Managed 59 miles along the West Highland Way, including a night walk, a night in a bothy, a wild(ish) camp and a pitch in holiday park with a very welcome shower. I don’t think I’ll ever go to Scotland again in the summer. I thought I knew how to cope with midges, but I got really mauled this time.
Is age having an impact? I really don’t like to think so, I’m only 59 after all, yet this was hard. Conic Hill – a climb and descent over the side of a mini-mountain at the start of the walk – felt brutal, albeit with a 40 pound (18 kg) backpack and no physical preparation beforehand. A few years ago I did the first 50 miles of the WHW in a single day and night with a heavier pack, finishing worn out but still did it. Couldn’t do the same this time. Am I really getting a little bit older? I do wonder if COVID (I’ve had at least five infections) has sapped my muscular chemistry, reducing the oxygen exhange mechanism.
Anyway, along the Way I went again, starting at midnight at Milngavie. I had planned to do the whole 96 mile walk, but knew that there might be problems with weather and/or midges – the midges and physical exhaustion were the deciding factors. I really was getting badly bitten, with many itchy, raised lumps on my forearms, face and on my scalp. I’d omitted to pack a long-sleeved shirt and managing to lose my baseball cap. The cap was rather important – keeps midges out of the hair, stops rain getting in the eyes and has some sun protection value. It really was an important part of the kit. I bought a replacement in Balmaha and tucked it inside my shirt for safety, but when I went to put it on about twenty minutes later, I found that one had disappeared also!
I didn’t feel too bad about quitting the WHW at halfway yet again because I’d had the satisfaction of seeing glow-worms for the second time in my life, managed a mountain Marathon-distance walk the first day and having relived an old adventure – slept in a bothy with the fire blazing. This brought back memories of a stay in a Welsh bothy in my twenties (actually a YHA hostel, but of a kind which no longer exists), when I went to sleep lying on a row of chairs in front of a blazing fire. I remember looking up at the ceiling there and seeing a variety of moths and other insects milling about.
That Welsh stay was especially memorable because I was woken in the early hours by what I thought were footsteps on floorboards, but when I finally plucked up the courage to turn on my torch and announce my presence found there was no one there. Had a late night walker crept in and gone to sleep in the loft? I searched around but, no, I was the only occupant of the building. I knew I had heard something, then realised it was a stone floor, yet I believed I’d heard floorboards creaking. Now spooked, I stayed sitting up and wide awake, waiting for the first glimmers of daylight. About 4 a.m., I opened the bothy door and a sheep leaped up from where it had been lying and bolted into the distance – that’s what I had heard! A sheep snuggling down and leaning on the outside of the wooden door in the night.
It was a 9½ hour journey home on the train. I do like the business of train travel, this was one of the less pleasant journeys I’ve taken. A couple of other trains had been cancelled so a large number of displaced passengers piled in to my train, filling it well over capacity. At Birmingham a group of Indian sub-continent individuals climbed on, each with a massive wheeled case plus multiple other items of luggage. One man seemed to be in charge, frequently and abrasively shouting instructions to the others and pushing his way backwards and forwards through the huddled masses. I tried to assist him with one of his cases but found myself skillfully ignored. I spent the next few miles squashed in a vestibule amongst a mass of baggage and one of the youngsters of the group. The boy tried to make conversation, looking out of the window and saying, “The train is fast, yes?” I asked where he was going, but found he couldn’t understand, only shaking his head and saying, “Sorry”, but it was nice that he tried.
Best picture I could manage of a Glow-worm.
Reflecting on the walk, learned (or re-learned) a few lessons. The main one being simply to pace myself responsibly. I was drained at 26.2 miles, let alone the 40 or 50 I’d hoped for. I used to be able to do such distances without too much concern, but not this time. Also, when next in the Highlands, take a long-sleeved shirt and travel outside the main midge season.
There is a video of the walk here: https://youtu.be/v8we81ZFcLI.
POSTSCRIPT: So glad I made that decision. The midge bites continued to be fiercly itchy at times and swollen, I’d have ended up majorly uncomfortable. Only now, 48 hours after getting on the train home at Tyndrum has the itching subsided. Looking at the GPS data, found that I’d walked 59.6 miles, which happens to be my exact age!
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