Day 72: West Highland Way - Milngavie to Drymen

Day 1 of the West Highland Way, and it’s been a straightforward and easy start to the next national trail. The sun has been shining today and it feels like the hottest day I’ve had so far. 

• Date: 31 May 2024
• Start: Milngavie
• End: Drymen
• Miles: 11.0
• Total miles: 966.7
• Accommodation: Drymen Camping

It was a fairly slow start to the day as wasn’t a particularly long day so I didn’t need to set out early. My friend Julie was faffing around with her backpack for a while, deciding where things should go. I remember those days back in Cornwall. 

We checked out of the hotel and jumped on the train to Milngavie, ready to tackle the West Highland Way. 

After popping to the Tesco supermarket next to the station, we then spent some time admiring all of the signage at the start of the trail. I’ve never seen such an arrangement of signs to tell you that this is the start of a trail. 

Most of the day was flat, on good paths. The path snaked in and out of country parks all day as you eventually passed mountains towards Loch Lomond, which we will arrive at tomorrow. 

The trail seems to be incredibly popular. I had read it was one of the most popular in the UK, and this was evident today. Even the campsite we booked for tonight was full and crammed with tents. I’ve never seen it so busy. 

Given its popularity, there are a host of random signs and sculptures along the trail. My favourite was a hoax sign warning of wild haggis’.

I’ve seen a few honesty tuck shops on my walk so far, but today there were three. I think I’m going to see a lot more of these in the coming days. One was selling ice cream and while it was the day for ice cream, I told Julie we hadn’t worked hard enough today to deserve ice cream, and so we kept walking. 

After getting to camp and putting our tents up, we headed into Drymen for food. Drymen was pretty busy, with plenty of people that we saw on the trail heading into the pub for food. The food was excellent, I had lasagne. 

We then walked back to the camp to settle down for the evening.