GNT - Day 6 - Bonnybridge to Callender - 17/08/21

If you follow the Strava track of today's route you'll see it's a 'C' shaped curve to to East of Glasgow. The Great North Trail is mainly a combination of existing long distance routes. Today we joined up with An Turas Mor, the epic mainly off road route that goes from Glasgow to Cape Wrath. However, to get there, we had a few more miles of the canal to wrap up. 

It seems churlish to complain about canal rides. Fast, flat, scenic. But this one had gone on, so when we joined after a substantial Scottish breakfast (Emma and I had the haggis and black pudding, throwing ourselves into the local culture) our hearts sank a bit, especially with a headwind and complaining legs. Nonetheless, the weather was good and getting better and the time passed quickly enough. 

Even with a slightly tardy start, we were in Milngavie by lunchtime with just another 30 or so miles to do, and we'd done zero climbing so far. Milngavie will be familiar to those who have hiked the West Highland Way, a route that goes all the way through the Trossachs, into the Highlands, finishing in Fort William. The first few miles of our afternoon stint were shared with many hikers, all enjoying the warm sunshine, though some of them needed tutoring in the art of travelling light. Definite plus was that the path passed close to the Glengoyne distillery. Being slap bang on the dividing line between highlands and lowlands, it distills in the highlands and matures literally across the road in the lowlands. Naturally, I liberated a few miniatures for the first aid kit and sent some good stuff home. Nice as the delay was, we needed to crack on and we know we had some Trossachs to deal with.

From the delightful village of Drymen, the rolling green countryside started to get a bit wilder as we moved onto wider gravel tracks and down to our penultimate town of the day, Aberfoyle. Here, we ate ice cream and topped up with water for the final push, and biggest climb of a relatively flat day. It must have been going too well though as fate again decided to throw us a challenge. 

As we ground our was up the hill, Emma's bike went bang. The bolt holding the seat on had sheared, Not only could she not sit down, she could also not attach any luggage. Some hasty internetting and the escape plan was made. Emma would descend BMX style to Aberfoyle and be taxied to Callender, whilst Kate and I finished the hill. Great descent through the forest past many campers, and on past Loch Venacher. We met with Emma outside the pub and downed a quick meal and some welcome pints before heading back to the loch to find a suitable camp site for the night. We did, it was perfect and we all slept very well.

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