The West Highland Way

Over the years many members of the Ivel Valley Walkers have walked the long distance paths that cover the countryside from Lands End to John O'Groats.

This year two such groups of four people decided to walk The West Highland Way from Milngavie (just north of Glasgow) to Fort William, a distance of 95 miles in 7 days. Then to round it off, by climbing Ben Nevis on day 8. Both groups achieved their goals.

The first group consisted of Barry, Mike, Nigel & Tony, who completed their walk during the last two weeks of May.

The second group of Dave, David, Mike & Nick set off on the morning of Weds 17th June from Stevenage station with the aim of returning back to the same spot some 10 days later (Fri 26th June). What follows is a description of their trip to the Scottish Highlands and the climb up the UK's highest mountain.

One thing about the West Highland Way is that everybody's walking the same route, and generally staying in similar locations. You therefore tend to meet the same people day after day, and share the days experiences. First there was Debbie & Mike, two Americans from Oregan, then there was Davie & Matt two Scotsman from the East coast. After this we met three Dutch ladies, they left us at Rowardenan. Finally there was Tillo (hope this is spelt correctly) a German lad who was carrying everything except the kitchen sink, plus the 5 students from the UK who were wild camping all the way. We shared a drink or two and swopped stories with these along the way. We'd also like to say hi to anyone else we met.

take care to all of you.

Travelling To and From The West Highland Way.

There are two main ways of getting from Bedfordshire to Milngavie:

  1) Flying from Luton Airport to Glasgow, from there it's either a taxi or bus/train to Milngavie.

  2) Train all the way, Stevenage to Glasgow Central, changing at Peterborough, using the East Coast main line,

  was the way we did it. From there it's a short train ride to Milngavie.

The return journey from Fort William is just as easy:

  1) An extremely scenic train journey from Fort William to Glasgow, including the crossing of Rannoch Moor.

  2) Followed by either the train or plane back to Bedfordshire.