10: Here be bears (Inversnaid to Inverarnan)

To quote Stephenson and Gould in British regional geology: the Grampian Highlands, fourth edition, 2007 when discussing the features you might expect to see in this part of Scotland, 

'Metagreywackes, siliceous psammites and fine-grained quartzites are interbedded with the predominant well-foliated green schists containing abundant chlorite, epidote, biotite and albite porphyroblasts.'

Well, quite, I couldn't have put it better myself. 

When I was young we lived in London and I would often head in the school holidays to the museums in South Kensington. The big draw these days is the Natural History museum but back then dinosaurs weren't quite as popular as they are today and much of the ground floor was a series of somewhat lacklustre dioramas that were populated with a cast of vaguely unsettling stuffed animals.  

Around the corner in Exhibition Road was the Science museum which became a big favourite with me mainly due to the number of interactive displays. The joy of finding a button on the front of a mahogany case which when pressed would lead (if it was working) to some magnificent mechanical contraption demonstrating how a bessemer converter worked (I mean who cares? - but just look at that vessel lighting up deep red!) or maybe they would be charging up the vast Van de Graaff generator to emulate a lightning strike. I could go on at length about the variety and interest of these displays but they made the Science museum a must-see.  

A bit further along the road was the Geology museum (now part of the Natural History museum) and here there were exciting displays of various types of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, there was even a floor that vibrated like an earthquake. In order to cool the passions, on the upper floors were halls of table height cases filled with displays of rocks from across the world. For those explorers about to scour the world for mineral wealth I have no doubt that this was a valuable resource. However, I believe that it was in these rooms that I lost enthusiasm for becoming conversant with geology. 

So if my geological knowledge is a bit rudimentary, I apologise. Basically to understand what is going on geologically in Scotland I would probably need a PhD.  But then if I was successful I would end writing sentences like the one above. All we need to know is that at this moment we are walking over a mixed bag of rocks that's known as the Southern Highland group and this forms part of the Dalradian supergroup. You might be interested to know that the Southern Highland group crosses Northern Ireland and ends on the eastern edges of Scotland between Stonehaven and Aberdeen. Too much? Let's skip on.

What goes up...

The high and low paths came together before Inversnaid and now there is only one path and it's pretty rugged. The eastern loch side is steep and the Way is unable to contour beside it. 

... must come down

A lot of our fellow walkers have brought walking poles, which in this terrain are more of a hindrance than a help. In retrospect I believe that the majority of walkers who brought poles ended up carrying them. We don't use poles as they require a specific style of walking to be beneficial. 

I did use poles at one time when I had a knee problem. Over eighteen months the problem resolved itself and I came to the conclusion that the poles were mainly a danger to fellow walkers, so I gave up with them.  

Most hikers on the Way seemed to have poles because they thought they would protect their knees, which they would if used correctly. However I never saw one walker along the whole route who could have been said to have mastered  the 'Nordic Walking' technique.

Occassionally the path would lead to the loch side, to a small sandy beach or just a glimpse through the tree boughs of the still, silent deep black water. It was beginning to feel as though having avoided paying our dues to the Wild McGregors we were doomed to forever walk a rugged, rocky, undulating path, until it finally opened up to a cove which had a wide stony beach. 

Free of Loch Lomond at last

From here the path headed up over a hillock through a wood and away from the loch. After a short while there was a path to our left which headed down to the ferry for Ardlui. There is a bell to summon the boat which ploughs across the loch to the village where there is a hotel and a train station.

 

We still had about three miles to walk to Inverarnan where we were staying that evening and the path continued up and through a valley and woods. The weather which had just been gloomy and threatening now added spots of rain into the mix. As the raindrops increased in intensity and volume, the campsite at Beinglas appeared ahead. The campers arriving now were scampering to put up their tents before the rain set in. 

A Japanese Garden at Beinglas? - Scottish style

We had another half mile to walk to the road to find our accommodation for the evening. The sign outside the Drovers Inn was dated 1706 and it looked as though attempts at decorating the interior began and ended at that time. The reception was cluttered and eccentric and here also was the answer to the perplexing remark by the warden of the youth hostel earlier in the day, because in amongst a host of taxidermy was a moth-eaten bear in attack mode.

Don't ask for credit

We were booked into the Argyll room. We claimed our luggage and took the higgledy-piggledy stairs to the second floor. Along the top floor corridor we noticed that the room next to ours was called the Haunted room. 

It seems that the Drovers has a notoriety for a cast of restless spirits. According to the website there are around six ghosts that lurk in and around the Drovers and lurid tales are associated with their deaths, which you can read about here. I don't wish to sound sceptical but I often wonder how it is known that this particular ghost is associated with that particular event. I mean are there two sources?  Has the ghoul given a statement under caution? Just how seriously the owners and staff of the Drovers feel these spectres should be regarded can maybe be gauged by the video of an alleged siting caught by their cctv equipment which can be viewed here.

I hope you enjoyed that.