We had hoped to walk down to the lochside from the RSPB car park at Gartocharn but the gate was shut and locked – “Trees down” said the sharpie on the quickly weathering A4 printer paper.
It had started brightly but was now pretty dull and chilly with it. The hills looked fantastic, snow lying even below the 300m line but with only a couple of hours to play with and energy output set to leisure mode the alternative had to be close.
Balmaha is just down the road and there’s a nice short loop from the car park. I hadn’t noticed the trees have been cleared and replanted to the north of the village. I’ve passed multiple times too, obviously looking at the road as I should do. Mind you we had a slight panic the other day when I “lost” the keys of the van, furniture pulled out, bin bags searched… they were just in the wrong pocket. I will be monitoring this trend closely, I value my sharpness.
The well trodden loop gets you views from the wee wooded top that overlooks Inchcailloch and the stoney beach below is pleasant when it’s January-quiet like this.
We had a our Lego clones out for the first time in ages and I got the fright of my life on my knees looking through my phone taking photies when I saw what looked like plesiosaurs approaching.
The ducks were as disappointed that we didn’t have food as I was that they weren’t actually dinosaurs. We called it quits and went our separate ways.
Will we stop and have our cuppas? As enticing as the hot drinks in my pack were it was too cold to hang about and we walked back to the village where a nice man took our photie with Tom.
Tom Weir is still a source of inspiration, maybe increasingly so. “I’m bored with this now, I get the same endorphin rush from the gym round the corner” is what someone said to me on the hill last week as an inversion swirled below us. I’ve long said that lockdown escapees saw the hills and the outdoors purely as a venue, not a place that can be enjoyed just for itself. Maybe the gyms will slowly refill and the hills access point car parks will have spaces, the plastic bottles abandoned on the trail will grow scarcer, I will stop having to work out how to shoot drones out of the sky with trekking pole parts and the hills can be well, just themselves a little bit more.
The Oak Tree Inn was right in font of us, warm lights and enticing aromas as the sky darkened and did you feel that? Drizzle, let’s get in and get fed…
