Calf.

Day 8: Inverarnan to Balmaha.

Distance: 22.1 miles (148.8 total).

Duration: 8 hrs 43 mins.

Lowest Temp: 0ºc.

Weather: I wanted to skip through the meadows with my long golden tresses flowing in the breeze.

Highest Alt: 680ft

According to my waterproof West Highland Way map, the first part of my route today is ‘generally recognised as one of the toughest of the Way.’ According to the receptionist at The Drover’s, the total ascent on this leg is 3,000ft, irritatingly packaged up in steep 30ft bundles. From my own experience of having walked this way twice before, I knew it wasn’t going to be much fun.

Although it was another long leg (and never again will I plot a route with three successive twenty-milers), the real tough bit was in the first seven miles or so between Inverarnan and Inversnaid. It’s a tortuous tight-cornered tangle of rocks and roots, burns and boulders, with a million and one places where the careless walker can stub his toe or twist his ankle. However, whereas on previous occasions I’ve been walking north from Balmaha, and so these misery miles strike when you’ve already got almost fifteen miles under your belt, today they were more or less at the beginning of the leg, when I was still fresh and glad to put them behind me.

One of the biggest problems I had today was with my sunglasses. (Yes, I can hear you sniggering at the back – sunglasses? in Scotland? in February? It just so happens that the sun’s very low at this time of year, and I’m walking right at it). I only bought them at the last minute in Oban, and I’m sure they’re just normal sunglasses, but when I put them on, suddenly I was staggering all over the place like a new-born calf. It felt like I’d grown twelve inches, and so my brain was sending seven foot messages to boots that were only actually six feet away. If anybody had come around the corner as I struggled to find my feet, I’m sure they would have assumed that I’d laid into the sauce at an uncommonly early hour.

The last three or four miles today were tough ones. Doing over 65 miles in three days is more than I’m fit for, I regret to say. I hobbled in feeling very sorry for myself.

Today was my also last day as a solo pilgrim. Tomorrow, I walk with my Dad. On Friday, I walk with my Uncle Jimmy. From Sunday onwards I’ll be walking with The Archdeacon.

Ora pro nobis.