Well we weren’t back in Colorado for very long… We are now in Washington DC for the weekend to visit Gavin, and Hayden took the train up from NC to visit as well. It’s a quick trip, having flown in Thursday then we all leave on Monday – Cindy back to CO, I get a quick trip to Florida for work and return Wednesday. So figured a quick Sunday blog post might be in order…
Read More
Ok, so this post is for those who are pondering the Rob Roy trail as a hiking trip option in the near or distant future. Just really my summary to help others in the search for more information…. We trekked the last full week of September – so weather conditions will vary based upon time of year, etc. So here it goes.
Read More
Well we completed the last day (two days ago) – ended up being a great hike with a simple up/down hill (1000 feet) but mid-hike there’s a very small town with a chocolate shop – oh wasn’t someone surprised and excited to see that! We were out the door by 9 a.m., hiked the first five miles pretty fast and were able to have a nice break before finishing the last five miles into Pitlochry. Overall I’d say an easy path. We did find some exciting historic rocks/stones – Cindy was thinking that they worked like Outlander rocks and that if you touched them you went back in time – but they weren’t – so we took some pictures and then finished our hike.
Read More
Well we’ve walked for 70 miles officially and now have one day left of about ten miles that we’ll finish tomorrow. Our trek has been pretty amazing, today was really a good day – more than we both expected and we cut it a bit short this morning – having our driver take us an extra 4.7 miles so we didn’t have to walk on the road for that time. In the end it was a pretty good walk, finishing at a series of waterfalls, unfortunately with a bunch of down steps to then get into town (like 150) – which stinks on your calves and knees for sure.
Read More
Well today was a really good one – the walk for the first couple of miles was again on asphalt (yuck) and uphill, but then once you get off of that it was a great trail/road then a formal trail with mushy / muddy spots and everything you could want in a trail. We did about 2000 vertical feet today – climbing across the nearby mountain to then descend into another loch. But once away from the local village we were walking through tons of animals just hanging out in the fields we were walking through. It was cold today, we’ll say 49F, but at the top the wind was blowing so definitely colder. My dress typically is a t-shirt, then light sweatshirt, heavier sweatshirt and exterior rain jacket. My backup is adding a Melanzana outer wear under my rain jacket. Had to have it all on today – including hat and gloves for about half of the hike. No biggie – but in reality you realize if it was raining out constantly you’d probably be colder than you wanted to be. I have yet to take my rain pants out of my backpack – and the weather looks to be holding through Sunday (our last hiking day). So I think we’ll be good. We have had light rain here/there but nothing longer than about 10 minutes.
Read More
Well the hike today turned into a little more than we were thinking – we took a detour to see Rob Roy’s grave (see pics) – who was a notorious outlaw in this region, so fitting for us to go visit, especially wince we are hiking the “Rob Roy Trail”. Today started with a little misty/rain – and that was fine but then add a little wind and it was pretty cold. Of course you see a Scotsman standing beside the road in a T-shirt smoking a cigarette – meanwhile I’m contemplating if I should put my Melanzana over my already three layers of stuff I’m wearing… The high temp today was 49F, the low last night was 35F – so I’m assuming it was say 40F this a.m. before the wind-chill.
Read More
Today started out great! – Woke up and looked out the window, expecting slight drizzle and surprise – I could see blue sky through the lifting fog. We stayed at a very nice B&B in Callander – owned by a nice younger couple – so things were a bit more modern than the night before. Excellent breakfast and we were off around 10, electing to leave a bit later today since the distance wasn’t so far.
Read More
Dear gentle reader… you’ll be excited to learn that our two traveling souls woke up in Aberfoyle to a brisk morning, prepared to encounter rain, but that never happened and the sun came out and it was a great day indeed! (ha if you get the reference…)
So the hiking today is mostly on logging roads – and a lot of the forest has been harvested – so you’re walking through a bunch of torn down forest so when you get to nice spots you really enjoy them. Yesterday (no post) we hiked from Drymen to Aberfoyle – which was a great first day hike – weather was a bit colder than today – but a lot of the same photos – cows, sheep, old rock walls, more sheep, some grass, more sheep, another rock wall, etc. Generally we are hiking from town to town and there’s nothing really in between, so having your proper gear with you is important. What we are finding is we’re pretty layered up in the morning when we leave, but then as the day progresses we have de-layered a bit, but then towards the latter part of the afternoon the layers come back on.
Read More
So last night couldn’t really sleep – on again off again I guess. I realized how funny I thought I was the other day when we were on our free walking tour with our guide. We were at the castle and getting our history lesson when she started talking about witches and how the new king had decided that if you were a witch – then they would get rid of you (burn). It was pretty gruesome really – they killed over 4000 people. (now to the funny part for me)
Read More
Well well, we did it, after an interesting day of breakfast, 2 cappuccinos and a Nutella treat, we were able to have our car pick us up successfully at the hotel and then venture the 1.5 hours to Drymen. Our driver says “never been to Drymen…” and he’s an older gentleman… I’m thinking yikes I’m sleeping with a sheep tonight, but no, it’s very nice here – a great room at an inn, and our dinner place was literally right across the street.
Read More
Traveling Outlaws 