JOGLE 6 Day 6 Mon 13 May 13

Departed at 09.15 arrived 15.30. Rowardenan to Dryman 14 miles. Neil gave us a lift back in the morning to where he picked us up, outside the Hotel. During the night snow fell on the hills and I managed to get a cracking photo of Loch Lommond with the snow covered hills in the background (this photo is getting framed on put on the wall in the JOGLE operational control room! (aka JOGLE HQ)). Afternote - seriously thinking of entering the picture into the Country File calendar competition. Ian then realised as he was putting his gaiters on that he'd picked up a wrong gaiter so Neil had to come back with the right one or was it the left one?! The room was very nice although it didn’t have a TV or guest lounge. We asked for packed lunches but got told that we would be better of eating in the Oak Tree Pub in Balmaha.  I wasn’t particularly happy about this as I prefer to stop and eat when I feel like it. As it happens because of the rain it was a good shout and the pub served Pizza! Yes result!! It was also nice and cosy and full of tired looking WHW South to North walkers who were only on Day 2, one does wonder if this is as far as some get. The beauty of being an End to End walker is that you can take whatever route you like and although we were following the West Highland Way we decided to do our own version of the route and take the quickest way into Dryman from Balmaha. What this really means in plain English is that there is a big massive hill (the first or last depending on which way you are going) that Ian and I admired from ground zero and thought how nice and pretty it looked (really?) but decided it could be conquered another day. I think we had both had enough of the weather by then and just wanted to get to the end of our Journey. The weather was fairly clear with heavy showers thrown in for good measure, in fact it pelted down as we arrived at the B&B in Dryman (we had just got dried off from the last shower). The day on the whole was good walking and not as tough as yesterday. The Ashbank B & B in Dryman was very nice with very good hosts who were very attentive. The bedroom was lovely and warm and we were even asked if our washing could be done and dried at no extra charge! This is probably best B & B on the whole of the WHW. By the way Eric Lidell Of Chariots of Fire fame lived there as well, blue plaque to follow? We ate in the Potteries for our evening meal had a drink in the oldest pub in Scotland, The Clachan Inn.