It’s done. This time last week I was despairing, my toes were bleeding, it was excruciating just to put any weight on the left foot at all, a blister the size of a purple grape was lodged between my two little toes. I had even resorted to buying new shoes in Tyndrum in order to accommodate ‘the bunion’. Its amazing how one’s feet dictate so much on how we feel about something. Mile after mile was obliterated because I couldn’t see past my blisters. But… one must NOT give up. One must see it through, and I am so glad I persevered. Yes, the route was tough, Yes, the journey was not for ‘Jessies’, but everyone that does it admits some parts are sheer torture, even the tough young lads, whose only affliction was a bit of sunburn on the back of the neck, groaned at the part when the path gave way to giant roots and boulders, or the part when after a 20 km hike the route suddenly turned into an evil staircase that went up and up and up. At that point, I was just ready to wait for the rescue helicopter.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We started the actual walk from Milngavie, and passed the golf course that my father built back in the 1970s,

and with a spring in our step we passed through Mugdock, where bluebell woods were straight out of fairy land.

It felt strange passing through a landscape that had served as a highway to the Highlands for thousands of years.

The day was hot, and we past through empty spaces, and were most disconcerted when we came across a pair of brand new boots abandoned at the side of the track.

There was no sign of someone taking a rest, just the boots. I should have taken it as a sign.

The first night we spent in Drymen, and drank beer and bought the first packet of Compeed, a miracle plaster according to the gurus in the pub. I stuck them on in the morning, and we set off full of the joys, and marched across the moors towards Balmaha.

On the way we had to clamber up Conic Hill, and as usual I was gasping and moaning and just about expiring, when suddenly I was overtaken by about twenty school kids running up and dancing about and being very annoying.  I slipped on the way down, which did not add to my dignity.

But, we had arrived at Loch Lomond and the walk would now shadow its bonny bonny banks for the next 19 of its 23-mile length. The gorse was rich and fragrant, smelling of strong coconut,

the bluebells and primroses were out in profusion, and the shy little violet was not at all shy.

There were clumps everywhere. Along the banks people were splashing and sunbathing. Families were out with dogs and children and I was just so jealous of their bare feet.

The walk to the Rowardennan Youth Hostel was never ending. My feet were swollen and painful; we had done 25.5 km and the sun was beating down as though we were in the Sahara. We were just so glad to rest, to shower and be asleep about 9 p.m.

A new day and we ventured on to Inversnaid.  Along the way we saw towering Ben Vorlich that we had climbed last year, but this time, we marched with our heads down, careful of the uneven track.

Again we had Loch Lomond on our left, and silver birch and primroses and larch on our right; the road was pleasant, and we read in our book that William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy had travelled this way in 1803. We arrived at a pretty river with a bridge, and I duly snapped John.

Then sitting outside eating lunch by the Inversnaid Hotel, we read in the book that the very river that we had just crossed had inspired Gerard Manley Hopkins to write his famous poem on behalf of wild nature:

This darksome burn, horseback brown,

His rollrock highroad roaring down,

In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam

Flutes and low to the lake falls home …

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and wilderness? Let them be left,

O let them be left, wilderness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

 We had to giggle as a Loch Lomond tour boat drew up to the pier with quite a lot of foreign tourists on board. The guide was pointing out the Loch Sloy hydroelectric scheme. The dam itself is hidden behind Ben Vorlich, but the downfall pipes running down to the power station are conspicuous on the hill front. Anyway these tourists now believe that this is the biggest Haggis farm in the whole of Scotland. They were taking notes!

The next part of the route was definitely the roughest part of the whole way but with the most beautiful scenery. We saw wild goats, and John was disappointed he missed the shot of the goat with a bluebell in its mouth. It would have been perfect!

We passed a stone bothy looking north to the head of the loch,

and outside a brown gnome of a man was sitting with his giant black and white dog called Steady Bear, his washing hanging on the line attached to the cottage. He was having a well deserved rest. He was walking from the South Pennine Way to Cape Wrath. He hoped to do it in three months. We stopped and he introduced us to a possible wonder cream for Midgies. It is Avon’s Skin so Soft, and apparently the little buggers hate it. Fortunately we didn’t have a single midge or cleg on our travels, but tips from gnomes are always welcome.

Then finally we arrived at the Drover’s Inn. I was just about crawling behind John at this time, fighting the tears as my poor feet were aflame with pain.

The Drover’s Inn at Inveranan, built in 1705, is a Must See. I don’t think it has had any improvements done since the building date. I actually loved it, though John felt uncomfortable, and was aware of ancient presences in our over-stuffed room.

Talking about over-stuffed, the whole place was a graveyard of stuffed animals. Bears, otters, birds, fish – I wouldn’t be surprised if the odd clan member is stuffed in the cellar somewhere. However, we had a giant Jacuzzi bath in our room, and it was very welcome.

The next part of the route took us to Crianlarich. By then I really was crying and didn’t know how I could continue. We had lunch in The Rod and Reel, and I was bemused to notice that the man at the next table had taken his shoes and socks off completely. Another man asked the waitress where the hotel was and she snappily told him there was a hotel at either end of the village and could he remove his walking poles as they were getting in people’s way. I leant over and suggested that she wasn’t really angling for a possible tip and he laughed and said, ‘There’s a certain dark humour in it all!’

