The West Highland Way, Abridged

On a train from Fort William to Glasgow at the moment, with what's come to be familiar Scottish highland scenery sliding past the windows.

We started what feels like ages ago at the smallish town of Milngavie (pronounced Mull-guy), but already by the morning of the second day, a cold that had been threatening me the last week in California took hold and then after trying to push through it until day four, I had a mild fever, a cough, and there was simply no way we could walk the last two days.

Let me recap briefly. The whole West Highland Way (hereafter referred to as the WHW) is around 96 miles in its entirety, from Milngavie to Fort William. There are various towns and villages spaced out along the way that allow for places to stay at night or places to get some lunch, so you don't have to carry everything on your back. We decided to book our nights along the WHW with a company that suggested you walk the way in a minimum of 5 days, and the maximum that they offered was 9 days. Due to financial reasons, we went with the 6 day plan - this means every day was on average about 14 miles of walking, with two outlier days (19 and 21 miles). Some days have convenient halfway points  along the way, and maybe buses that could take you to the next stop if need be (which we eventually did need) but not every part of the way has a convenient alternative to walking.

When you are staying in B&Bs in towns practically designed and maintained for people walking the WHW, eating dinners in pubs surrounded by other walkers (it's actually quite a fun type of community- you see some folks setting out with you at breakfast, lose track of them because everyone walks at different speeds during the day, but if you end up staying at the same town for the next night, you find those folks at dinner again) - - it's hard not to bury yourself in disappointment if you cannot walk.

Let me tell you, the disappointment hurts. Presently, we are sitting on the train two rows behind several groups of people who just completed the WHW in Fort William and who have been talking non-stop for the last two hours (I kid you not) about the beautiful last day of the hike. But I can't blame them. If we'd finished, we'd be talking about it, too.

So, bad timing of sickness really took a toll on the trip, but we did end up walking a little more than 40 miles, so it's not to say we didn't do it! And we talked to lots of other walkers and didn't run into any other people who were attempting the walk in six days -- always a minimum of eight. Lessons learned for the next time!

But still, this has been an amazing, amazing trip. I have always wanted to walk from one town to another -- it's crazy that I live in a time where we do that for a "fun, exciting vacation" instead of out of necessity - and the first four days of walking were truly, truly beautiful.

Forty miles on foot. Mountains, lochs, sheep, cows, fields, and that beautiful silence you find only in nature. Rainbows and sunsets and a  newfound love of 'walking holidays'. This one won't be the last.