13.4 miles 5h 25m ascent 373m
BEING WRITTEN
Loch Katrine was gouged by glaciers during the last ice age, named for the highland robbers, ceathairne, such as Rob Roy MacGregor who stalked its surroundings, and co-opted by Victorian engineers, who raised its water level by seventeen feet to provide a healthy water supply for Glasgow. It inspired Sir Walter Scott to pen The Lady of the Lake, and his descriptions kick-started tourism in the Trossachs.
The wanderer’s eye could barely view
The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott
The summer heaven’s delicious blue;
So wondrous wild, the whole might seem
The scenery of a fairy dream.
There is a ferry between Trossachs pier at the eastern end of the loch, to Strochanlachar. We took the wee ferry, Lady of the Lake, from Trossachs Pier to Stronachlachar, and walked back along the loch-side track.
It was a pleasant 45 minute cruise, the weather being just right, sunny and clear. The pilot gave us a potted history and pointed out the landmarks along the way. Most of our fellow travellers were taking bicycles across, mostly regular bikes but I did notice quite a few e-bikes. I had expected a flurry of riders to pass us in the first few minutes of the walk but we saw very few. The majority must have gone elsewhere.
And now, to issue from the glen,
The Lady of the Lake, Walter Scott
No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken,
Unless he climb with footing nice
A far-projecting precipice.
The broom’s tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnished sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light,
And mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down to the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feathered o’er
His ruined sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.
Our plan was to walk back to Trossachs Pier along the “Great Trossachs Path”. A map at Trossachs Pier showed the route as 14 miles, but one at Stronachlachar gave the distance as 12.5 miles and along the way signs showed the distance to each end of the path with the sum of those distances as 12.5 miles. As you can see from the distance we walked, the 14 mile estimate is closer to reality.
The path is used by cars but we saw fewer than half a dozen all day. The path was mostly gravel or tarmac, with just a kilometre of loch side footpath. The hills immediately by the loch looked very much like those of Galloway. The picture at the top of this post could easily have been taken at Loch Dee.
We made good time and took a break every 3.5 miles or so. There were some tree stumps after Glengyle House for the first break, then benches at the viewpoint opposite the Royal Cottage, and a grassy bank near Brenachoile Lodge.