I bought new shoes in the Green Welly in Tyndrum, and they accommodated ‘the bunion’ and that was just a miracle. So off we went, almost singing with joy, Val da ree, Val da rah, and crossed the clear track through cows and sheep and was joined by Maaike, a young medical student from the Netherlands. She became our adopted daughter on quite a lot of the remaining tracks. She had a passion for scones and a fear of axe murderers, so she was quite alarmed when a 70-year-old (potential axe murderer) offered her a lift to her accommodation. She ended up sharing her bread and cheese with him in exchange for a scone. Her horizons were widening.

Bridge of Orchy was paradise. The sun shone, the proprietors were Russian or Rumanian and couldn’t have been more welcoming. We ate well and slept like logs. I even got some laundry done and dried.

The feet got doctored and were all set for the next stage.

Had to laugh as we saw another pair of abandoned boots just outside the Bridge of Orchy!

On the way to Kingshouse, we stopped for coffee at the Inveroran hotel. It was fine, but reading the book I had to laugh at Dorothy Wordsworth’s account: ‘The butter not eatable, the barley-cakes fusty, the oat-bread so hard to chew, and the eggs were boiled as hard as stones’.

Those drovers of days of yore, were not too fussy. I suppose the communal pot of porridge was more to their liking.

The wild splendour of Rannoch Moor was awaiting us, and for us all the wild grasses and peat bogs were alive with birds and sunshine. We had been warned that this was the place that could be most unforgiving, but we sat for lunch beside clumps of bog myrtle and bog cotton, the sky was blue and it was hard to imagine that the wind and snow and the mists could be lethal.

Ian Fleming of James Bond fame described it: ‘Eastwards, the Moor stretches away in a patternless mosaic of lochans and pools, hummocks and boulders, boggy flats and bare hills’.

We were lucky, for some have said, in rain or snow with low cloud driving before a gale, it tends to promote the conviction that Hell need not be hot.

We walked on, and finally we came to the dramatic and craggy bastion of the Buachaille Etive Mor, or the great herdsman of Etive. It is all dominant, and seen from so many viewpoints.

This was to be where we would lay our head that night, up by the ski lift, at the Glencoe Mountain Resort. Our ‘home’ that night was to be a microlodge, or ‘hobbit house’, very basic but surprisingly very warm and snug.

We were kept awake by the cuckoo, our companion for most of our journey so far, and Just before nodding off, John said he could quite happily go out and wring its neck!

Going out to use the facilities later in the night we saw two red deer just standing about.

In the morning, a film crew was setting up its coffee shop stall but would not serve ‘the general public’. Where Skyfall had been filmed in Glen Etive, a Volvo commercial was being shot. So, we headed down the track and made towards the Kingshouse Hotel, and had a delicious breakfast.

Back in 1803 Dorothy Wordsworth was quite forthright in her condemnation: ‘Never did I see such a miserable, wretched place’. Fortunately, it is quite nice now, and the current landlords had refurbished it all, and it had quite a shabby elegance. Thank God for breakfast, because immediately the old military road suddenly turned sharply and we were climbing up from Rannoch Moor to the highest point of the Way to the top of the Devil’s Staircase. We had dramatic views of rugged peaks, and again, though chilly at the top, we had sunshine all the way.

I kept looking about wondering where the infamous massacre took place, where blood stained the snow on that terrible night in 1692. The Macdonalds had failed to sign an oath of allegiance to William of Orange, so Captain Robert Campbell, on instructions from the powers that be in Edinburgh, set off on his grisly mission. They were welcomed into the Macdonalds’ houses, given food and drink, then while they slept they were put to the sword. It was a ruthlessly calculated political mass-murder carried out by the trusted guests of the victims.

We eventually got down to Kinlochleven, a sort of Brigadoon village, surrounded by mountains and lost in its own world, and the remaining scars of what was once a booming aluminium plant.

I was just glad to meet my new pillow for the evening, and was delighted how the mixed shoes were doing the job.

On the final day leading to Fort William we climbed high into the mountains and passed the Pap of Glencoe in the distance.

Looking about we were amongst such wild grandeur for about 7 miles up to the Lairigmor or the Big Pass. As we ate our sandwiches, we felt the first drops of rain. Down down we went, through the high cathedrals of conifers, the landscape changing, and bluebells and pretty wild flowers now taking place of the wild grasses and bog cotton.

The rain grew heavier, we were weary, and the road seemed endless, but at last we came into Fort William. We had done it – 96 miles.

And now we are home, it is such bliss to know we don’t have to walk on average 20 kms every day; indeed its an effort just to get up from the sofa. But I feel like the sick king who went walking in the hills on the advice of some clever boy who had advised him to find the secret mirror in the hills that would reflect him as fit and handsome. After a week of walking and searching, the sick king regained his health and of course when he eventually leaned over a little pool to get some water, he espied his reflection. And there he was – bright eyed and clear skinned.

I raised my eyes unto the hills and saw heaven

I lowered my eyes upon my toes and saw hell.

Amen!