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Monday, July 20: Preparing / Travel day Glasgow-Oban (Loch Awe)
Scotland - July 2020
In the morning, a final test of the new equipment (GPS and InReach, both from Garmin). This all worked in Schagen but I wanted to make sure it was the same in the mountains.
Finally walked a few laps in the parking lot in front of the hotel (on my slippers) before checking in my room (on the laptop) that everything was correct.
On the GPS I will come back to later, the little device on the right is a Garmin Inreach. Every 10 minutes it shares in real time, via the global Iridium satellite network, my location which is visible on a website. This site is password protected that I only share with my family so they can see where I am any time of day. Nice thing about that is that they can thus follow my route “live.
In case of emergency, I can send an SOS message that will be responded to 24/7/365. In addition, even if I don’t have GPS Signal (which is very frequent) I can send text and email messages.
I send 3 standard messages a day (when I go hiking, when I pitch my tent and when I go to sleep) but can also send messages (inconvenient on the device itself but simple on my phone via bleutooth). Nice thing about this is that the above map shows the exact location of where I send these messages.
This is not only pleasant for the home front but more importantly, since I always hike alone, for myself. (Learn more at this link)
After the successful tests, grabbed an Uber towards downtown, bought gas tanks in an outdoor store and then walked to the ‘Queen Street’ station (10 minutes away).
When I got there I saw that I had missed the 12:20 train, just barely. Of course I prepared for the trip but for a moment I didn’t expect that the next train didn’t go until 6:20 (!!!??).
A change of plans there too, by the way; initially I wanted to hike the Ben More on the Isle of Mull as my first Munro but the boat to ‘Isle of Mull’ was completely full that Monday and Tuesday!
Therefore, first to the “Falls of Cruachan” station; the starting point of my original Munro 2 and 3.
Humor is in the streets?
Beautiful weather in Glasgow and while walking through the city I saw the below advertisement for the official Apple Store. These men take it very seriously as you can see in the 2nd photo showing a relay.
I had imagined something different about my first meal outside in Scotland but ended up preparing my first meal in the square in front of City Hall (see photo at top of page).
Then still heading for the Highlands!
On this map you can see the whole area where I have been this trip (this adventure).
From lower right (Glasgow) to upper left “Isle of Mull.
The blue line is the route the train takes with some places already highlighted in my story: Loch Awe, Fulls of Cruachan, Oban and finally Dalmally.
Train trip itself was a trip down memory lane;
It’s been a few lifetimes but back then I frequented this beautiful area!
Dumbarton, Garelochhead, Faslane; great memories.
On the train itself, I found out that it would not stop at the Falls of Cruachan station. Station before that was ‘Loch Awe’ so got off there as it was closer to the desired destination than the station after it.
The hike itself was a few kilometers and I covered half of that this evening (train ride itself took 2.5 hours) before coming out here for the first place to sleep.
