Where are you Ben?

by Living Our Best Lives

Kilometres Walked : Saturday – 26, Floors Climbed – 241.

Sunday morning 30th July, 2023.

With stiff legs, hips and joints we are enjoying a slow relaxing Sunday morning after our adventures yesterday. With a very early start we hopped on a bus from Balloch down to the other end of Loch Lomond to Tarbet, an even smaller village on the shore of the Loch. From there we then enjoyed a lovely cruise across the Loch to Rowardenann which lies at the base of Ben Lomond. Ben Lomond is the most southerly of the Munros ( a mountain that sits above 3000 feet ) in Scotland and one of the most popular. At 3193 feet (974) it may not seem that high but it was definitely a challenging walk. I can say with certainty that these middle aged knees and hips are finding it harder and harder to ascend and descend 🤪 A nice young chap from Australia who was also on our boat (he is having his gap year before university) was about 2 hours ahead of us on the climb and also mentioned he had climbed Ben Nevis the day before 😳 Oh to be young again and have all that energy. (Ben Nevis is much harder) Even though the weather gods seemed to be smiling down upon us with some blue sky, the top of Ben Lomond was under a constant cloud for the entire day☹️.

Balloch, early morning walk to the bus stop.
Tarbet, lots of blue sky👏
Arriving at Rowardenann.
And off we go🥾
Lovely views on the ascent.
🌿
Ben is some where up there😆
Herdy’s on the way🐑
Loch Lomond.
The mist is getting thicker.
Can’t see very far now.
On the way back down, still can’t see Ben😳
Spectacular scenery once we left the clouds.
A wee bit chilly to🥶

After our 2 1/2 hour climb, admittedly we were disappointed in the cloud cover. The views are said to be breathtaking from the summit. Oh well, we still had fabulous views for most of the way up and down and only a small amount of rain so we can’t complain and we can’t control the weather. It certainly became much colder nearer the top as well. It was definitely a strenuous hike and I found it quite challenging with both the ascent and descent. The descent’s are getting harder and harder with my 48 year young tradie knees now 😬. So once we both staggered back into the Rowardenann carpark we headed straight to the pub for a refreshing 🍺🍺.

Back at the bottom near the carpark.
Heading back to the boat, more drizzle ☔️
Lucky rainbow on the way back to Tarbet.

After a sneaky rum on the boat this beautiful bright rainbow appeared. Of course all of us big kids ran upstairs to get photos 🌈. What a fabulous way to end our adventurous day.

Yes that is Ben👏

And of course Ben finally came out from hiding under the clouds at the end of the day whilst we were waiting for our return bus to Balloch😆