Our trip to Scotland should start in August 2019. The night before we left I slept restlessly and had woken up a couple of times at night, so I was afraid to oversleep the next morning (that would have been typical of me). But when the alarm clock rang at 7 a.m., the excitement and anticipation got me out of bed relatively well. I got ready, packed the last utensils, put on my "good old ZIP pants" and off I went. Before I could go to the airport in Frankfurt, I had to pick up my cousin. When we got to her we had a little breakfast and packed something for the first day. We also repacked our backpacks so that they were about the same weight and weighed them again for safety - 14 and 15 kg! We were astonished at the weight, since I had actually assumed that my backpack would be much lighter.

Then it could finally start! We were in good spirits, bought a few ready meals for my cousin and a little later we reached the parking lot "Platzhirsch", where we wanted to park my car for the duration of our trip. Incidentally, I can only recommend this to everyone: You don't have to be picked up / taken by anyone and are largely independent. In my experience, the shuttle services work wonderfully and the price is actually always cheaper than four times the distance to Frankfurt (in my case) and back.

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At the airport

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We flew to Glasgow with Lufthansa and checked in our backpacks as normal luggage. This is where my Decathlon rain cover really paid off for the first time, because it made it easy for me to convert my backpack into a travel bag. I have now linked the link to rain protection again in the packing lists. Then you can have a look at it yourself.

Nevertheless, we had our rucksacks and rain protection packed again in foil (unfortunately not environmentally friendly, but this keeps our luggage unbreakable, especially the walking sticks). We took the most important luggage (camera, cell phone, snacks etc.) with us as hand luggage.

Before the flight we got a little drunk, went to the toilet again and then the flight started! Unfortunately my cousin and I could not sit next to each other on the flight, but we slept almost the entire flight anyway, then it was not too bad and we thought about it (maybe it was better for the neighbors).

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Arrival in Glasgow and drive to Milngavie

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I landed in Glasgow and officials checked our passports again at the airport. The officer asked my cousin if everything was ok and said she looked nervous. Maybe he smelled her criminal streak. Who knows...? In the end, however, he let us go and we had rid our rucksacks of the plastic and got on the bus to Glasgow City Center in a smooth transition. In this regard, I had worked really well beforehand. It may take a little longer for newcomers who are not pre-occupied with the onward journey to the city center.

We experienced Glasgow (or what we saw from it) as a lively and contrary to my expectations pretty nice town. There were musicians on every street in the streets singing for a bet. To our delight, a Creedence Clearwater cover was also launched! So we were immediately in a good mood looking for the right train station. In addition, a very friendly Scottish woman at the station helped us find the way to the station after buying our ticket. There are two train stations in Glasgow that are relatively close together: Central Station and Queen Street. We found Queen Street relatively easily and eight minutes later our train to Milngavie (which I still don't know how to pronounce correctly) started. The travel guide says "Mill-gay" but I'm sure of it not there).

 

Start of the hike in Milngavie

 

Getting off at the station said: "Up, up, hiking man!" (Or woman, for the gender fanatics among us). The West Highland Way is really well signposted at least at the beginning and we had no problems finding the official entrance. My cousin wanted to fill up her bottles on a toilet in a subway, which she had forgotten before the trip. There were no toilets in the subway. Thanks to a man who smoked peacefully in front of the Subway e-cigarette, we overcame our blindness and saw that right next to the official entrance to the West Highland Way is a stone pillar with a water dispenser next to it. There you can fill up and start your drinking container without any problems. The weather that day was really wonderful! It was so warm that I even shortened my pants legs and walked on in shorts. The path was nice, although a bit too civilized and park-like for our purposes. After about five kilometers we found a cozy tent spot near Loch Craigallian. Since it was already evening, we pitched our tents here to set up our nest. It was super quick and the tent also seemed to be worth it. I also linked this to you in the packing list;).

In the evening we finished our travel provisions from the morning and a few of my sausages. Delicious. Then we scouted the surrounding area briefly and collected some wood, because a fire was actually planned (there was a fire pit here. Basically you should note that you should not create new fire pits. However, existing ones can be used). But that literally fell into the water ...

When we were tired and blown through (it got quite cool in the evening), we quickly went into the sleeping bags and quickly fell into a deep sleep ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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