We meet our guides, Rob and Cat, in the hotel lobby at 9 am along with our luggage, and dressed for hiking. We also meet the other six people in the tour group and board our small shuttle to head out of town to the village of Drymen. Our walk today is along a part of the West Highland Way, a 96-mile footpath from north of Glasgow to Fort William. We walk about 5 1/2 miles today and along the way, we see lots of what we call Fireweed.

And maybe we see so much of it because much of this area has been clear cut of Spruce trees two to three years ago and is now being planted again.

We cross a section that is named after Rob Roy MacGregor that runs for 79 miles from Drymen to Pitlochry. We eventually learn the difference between bracken, which grows from one stem, and ferns, which grow in a clump. This looks like bracken.

Not the most scenic section and I am obviously lagging behind.

We eventually have to wear our always packed waterproofs, aka rain jackets, although it’s fairly misty, nothing heavy.

We see Loch Lomond in the distance.

Always looking for wildlife, cows are a very acceptable alternative. They seem as curious about us as we are of them.

A cottage along the way. We are in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, one of two national parks in Scotland and the parks were not established until 2002. As a result, many people live in the park in previously established homes and towns. The population of this park is more than 15,000.

Our shuttle picks us up after about 4 miles and takes us to Balmaha along the shore of Loch Lomond for lunch at the Oak Tree Inn.

This is a section of the menu we had to choose from.

After lunch we check out this statue of Tom Weir, a mountaineer who was very involved in preserving natural resources and hosted a popular television show for nearly a decade during the mid -1980s to mid-1990s that focused on preservation.

A little further along we have a closeup view of Loch Lomond.

From here we split into two groups; those that want to climb a bit take the upper trail and those who want to walk along the lake take the lower trail. I opt for the latter and we start off.

After about 3/4 of a mile we reach a beach along the Loch.

Our groups meet up and Kat sings “On the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond,” and gives us some history of the song. She said it originated from punishment after the Jacobite Uprising when clan members would be taken to England and not return. Apparently, brothers would be asked to decide between themselves which one would be beheaded and which would be set free to return home.

O you’ll take the high road & I’ll take the low road

And I’ll be in Scotland before you

But me & my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

A couple of the grandkids knew the song well from school choir.

We stop for a family photo along the loch.

We head back to the shuttle and go to our hotel for the next two nights, the MacDonald Forest Hills Hotel, the same one we stayed at in 2009 before we had to go home.

Our room before we unpack. Not as nice as our hotel in Glasgow but better than the next two in terms of comfort.

Dinner is at the hotel and the guides have several maps to share with us. One shows where we will be traveling and another shows areas where clans were located. I have some Scottish ancestors and Cat shows me where they, the Gunn family, might have come from.