West Highland Way here we come!

Once again, I start my blog with an apology that it has been so long since our last update. Well we come with good news...we are in Scotland!! And not just inside Scotland but we are in East Kilbride just south of Glasgow.

So what have the last few days given us, well rain for one! As I'm sure you've seen on the weather forcast the west side of Britain has been covered in rain clouds. Thankfully we've actually been quite lucky. Although we've seen quite a few showers, we've not really had many days where it has rained all day.

Our last blog was in Preston, as we left the library and headed up to Lancaster we walked past some cyclists who were also doing Land's End to John O'Groats (they were stationary hence how we managed to walk past them!) It was strange to think, they were on day 6 and already in Preston, with only 4 days left before John O'Groats! There we were on day 30 with well over another month to go of walking. No wonder most people cycle the route.

So Lancaster was our next target and from there we headed on to Kendal, the gateway to the Lake District. I was very glad to be getting back to some decent scenary again, the urban sprawl of Warrington, Manchester, Preston etc was not a fun place to walk. Now we were back in mountains and beautiful views as we headed out in bright sunshine out towards Penrith over Shap fell. Unfortunately, with mountains comes bad weather and as we crossed Shap fell the weather changed, black clouds were chasing behind us and soon dropped their load on us. Yet again though we were relatively lucky as after a couple of showers it stopped over us. Yet either side of us we could see it tipping it down. 

We were very glad to finally get into Penrith, it was a very long day, the B&B owners where we were staying were going out that night so wanted us to get there by 7pm, so we pushed on all day with barely any stops. It being a Sunday the shops closed early too, so we ended up only having a chocolate bar for lunch!

On from Penrith we headed off to Carlise and then on to Lockerbie and Moffat. Thank you Ian (my brother) for helping us to sort B&Bs along the way. It's been a great help to be able to ring you up and not only get a selection of B&Bs but for them to be well priced and decent places to stay. Thank you.

The Carlise to Lockerbie day was one of our best yet, not due to any particularly spectacular scenary but we crossed the border into Scotland. We'd made it to our last country. It was a good feeling to get into Gretna Green and be on Scottish soil!

In Moffat we stayed in the World famous Star hotel (no I'd never heard of it before we went there either!) It the worlds thinnest hotel at only 20ft wide - well it was in 1988 anyway and they are still living off it! We stayed an extra day in Moffat, having walked continuously for 6 days averaging 25 miles a day we thought we deserved it.

From Moffat we headed out towards East Kilbride stopping the night at Crawford and then being picked up by Andy, Gayle and baby Ben about 10 miles from East Kilbride at Strathaven. Yesterday we had a lovely day off with Andy and Gayle and Ben. It's great to see them again, especially to see Ben. He's now fully able to pull himself up, crawl properly (he used to drag his legs behind him) and now can even walk when you hold his hands for support!

Andy and Gayle have been great to us, giving us time to relax, feeding us very well and really making us feel welcome. It's been great to catch up with them. Today Gayle took Carlie and I back to Strathaven so we could walk back to their house for a nice easy 10 mile day.

Tomorrow will see us heading off to the other side of Glasgow, saying goodbye to B&Bs and the easy life with light backpacks and hello to the West Highland Way and full weight packs and tenting again - just as well the way the money's going!

I am really looking forward to the West Highland Way, it is dubbed as the best long distance path in Britain, with spectacular scenary through it's whole route. So providing we are still lucky with the weather and we get to see the mountains we are climbing over it looks set to be amazing, and even better it the thought that a week Wednesday we should be in Fort William - at the base of the highest mountain in the UK!

Lastly in this entry I'd like to thank some more people, those of you who have sponsored us since our last update, Judy and Andrew, Auntie Susan and Alan and Lynn. Thank you so much for your support it really does spur us on to know you are donating to these two great charities.

Thank you also for all your kind comments - I've just found a way of using the internet on my phone so Carlie and I can access these comments even when we are away from the computer - even if we can't reply. So thank you very much indeed.

I didn't mention in my last update the wonderful meal we were treated to by Ian and Val. Thank you so much, it was great to catch up with you and thank you for your comment too.