West Highland Way With a 3 Year Old - Day 7 Trail Notes - Crianlarich to Tyndrum - Anna Hardie

day 7 trail notes | crianlarich to tyndrum

stats

weather:

overcast & partly sunny

accommodation:

campsite

steps:

20,978k

planned mileage:

4.60 miles

actual mileage:

6.40 miles

total day mileage:

9.30 miles

after 3 days resting at home we are back on trail. the rest was needed, mentally & physically. i took the time to look at my bag & work out what was actually used, what was unnecessary weight & what could be better. filled the bag with more food, swapped the cook set for a smaller one, ditched the gadgets i didn't use & left littles bag at home instead.

to say i wasn't apprehensive, nervous or a little worried to restart the trail would be a lie but at least i knew what to expect in terms of pace, terrain, weight & camping this time. i had spent the days off replanning our days, making them more manageable in terms or milage & stops, so that i would stop pressuring both little & i into walking quicker or getting to a certain spot. my knee finally got the cleaning it needed & was beginning to heal, which was great. i had bandaged it up properly so it will stop sticking to my trousers & reopening each time they come off.

kieran drove us back down to crianlarich, getting us there for around 10am. it was quite an overcast, cool day which was good as we had an instant 1 mile climb to do & not having the extra of sun or heat on us would help get up it.

the walk through the woods was nice. it was mostly downhill so the pace was going good with no complaining from either of us. we past a few locals who said hi & gave their praise to little & told us they'd heard about us on a facebook post. i wasn't sure what they were referring to, so something i'd have to look up after!

after about an hour or two of walking through the woods we made it past the viaduct, across the main road & onto flat farm land. there was a lot of people overtaking us by this point, some telling us they had come from inverarnan that morning. a fair effort they're putting in! the farm land was nice to walk through, we seen plenty of wee lambs & even seen a highland cow in labour. we stopped for a few seconds to admire her but thought we should move on to give her some privacy.

about 4 miles into our day we past through the strafillian wigwams. i'd heard such good things from previous walkers on forums & on facebook about this place, how it's got a great shop & facilities for walkers. unfortunately this was not the case. it had been closed down a fair while by the time we were passing & was becoming quite dirty. i took one look at the toilets, gagged then left. i've seen some states inside a public toilet before but that tops it. there was a couple of walkers behind us who came to use the toilets too but after seeing the state of them, they also decided against it. a shame to see somewhere once so rated get so disgusting.

continuing on we walked through some more sheep fields & little was delighted to wave & say hi to all the sheep who were nearby. she kept pointing out the poo all over the trail, asking why sheep don't use toilets & saying we should pick it up. not sure we have enough time or poo bags to do that!

we reached our planned camp spot in no time. we had made really good progress walking & arrived before 4. it was a nice, flat spot by a river so it would've been perfect. however, as we sat having a rest in this spot before pitching about 15 people walked past us on the trail behind us & it made me feel sightly uneasy. it was a great spot but we were there too early. people would be passing behind us for hours longer yet so the thought of people knowing we were here for the night & who was here didn't sit right with me from a safety perspective. i looked at a map to see if there was any other spots nearby that might be slighty more sheltered or not as noticeable from the path when i clicked we were only about 1.5 miles from tyndrum. i started weighing up wether or not we could go there for the night. 1.5 miles would take us about 2 hours but thats 2 hours we would be sitting doing nothing if i set up here anyway & take less miles of the following day. decision made, we set off again 5 minutes later for the tyndrum holiday park. it looked family friendly, was cheap enough & had an onsite shop.

i picked little up on my shoulders to give her legs a wee rest since she had walked all day so far & because it was my idea to carry on. it wasn't overly comfortable due to her pushing against the bag so it threw my balance off a little, so i popped her back down. a great thing i did because about 2 minutes later we both tripped over a rock & went flying. thankfully she landed on the grass which broke her fall & i landed on the path, grazing the same knee that had just started to heal. instantly i knew i'd reopened my cut & given myself a new one too, but rather me than her. she was unhurt just a little shocked that we fell out of no where. would've been a lot worse if she was on my shoulders! decided not to do that again, just in case.

the walk towards tyndrum was lovely. we past the lochan of the lost sword & learned some history, met some lovely locals & stopped for a chat. we met one lady who lived locally to me who was staying in the same campsite so we walked & talked together. turns out she'd walked the west highland way before & had done a few other long distance walks that'd i'd been eyeing up, so gave me some advice & pointers from her experience. a really nice encounter.

i was glad when we arrived at the campsite, it looked so clean & much more safer in my mind than the wild camp spot. the onsite shop was great - stocking so much essentials & treats that it would've been a great place to stop & restock on route. i didn't need to though as we had restocked at home. the staff at reception were so friendly & were singing their praises for littles effort so far. i decided to try embracing these comments on this half of our hike rather than them let pressure build because after all, she was doing fantastic & deserved to hear it regardless if we finished or not. they gave us the family key for the toilets which gave us a bigger bathroom & more shower space. can't get that wild camping!

the winning factor for this campsite was the fact it had an onsite park. little was so delighted at this & was begging to play at it. i told her once we had got set up & had some dinner, we could play there until bed time. never seen her try help get a tent up so quickly lol! tent up & dinner done by 630pm. kept to my promise of playing after, so we played for about an hour before i told her it was bedtime. this didn't go down well as of course she wanted to keep playing, but we compromised & decided she could play while i made breakfast in the morning. happy with this deal we made our way back to the tent to get settled for the night.

a fantastic day back on the trail!