage area away from the main building as I came off the trail who was moving some large barrels. I asked him what one barrel was worth and he told me that one of the barrels in the building from 1971 had sold last week for a million pounds. It was starting to warm up so I pushed on through the countryside to Drymen taking some breaks in the shade along the way. I had left at 9 and made it into Drymen by 1:30. My BNB didn't open until 3 so I did a little blogging at the library. No blisters but I was a little tired.Read more