Well, it's started. It's officially underway.
Somehow, I believed that something would happen, something would come up that would mean that I wouldn't actually have to face the planned 96 miles. That somehow it would always remain a "plan" and the pain would never actually happen. Hmmm. That didn't pan out.
So, the day of reckoning arrived. We rose early, ate a traditional family breakfast- tea and toast with lashings of butter. Well, Kris had a bag of midget gems too. We packed our bags with flasks of strong coffee, sandwiches and lovely sweet things to get us through the long hills and achy bones. Eeek. Oh my goodness, was I actually going to have to ask my body to walk twenty miles in one day? Was I actually going to push it more than it had ever been pushed before? Was it actually only the first day?
We set off, dropping one car in Balmaha and then getting a little sidetracked on the way to Milngavie (never let the biker direct the car driver, some roads really aren't designed for cars). We lined up under the sign at the trainstation. There is a pretty stone in the centre of Milngavie that marks the start of the Way but since we were starting at the station it seemed appropriate to take the picture there. We were in high spirits, even though I was pretty apprehensive about what lay ahead. I'm just not that fit and it had taken more than a few minutes to drive from dropping mums car off to the start point.
But just as we set off, something sent a little chill down my spine. We walked through the underpass which is decorated with murals of things along the Way. I didn't really have the chance to stop and look at them but one just jumped right out at me. Are you serious? The one name that could be written on that wall is this one? The one author they chose, the particular book they picked and it's this one. I stopped feeling so nervous and thought "I can do this, I have to do this".
Setting off it didn't feel any different to a normal walk through our local park. In fact it was a bit like Sauchiehall Street- there were endless people- dog walkers, runners, cyclists, kids other Way walkers. It felt a bit weird to be honest. But after three or four miles the flood of people slowed and once we reached Drumgoyne it was only a trickle and it felt like we were really making progress. Drumgoyne is 7 miles in and mum pointed out the hill at the end of the Campsies- it looks like a little hump at the end of the long line of hills (hence why mum calls it the "wee hump end") off in the distance. It looked impossibly far away.
We walked on. We settled into a rythym, a pace where we swapped walking partners, chatting partners into every combination. There was silliness. The boys pretending they were in Saving Private Ryan giving each other hand signals and pretending to hear enemy troops. Boys! There was serious talk about life, the universe and everything too...arguements about dark matter and dark energy. Me trying to convince my brothers that they should really get on with making me an auntie. And suddenly we looked back and the "wee hump end" was impossibly far away (can you see that lumpy bit waaaay in the distance, yeah, thats it)... but now we were looking at the other side of it. Wow! That was when I realised, I really was doing this.
Our goal was to finish in Balmaha. The daylight was starting to fade and we still had five miles to go and most of those were going to be on a hill. It seemed to be too ridiculous to try and make it over the hill before light faded. It was risky as no one knew the hill and we were not sure how fast we could get up and over. We opted to take the safer, alternative route along the road to Balmaha and come back and do the hill. And just so it was still a challenge we would go to the summit (the Way takes you between two of the peaks), we set out for that on Wednesday morning.)
We did have a little reward for our efforts of the day... this first real view of Loch Lomond. We'll be walking the Eastern shore of Loch Lomond on Sunday... Balmaha to Inversnaid. I'm not so scared this time, now I'm excited and itching to get going.
