Last day of hiking tour

Okay, I'm getting lazy.  Here's what Pauline the guide said about our last day of the hiking tour.

"Day 5. Sir Walter Scott steamship on Loch Katrine then Inversnaid. Walk on West Highland Way taking a detour on the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) path to the viewpoint."

We had quite a lot of rain. I had a nice chat with a young Dutch woman on the steamship. She was with 49 other Dutch tourists and she and then her mother were the youngest. There were a lot of bicycles for the disabled and I talked to a UK man who was paraplegic on the bike tour around Loch Katrine. He said he cannot understand what is going on in the U.S. 

The boat ride was an hour and was nice except for the barking German Shepherd. 

The view from the lookout built by the pier. 

On the boat:

Gaelle on boat before her beloved rainbow

We hiked a couple of hours, encountering a lot of rain, other hikers and a variety of mushrooms. Also we saw a few birds although I still haven't used my binoculars. 

Tate creeps up on bird

Back to the parking lot and the hotel which had a room for hikers as long as they took off their boots and raincoat. 

Then a 45 minute trip back to Gartmore to pick up Antje, the German owner of the Walk Wild Scotland company, who was very pleasant, and another 45 minutes to get to Glasgow. 

At the Buchanan bus station I went quickly to use the toilet without the inconvenience of my bags and when I returned to the van, all the others were already gone. I said goodbye to Pauline and Antje and tipped Pauline. 

I am SO glad to never see Stephanie the American from Baltimore again! But I was sad to not give a goodbye hug to Gaelle. We did do that via WhatsApp.

    (Stefan took the photo)

And now I have spent a day with Couchsurfing host Ewa (pronounced Eva) in Glasgow.  She's great!