Exploitable Clods in Celebrated Lands,

My regime is in place, and after one day, things are possibly running too smoothly.

I wouldn’t say that I’m on tour, but I’ve decided to try to see more of Scotland. I spent today traversing some of The Trossachs. Loch Lomond & The Trossachs was named Scotland’s first National Park – unfortunately, I forgot this important fact.

Admittedly, I did not delve so deep into the Park but I was slightly disheartened by what I saw around the Callander area. The natural topography of the area is undoubtedly stunning – mountains, glens, rivers, lakes, forests – and weaving along some of the wee roads to and inside the national park area was great fun.

I decided that to pull up at the side of a loch and take a break from driving, I looked at the map and chose Loch Katrine, because I had also read that there is a decent walk for rookies near Loch Katrine dam. I followed the signposts to Loch Katrine (the first clue) and upon arrival, my Higher Geography lessons came rushing back to the front of my mind – Loch Katrine is one of these hideous “honeypots”. A honeypot is a site within a National Park to which all the tourists are attracted, this area might be damaged sacrificially, but the rest of the park’s natural beauty is left in pristine condition. The authorities slap all kinds of stuff that appeals to non-discerning tourists – at Loch Katrine; a café, a gift shop (other than a photo, I can’t think of any suitable souvenir that would be required from a loch), a cycle hire service, boat rides – right in the middle of a gorgeous area and it becomes quite repulsive. I paid to park my car (I don’t know why, I suppose I wanted to see what all the fuss was over) and I took off on the walk around the loch. Loch Katrine is held together by the slopes of the mountains and they look awesome, despite having been eaten into by corries, across the loch with natural forestry on their slopes. The loch has several islands that appear just as scenic but it’s difficult to enjoy much of the landscape: cyclists zoom past, boats, filled almost to sinking point, tourists babble loudly. The footpath itself is a wide concrete road (possibly a conventional road before the idea of the national park was forced upon the area) just above concrete reinforced embankments all the way around the north side of the loch.

I wandered up a path away from the road around the loch to the Glen Finglass Falls – a man-made waterfall built by the water board. This was mildly amusing and then I followed a trail through the woods – real bogtrotting away from the numpty tourists – which was obviously an official but little-used. It rejoined the main road around the loch, the tourists were probably startled by me bounding out of the woods into their midst. I continued walking round the loch for another ten minutes but it wasn’t any more enjoyable, it was pretty disgusting. I headed back and of course, I tried to utilise the woodland trail but I entered at the wrong point, so it was very real bogtrotting and perhaps another “Let’s-go-down-the-sunny-side-of-the-hill” situation.

On a legendary ascent of Lomond Hill, back in Fife, we debated how to descend from the summit.

“What way shall we go down?”
“By the official footpath. The same way we came up.”
“Boring, old Leif, always sticking to the rules.”
“Well, if you don’t want to go down the proper way, let’s go down the sunny side of the hill.”

The sunny side of the hill was quite pleasant until we found ourselves wading through marshes, traversing streams, sinking in mud and clueless, with respect to finding our way back to the car park.

I eventually found my way back to the car park, employing a technique of throwing myself at trees on down-slopes to avoid rolling in a Last of the Summer Wine-stylee to their bases. I returned to the car, retrieved my Pay and Display ticket, which had plenty of time left on it due to my curtailed visit, and stood by the meter to pass it on to the next gullible tourist; a slight victory in my game of one-upmanship with the authorities. I continued to Loch Venacher, parked up there and listened to Mark Radcliffe quietly whilst watching people fishing. Fishing isn’t a real hobby; it’s like waiting for buses, it’s just some way to get past telling people that they aren’t just going to sit or stand by the river. “I’m going out to sit by the river.” sounds rather silly, although there’s nothing wrong with that. “I’m going fishing.” sounds acceptable.

It was a worthwhile day, I ought to see more of Scotland and get past the farmland and out into the real wilderness. National Parks are bad ideas, I’m sure the income to the area is greatly appreciated but I don’t think it’s really worth it. I definitely don’t want to see any more National Parks being created around the country.

I finished the day playing football with the Argos squad, I put in an efficient performance, by which I mean that I did not exhaust myself but I was still good, this was fine but I was still soaked in sweat in the heat despite only walking around. I suppose I could have stepped up my efforts but I’ve learned to play football like this lately, it’s much better because when I do apply myself fully I usually end up doing crazy stuff.

It’s a hot and stuffy night.