Drymen to Rowardennan (26km)
We took our tent down from its pitch amongst the hobbit huts at Drymen Camping, and were the last people to set off (start of a theme haha) leaving the campsite after 10am, so we had the path pretty much to ourselves.
After a short section along the Old Military Road, a flight of stone steps took us onto a path through fields, hedgerows and woodland just outside Drymen village. From there we followed the track through Garadhban Forest, which is a dense conifer plantation.
Someone had abandoned their broken boots at the edge of the forest.
We emerged from the plantation onto open moorland and got our first glimpse of Loch Lomond by Conic Hill! The route goes over Conic Hill and we’d planned to detour to the summit but it didn’t look like we’d be getting much of a view…
The path continues across the open moorland and crosses Kilandan Burn on a wooden footbridge. Yes I’m facing back the way we came here, but a bridge photo is obligatory right?!
We found the perfect snack-stop-rock by the bridge at Burn of Mar to get energy for the steep ascent of Conic Hill, before crossing the bridge and taking more photos of course!
Then set off up Conic Hill with renewed energy fuelled by our snacks.
As we came around the corner we were excited to see Loch Lomond come into view again!
The cloud had lifted just in time for us to make a short detour to the summit! At the turn off to the summit path we saw this beautiful violet oil beetle who was also making its way up there.
We were rewarded with glorious views from summit! Conic Hill is on the exact line of the Highland Boundary Fault – the string of islands across Loch Lomond and the ridge of Conic Hill are all on the fault line.
Fans of #DeeDeesWeatherReport will be pleased to know I did one at the Conic Hill summit.
Of course we couldn’t resist walking along the ridge to the lower summit, and getting the views from there too.
We left the summit to re-join the WHW for the descent to Balmaha, enjoying dramatic views on the way.
The last part of the path before the village goes through mature plantation, and woodland.
Once we reached Balmaha we saw a worrying sign warning about bears ahead. Much as we wanted to push on, we thought it was sensible to take the local advice to get pub grub and pints instead…
…especially as the Oak Tree is one of our favourite pubs! It was quite a relief to have decided not to take the risk. Ian even took one for the team and had a pint despite there still being quite a long way to go that day.
Local legend has it that after having pub grub and pints, if you go and pay your respects to “Scotland’s Most Loved Mountain Man” Tom Weir, the bears will leave you alone on the way ahead.
We bid goodbye to Tom and Balmaha, to start making our way along the undulating path on the mysterious east side of Loch Lomond.
This cute wee robin friend followed us for a while – I think hikers must feed it.
The path here was absolutely stunning – with views across the Loch, hidden beaches, and woodland carpeted with bluebells.
The light was constantly changing, and mists blowing in and out over the water, revealing mountains on the opposite shore.
It’s quite hard going with steps up and down, tree roots and rocks to clamber over, and sandy sections to navigate. But the surroundings were just so incredible and immersive, it didn’t seem to matter.
This part of the WHW along the Loch-shore is in the camping management zone so wild camping isn’t allowed, but there are a few national park and Forestry and Land Scotland campsites. We reached one of these at the beautiful Sallochy Bay where we saw quite a few of the people we’d met at Drymen Camping, sitting on the beach drinking beer. They called out to us to say we should come and join them and camp there. You probably won’t be surprised to know it was pretty late by now, and it was certainly tempting…
We had planned to camp outside the youth hostel at Rowardennan Lodge because we’d read the section between there and Inverarnan was challenging, so we didn’t want to make it longer. We were tired and sunset was approaching, but decided our future selves would thank us if we pushed on.
We immediately questioned our decision to stick to the Rowardennan plan, when our tired legs were faced with a steep uphill out of Sallochy, but soon we were on the way back down again and it was a lovely evening – so better now than in the rain that was forecast for the morning!
Our spirits lifted as the path went back to follow the loch shore for a while, past several amazing coves.
Then we went through a gloomy plantation, before coming out onto a road and the bright lights of Rowardennan – meaning we we almost there! After walking about another kilometre, we were super excited to see the sign pointing up the track to the youth hostel.
We finally made it to Rowardennan Lodge Youth Hostel, and and got a warm welcome at reception! For £5 you can camp in their grounds and use all the hostel facilities. Their shop was still open and they even had Harviestoun Schiehallion beer, and Thistly Cross cider – our favourite drinks! We set up the tent outside, and went inside for a while to charge up our devices and cook noodles in the kitchen. Everyone had gone to bed so we had the place to ourselves.
We fell asleep to the sound of the water gently lapping on the beach below the tent. During the night we were woken by heavy rain, but were so tired we were soon snoozing again.