As some of you may already know, a group of friends and I walked the West Highland Way at the start of August. It was all to raise money for charity and although money is still coming in and we don't have a final figure yet, it is going to be in the region of £1500! Anyway, my plan is to write a post for each day in detail and take you through our adventure. To begin with I want to give a brief overview of how we split up our journey, things we learned along the way that weren't in any guide books and anything else I can think of that may help people wanting to walk the WHW and then I will break down the days and go into more detail. All the blogs I've read about walking the WHW have been rather dull and not really filled with any info that I would want or need (how many times can people tell you their feet hurt and they stink at the end of each day??? that is a given my friends) so I will TRY to make it slightly more entertaining, if not at least more relevant. Firstly (and most importantly) I'd like to say this: we paid for this entire trip out of our own pocket and no money raised for the charities was used to fund the trip. It has been surprising how many people have asked about this - surely no one would use sponsor money to pay their expenses??? Maybe I am just too trusting of humankind, I guess it must happen. So here is some basic info about the trip:
- We chose to walk the WHW over a period of 7 days and so all of my timings and breakdown of days are tailored to this. I would say that none of our group were seasoned hill walkers and I think some of us could have managed the trip in maybe 5 - 6 days so think long and hard about how tough you want it to be, if you like long lunches and getting to where you are going to stay later in the day or if you want to pack in as much distance as possible each day. Everyone will be different
- We got our luggage carried - as did a lot of the other people we came across along the way. We used AMS who were friendly, reliable and well priced at £40 for each bag (under 20kg) for the entire trip. They pick up your bags every morning from where you are staying and drop them off to wherever you are headed that night. This would factor into timings if you were going to carry all of your luggage with you. This will also depend on if you are camping or staying in the many hostels/b&bs/hotels along the way as we were.
- I personally found most places along the way quite expensive for food/drink. Now, some places were WELL WORTH the money and some were charging such ridiculous prices because they obviously know they have a captive audience. Basically, if you are doing as we did - plan for a good £20 - £30 each day if you are buying your lunch and dinner, picking up juice and snacks and whatever other bits and bobs you might need. I will let you know where is good or not in relation to food when I break down the days.
- We did the walk in August and I brought far too many layers of clothing I didn't use. PACK SENSIBLY! I also brought walking poles that I ended up never using because I just found they got in the way rather than helping. The girls I was with all used their poles so it just all comes down to personal preference so I would say try and have a idea of what you like/don't like and will/will not use.
- We are not seasoned hill walkers. We don't do this kind of thing all the time. If you are after a blog more about the hills, the scenery, camping etc etc etc then this blog is not for you.
- I used the Footprint guide map below along the way, which I really loved. It is simple, easy to use and the only thing I really used it for was to see how many miles we had done/were left to do each day. It was really nice to know and the map has each mile marked along it. The WHW is really, really clearly signposted so don't worry about getting lost.
The midges weren't actually that bad and I didn't use my mosquito net or repellent once.- We walked South to North, from Milngavie to Fort William: stopping in Rowardennan, Inverarnan, Tyndrum, Kingshouse and Kinlochleven.
