SBSCREEDY

The night was quite cold, thank goodness I packed wool long johns to wear to bed. I had set an alarm for 7AM, at the sound of the alarm I hit snooze until 8AM. It was lightly raining when I woke up. I prepared for a rainy morning trek. I packed up all my things and started the mile walk to town. It was not part of my plan, but I had to make the detour because I was low on food. I stopped to pet the cows, to my surprise they would come right up to you by the wooden fence. How cute.

Once I arrived to town, I saw a number of backpackers along the streets. I went into the store to find it full of people picking up their daily supplies. We would all bump backpacks as we squeezed our way past one another to buy the basic backpacker necessities – bread, meat, jam, peanuts, noodles, cookies, chocolate. It was something to give us a boost of energy throughout the day. I left the store with a heavy bag of groceries, I stopped at a bench to rearrange my backpack making room for all my new goodies. I watched as we all went our separate ways. I continued walking out of town to find the WHW path again.

Due to the rain, I kept my head low to avoid the rain in my eyes, I looked down to my feet just one step at a time. As time passed, I would look up to see my surroundings – It was cloudy and misty in the distance. After about two hours of walking in the drizzling rain, my moral started to drop. I could see Conic Hill looming in the distance among the clouds. I stopped to take a break. After crossing a little bridge, I sat on a rock next to the babbling brook as I replenished my energy level. I scarfed down a sandwich for stamina. I refilled my water bottle in the river. As much as I wanted to sit, my back was in so much pain. I stood up to stretch it out from the heavy weight of the backpack. I was starting to feel sore. My lower back in particular was very uncomfortable. I decided to try to tie the hip side straps even tighter to prevent the weight on the lower back. However, it was just as uncomfortable on the body.

After a nice long rest, I continued to walk towards the hill. I could see some backpacks in the distance. They looked like tiny colorful ants, slowly moving up the hill. As I walked uphill, I could hear rustling to the right and left of the path. The rustling sounds were the sheep grazing in the grassy areas. Oh, how I was jealous of the sheep. The rain would just slip right off their thick wool coats. My pants were not waterproof making it uncomfortable by sticking to my leg. I continued with my head laying low, stopping to take short breaks to catch my breathe. I kept moving forward until I had my first glimpse of Loch Lomond in the distance mostly covered by the clouds. I was making progress. The hard part was complete, or so I thought.

I started the descent of Conic hill, I walked along the rocky path as I watched my footing carefully. The path was muddy and slippery, I lost my footing a few times as I let out a “WoOoOah”. I took small steps to try keep my balance. Soon, it turned to lots of stairs. The stairs were tall and steep. I walked down sideways at times to put less pressure on my knees. I think going downhill was more difficult than the incline, especially on my sore body. Once I reached the bottom of the hill, I entered a woody area with tall trees. It was so green, I could hear the raindrops hit the top of the trees. It was peaceful. I continued to follow the wooden WHW posts, it led me out of the green woods into a small town. I passed a number of cafes, I thought about taking a short rest but continued with my eyes set on the campground. I could hear a number of backpackers gathering on the picnic benches chatting about their journeys. I kept walking one foot in front of the other.

The rain continued. The trail ran alongside the loch, as I stepped off the path to walk along the rocky shoreline. I found a nice wooden branch to sit on while I ate a snack. It was a little buggy out, so I did not take too long of a break. Once nourished with peanuts and chocolate, I continued walking along the path until I reached Cashel.

It was down-pouring at this point, so I decided to stop and stand under the wooden roof area at the Cashel Campground. checked the map to see how much further until my campsite. It was about two miles until Sallochy. I was hoping to continue until Rowardenann for nice pub dinner, but I was starting to think that I might not be able to push myself that far. My body was aching, I just wanted to change into dry clothes and curl up in a warm sleeping bag. So, I decided to stock up on some basic food supplies at the Cashel campground store. Once all packed, I continued in the rain, there were patches of sunshine that gave me a bit of relief and hope. It made me miss home, the sunshine state. Before I knew it, I had reached the campground of Sallochy. I past a number of sites that were located right along the shore of Loch Lomond. I approached a large green central area full of pitches, on the wooden posts there were name tags for those who had reserved the site. I walked around looking for my name. Once I found it, I started to set up camp. I had a routine by this point. I set up my sleeping area and laid out dry clothes to change into. The campsite facilities were basic. There were two composting toilets and sinks. FYI – There are no showers, electric charging area, or WIFI. I knew this ahead of time, I was prepared with wet wipes, battery packs, and cellular data. I spent most of the evening in my tent laying on my mattress pad reading a book. My dinner consisted of delicious bread and ham, I was so sore I could not even think about walking further for a pub dinner. Soon, the backpackers started to arrive in the drizzling rain. We all bundled into our tents for the night to rest our aching bodies.

In the morning, I woke up and I honestly felt like I was hit by a bus. I could barely move any part of my body without a sharp feeling of pain. Everything was hurting. I realized I had a small bump on my lower spine from where my backpack rested. It was about the size of a strawberry.There was no way I could continue walking until my back healed a bit. Thank goodness, I planned ahead of time to take an extra rest day at Sallochy. I laid there in pain for a bit until I forced myself to get up. I opened my tent to a beautiful view of Loch Lomond and rays of sunshine. It was gorgeous. Despite the pain, it was great to have a slow morning with sunshine. Soon, I gathered some strength to make the “long” walk of 75 feet to the restrooms & water area. I was honestly moving at the pace of a snail, limping my way across the campground. I had never felt so much pain before in my life. Everything was aching. My body was definitely telling me no. I went straight back to my tent to lay down. I spent the whole day snoozing on and off, reading a book, and writing in my journal. I simply let my body recover from the past two days of walking. In the evening, I decided to hobble my way to the shore of Loch Lomond. I sat on a tree stump as I read my book, ate my snack and rehydrated. It was a quiet day with backpackers coming and going. By nighttime, the pitches were nearly full. I called it an early night to get some more rest for my body. Onto the next section…