Paul Lydon: West Highland Way - Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy

Today would be the shortest day. After breakfast we settled up and got our gear together and set off back across the A82 and the river, which had risen a couple of inches overnight, to rejoin the West Highland Way.

We soon reached Tyndrum which was the largest place since leaving Drymen, and we stopped at a restaurant by a garage known as “The Green Welly” for a coffee and some biscuits.

Next we called at the Tyndrum Hotel to get our WHW Log Book's stamped (we had been doing this each evening). The route then led us along a bit of tarmac then onto a stony track running parallel to the A82 and the railway.

We passed a car parked at the side of the track with a small backpacking tent pitched nearby next to the river. There was a small sign next to the river saying “No Claim Jumping”. There was a man wearing a diving dry suit and a face mask and snorkel in the shallow water, presumably prospecting for gold (we had seen a small sign earlier in the day referring to planning permission for extraction of gold and other minerals near a bridge).

We continued along the track which was still stony but wide enough for a vehicle, with the conical peak of Beinn Odhar in front of us and other peaks further away.

We had a five minute stop in between showers in a bit of shelter from the wind, then continued onwards along the old military road.

The weather was quite a bit cooler than previous days, with periods of sunshine, drizzle and light rain.

We stopped in a sheltered hollow next to the track during a short sunny interval, opposite Clach a Bhein, to have lunch while the foreign lad with the huge rucksack we had seen on previous days walked past saying “Alright?” with a big smile.

After lunch it soon started to rain again for a for a few minutes as we realised we could now see our destination for the night.

This was the Bridge of Orchy train station which is nowadays fitted out as a bunkhouse.

We arrived and after walking along the station platform to the old station building, we found nobody there but there were some envelopes taped to a door which was marked as the Reception / Common Room which looked like it was one of the old station waiting rooms. One of the envelopes was marked “SCATCHER” and after opening it we saw it contained a note with apologies as the man who ran the bunkhouse had been rushed to hospital and there would be no evening meals. No problem as we could eat at the nearby Bridge of Orchy Hotel.

The note also had the combination for one of the bunk rooms which we had been allocated, so we unlocked the door and dropped our rucksacks off then realised there was no sign of our “travelling bag”. There were a some towels and bed linen again marked “SCATCHER” with the combination to the Common Room so we looked in there. There was a small pile of bags, all with the alternative baggage transfer company “AMS” but no sign of ours. Rats.

So, as it was only 14:00, we decided maybe the bag hadn't yet been delivered, so we walked over to the hotel to find out about meals and whether we would have to book a table. There was no problem as they were quiet at the moment so no need to book. While we were there, we had some coffee and a piece of cake.

We found the foreign lad with the huge rucksack having a coffee as well and a pint of beer. He was chatting in German with a couple we had seen earlier walking the route and they were joined soon afterwards by an older couple we had overtaken earlier in the day, who were also German speakers.

After the coffee we returned to the bunkhouse and still there was no sign of our bag. Karen had a lie down and I read some magazines in the Common Room until 16:30. Karen then decided to contact the baggage transfer company to check on the whereabouts of our bag and found out that it had been delivered earlier but had been left on a different room because the owners had to go to hospital. D'oh.

So we retrieved the bag and I had a shower and changed into my clean evening clothes and shortly afterwards we were joined by a party of three girls who were also walking and were staying in our bunkroom, which had three bunk beds with three tiers each.

In the evening we walked back to the hotel again to have an evening meal which was lovely. We checked if they served breakfasts to non-residents and we were told that they did, so we were sorted for the morning as well.

We saw several other “West Highland Wayfarers”, not surprisingly, also in the hotel's bar.

We returned to the bunkhouse at around 20:30 and lay on our bunks reading for a while until after 21:30 we got into bed to go to sleep.