Loch Voil

After signing my life away at the car rental place in Glasgow and not understanding the rental dealer because of his thick Glaswegian accent (which I reckon was a great marketing ploy) we headed for Loch Voil via Stirling to the north of Glasgow. Outside of Stirling we passed the William Wallace monument (William Wallace was made famous in Mel Gibsons Braveheart) before finally arriving at Loch Voil to be welcomed by our host Les. Les was a white haired, pigtailed wearing, gumbooted hippy who had lived in this spot for a number of years where she had worked creating animations before being bought out by BBC producers and recently setting up the land into a small hostel.

The Loch was surrounded by craggy Scottish hills which immediately made me feel at home and relaxed. The lake was bloody freezing though, so no swimming and although its apparently got good fishing I didn’t see one person fishing the entire time and was unable to get a line in the water.

I woke up on the 4^th of August as a 28yr old and enjoyed a quiet day exploring the Loch with Louise. We spent the day dodging the rain and collecting firewood to keep the fireplace going and keep ourselves cosey in our cabin. She spoiled me with a cooked breakfast, my fav lentil dish for dinner, and then pulled out a cake with candles just before bed. Being out in the boonies and surrounded by the beauty of the Scottish mountains was a good way to spend my 28^th birthday, as for my 27^th birthday I was up Ruapehu in a mountain hut with a great bunch of mates on a mountaineering course, so maybe I might start a birthday tradition of being out in the wilderness for my birthday each year.

 

The next day was spent exploring the Loch by walking the tracks surrounding it with a nice British girl called Annie. She was a really interesting girl and had gone to Loch Voil to get away from London for a few days. We arrived back from our walk to find our cabin full of life with 2 other groups of people arriving, including two French guys from Nantes. They were a great couple of guys who were mates from home travelling around enjoying the Scottish Whiskey distilleries and the highlands. Needless to say the night was a good celebration as they found out it was my birthday the day prior and proceeded to provide me with plenty of their whiskey supply. Events throughout the night included the many games of chirades that had to be played to understand each other fully, and the arrival of Kermit the frog which one of the boys had picked up off the ground outside to scare the weird Norwegian girl who had joined us.

Waking a little worse for wear the next day the plan was to head to a nearby town called Killin as the highland games were passing through. The highland games pass around towns throughout Scotland where they compete in different events such as piping, Scottish dancing, caber toss (log throw), weight throw (shot put), and the best of all – the hill run. I had seen a mate had competed in the hill run at another highland games a few days prior so thought id take my shoes along in the off chance that I might be able to join in as well. I asked an older Scottish guy about the race where he showed me the course – up to the pylons at the top of the big hill in front he said. It was a big climb but definitely manageable at about 1mile in total. So I decided to register and get involved.

I thought I better do a bit of a warm up as to be careful with my Achilles problem still nagging at me, and noticed that it seemed quite a serious little event in the community. The race started and we headed on up with the pylons in sight, and I stayed in second most of the way thinking I might be able to bag a sneaky win while on holiday. We made it to the first pylon only to be told in a thick Scottish accent “Keep going, and head for those clouds”. Over the next 20mins I found out that the pylons were approximately one quarter of the climb, and the old fella at the registration either was having me on, or I misunderstood him as it just kept going and going. It also got steeper to the point where I was literally on all fours. At the top I was in 10^th place. I was relieved to have made it to the peak and looked down at the village below laughing at the thought of the story I had for Louise when I got down.

The downhill was just as mental, as they flew down the same hill with a recklessness that I admired. I would finish about 20^th after cautiously making my way down. Even though it was a hard slog, I really enjoyed myself and got a good laugh out of it. The whole town and all the spectators at the games really support it and cheer you down the entire way. Louise got a good laugh when I arrived after admitting she was getting a bit worried when I hadn’t arrived back earlier. So after watching a bit more of the games including the impressive caber toss, we headed back to Loch Voil for some rest before getting ready for our Workaway experience in Kilchrenan.