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This was my first time walking along Loch Lomond. I met up with Christabelle for this walk. She knew the area better than me. We started at Tarbet and walked back to Balloch where the car was. This is the longest walk i have done to date. Feet were a bit sore near the end! It was in total 17m but we did just under this.
All of it, or nearly all of it was on hard ground, so it was tough on the feet. It gave me a chance to carry a backpack with the approximate weight of what i will be carrying each day on the West Highland Way and get used to wearing it for long periods of time. We did stop obviously for breaks. The weather was just right, cloudy but not too hot or too cold ........ please let it be that in the last week of Sept!
We walked on the opposite side of the loch from Ben Lomond and it certainly is impressive looking over the loch. We walked on the old road so the lines from the old road could be seen in parts, some very scarily close to the water! Cloud came down over the top of it later in the morning. Due to wearing my hat and having midge cream and sunblock on i came away with no bites and no sunburn!
During the walk my hands became very cold even though the rest of me was hot. It certainly wasn't cold, so do hands get cold simply because of wearing the backpack. The one i was wearing was not too tight or slack and sits well on my shoulders, so i'm not sure why my hands were that cold. I will certainly be getting gloves. It was slightly weird to feel hot everywhere but my hands!
We did come across walkers and cyclists. The cyclists were the worst. Some didn't bother to ring their bells or even shout anything. There were some very polite ones though. They just seem to assume that you can see them coming up behind you! There are lots of wee notices(really wee) along the walk saying that cyclists should give way for walkers......does that happen? Not while we were there.
