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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Sonja: I walked the West Highland Way with my daughter Maria. It led us along small country roads, wide forest roads and old military roads, along small streams, along paths through heather and pastures to our destination at Fort William. The course required a certain endurance and fitness, but always rewarded us with a breath-taking landscape. Maria: I walked the West Highland Way with my mother. While we enjoyed some hours of sunshine, we often had to walk in drizzle or heavy rain, over hill and dale, through mist and, at times, in very humid air. After 10 days we arrived, satisfied and happy, in sunshine in Fort William.
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For
Patrick O'Hara
and our friends Nicole, John, Sean, Blanaid and Emer
Table of Contents
Preface
The West Highland Way
The two of us - on the West Highland Way
Harry Potter included
Route planning with small hurdles
Yes, the fitness... and then came Pokemon to Go
What do we put in backpack?
Saturday, 27.8.2016
Milngavie
Sunday: 28. 8. 2016
The Glengoyne Distillery
Monday: 29. 8. 2016
Tuesday, 30.8.2016
Wednesday, 31.8.2016
Thursday, 1.9.2016
The trails along the West Highland Way:
Friday, 2.9.2016
Saturday, 3.9.2016
Holiday fund - how much our holiday cost
Sunday: 4. 9. 2016
Monday: 5. 9. 2016
Tuesday: 6. 9. 2016
Wednesday, 7. 9. 2016
Thursday, 8. 9. 2016
Friday, 9. 9. 2016
Saturday, 10. 9. 2016
Preface
Sonja: I walked the West Highland Way with my daughter Maria. It led us along small country roads, wide forest roads and old military roads, along small streams, along paths through heather and pastures to our destination at Fort William.
The course required a certain endurance and fitness, but always rewarded us with a breath-taking landscape.
Maria: I walked the West Highland Way with my mother. While we enjoyed some hours of sunshine, we often had to walk in drizzle or heavy rain, over hill and dale, through mist and, at times, in very humid air. After 10 days we arrived, satisfied and happy, in sunshine in Fort William.
The West Highland Way
The West Highland Way is Scotland‘s first official long-distance hiking trail, opened in 1980. It stretches from Milngavie, a suburb of Glasgow, to Fort William, a distance of 154 km.
The starting point is in the Lowlands and the route goes northwards through a constantly-changing landscape. The highest elevation is at the Devil´s Staircase (584 m).
The trail can be followed all year round. Every year about 50,000 hikers come to take on and enjoy the challenge. Most of the West Highland Way runs along many old roads, mostly livestock routes, military roads and old makeshift roads. The symbol of a stylized white thistle in a white hexagon serves as a landmark and can be easily recognized everywhere.
Most hikers take the route from south to north so that they will have the sun (when it shines) behind them and will not be blinded by it.
The two of us - on the West Highland Way
Why should a mother and daughter want to do such a long hike together? I can think of several reasons. One was my ulterior motive of helping my daughter to improve her English. I also saw it as an opportunity for the two of us to holiday together; such an opportunity might not arise again as Maria grew older.
The dream of the long-distance hiking trail had been haunting my mind for some time and so I thought this was the chance. One needs sufficient free time to undertake such a route. While this would not be a problem for me I could not leave my seventeen-year-old daughter at home alone while I was absent. So I decided that Maria had to come with me. I planned the individual stages of the walk to suit us both.
Maria would have preferred to go to Australia, but unfortunately our travel budget was not big enough. Although we had been to Scotland four times already, Maria was happy to go there again. We both like hiking and there would be plenty of interesting things to see and a lot of nice things to eat. Backpacking seemed like adventure. So we decided to take it on.
Here, dear readers, you will find a short description of both of us:
At the time of the trip, Maria was seventeen years old and still attending high school in Reutte. In her free time she surfed the internet, painted her fingernails three times a week and now and then accompanied me on excursions or walks.
We both have a passion for books but we did not expect to find many bookstores in which to browse on this particular trip. My love of books is probably due to my job: I am a librarian and therefore extremely precise and conscientious. I have many hobbies: Gardening, hiking, running, knitting, cooking, reading.... I rarely get bored.
Before Christmas there was a guide to the Highland Way on our living room table and it was studied in detail. A distance of 154 km had to be covered. I made myself a list of questions viz.:
How do we get there?
What´s it going to cost?
What distance can I expect my daughter to travel each day?
Where do we sleep?
First we had to decide which travel time was best and then make the necessary arrangements for travel and accommodation. The studied guide recommended spring or autumn. These times did not suit us, because Maria was attending school. So we only had the summer months.
In order to avoid the notorious Scottish midges as far as possible, I decided to do our hike in late August and early September. To Maria‘s delight the dates I chose meant that Maria got two extra days of holidays from school.
The next question to be decided was: how long would it take us to complete this walk?
The guide indicated that, at a fast pace, the route could be completed in 5 days but that seven days would enable it to be done in a more relaxed way.
It was, however, clear to me that even seven days would be too fast for Maria and me. We would not be able to do the daily distances required. So we decided to plan for two weeks and got the OK from my husband to leave him, my son Marcus and our two cats for this period.
Harry Potter included
Sometimes Maria sits giggling on the sofa in the living room. During a car journey she constantly bursts out laughing. At home, she leans on the kitchen table and eagerly types on her tablet PC. When you ask her what she is doing, she gives a growl or an angry look. One - especially Mom - disturbs. And this has been going on for more than a year. When I ask her what she is doing that is so important, she says she is reading something or writing a story.
Do you know what this means? It‘s the Harry Potter fever. She and her girlfriend in Munich, with whom she is always in contact via Internet, are totally addicted to the stories of the magic student. However, the books and films are no longer enough for the two of them; they attack every Internet blog and read every further story written by others. No, still not enough! They invent new events around Hogwarts, rewrite the stories and turn them upside down.
If Maria is in a good mood, then I get one or the other story read out to me, whether I like it or not. One night, she told me that parts of the Harry Potter movies were shot in Scotland. Well, that was not news to me, as I had been dealing with the Harry Potter books and films for a few years before she became aware of them.
Leafing through my newly acquired hiking guide, I proudly presented Maria with information about the Jacobite Train. This old steam locomotive which travels between Fort William and Mallaig, became “The Hogwarts Express” in the Harry Potter movies. It passes features known from the films such as the Glenfinnan Monument and the long viaduct with 21 arches.
„Mom, do you think we can go on the train?“ Maria asked immediately. „No, Maria, we will probably only have time to look at it. But if we walk well and have a day to spare, then we‘ll travel on it!“ And so it happened that we were able to add another highlight to the crowning finale of our tour.
