May 5 2019 – Rest Day on the WHW at Tyndrum
Although we were up at the same time and eating breakfast at
the same time as the previous days on the trail, it was lovely to know we could
relax and I could catch up my blog. Great Wifi here at Clifton Cottage. Nice comfy
rooms, great chocolate biscuits, and fun hosts. The Cottage sits at the end of
town in a valley surrounded by hills in the heart of the hill walking country
of Glen Orchy. It is peaceful and our
hosts are grateful for the beautiful lands around them.We caught the train to Oban at noon. Unfortunately being May
bank holiday, and/or maybe a Sunday, there was not an earlier train. Train rides here are a seemless activity. You buy the tickets, at the station, or on line, turn up at the station walk on the train, and depending if the reservation system is working on that train on that day, find your reserved seat and sit down. No ticket collection prior to departure. A ticket inspector did come around once the train was moving. Trolleys of food and drinks appeared....and disappeared. It was like a luxury subway ride!!
We spent a pleasant day in Oban roaming the small town, looking at the shops, ate lunch, walked around the harbour, and caught the train back home. It hasn't really changed much. Still a very touristy town.
On the way from the train station, we stopped in to the Real Food Cafe for dinner. Had to queue!! Can you imagine? A small town like Tyndrum (population 167), whose main economy is probably tourism, and there were tons of people ....and queueing for dinner!! The food was OK, but neither meal here, last night at the Tyndrum Inn nor tonight at Real Food Cafe, were more than very average. And worse still: the wine was more expensive and we labelled it "wine pop!!"
There was a story from yesterday I neglected to tell you. We were walking along one of the rivers on the approach to town and noticed some weirdly dressed guys using some weird equipment in the river. Robin stopped and addressed one of the guys, remarking on his unusual atire! He was dressed in what looked like a black, fancy, wet suit. He had some cylinder type of suction tube and he used it to suck up a batch of water and blow it out in a pan! He told us he was panning for gold!! We had passed through a mining area and Peter suggested it was lead mining, so I asked him if the mine was a gold mine, rather than a lead mine. He answered "no" but that where lead was found you also found gold, and that about 3 or 4 years ago gold had been found in the area. There was anther guy quite close to him doing the same thing. He told us he had been doing this for a while, it kept him occupied, and provided some fun. He hinted he had found some small pieces of gold, and other stuff. To me it all sounded too much like the "attraction" at the Britannia Mines outside Squamish where we "panned for gold" last summer with Ray's grandkids. We found bread crumb samples of many minerals, including gold, all of which I was certain was specifically planted in the water as bait!!
And also, just to clear up a few things about the race on the WHW. The next one is Saturday, May 25: the race is 95 miles long and has to be completed within 35 hours. One of the race goals is to get as many competitors as possible to finish and they are quite lenient on time goals so that "recreational" runners like me can finish.. A great attitude!!! The fastest male time in the 2018 race was 20:39 and the fastest female was 25:56. Interestingly, most of the top finishers were between the ages of 30 and 50.. 95 miles is approximately 152 k.
So we are now tucked up in our beds resting our bodies for tomorrow's onslaught of 30 plus k....and it is supposed to snow and hail, and be very cold!! Mmmmm....or maybe the sun will shine!!
No comments:
Post a Comment