The Adventure Begins

There's a moment, just before you start a big walking adventure, where you stand at the trailhead and feel a profound sense of possibility. The world is open, the legs are fresh, the pack is on your back. Anything could happen.Andy then went and ruined my serene moment ​by immediately asking where breakfast was.

We started in Oban, which is a fine place to start anything. The kind of Scottish town that looks like a postcard and smells like the sea and someone's fish supper. The weather, which had absolutely no business being as good as it was, showed up ​warm and wonderful. We took this as a good omen. We were probably right.

Andy had a traditional fry up. Of course he did. Bacon, eggs, sausage, the works, the sort of breakfast that fuels a man for approximately forty minutes before he starts looking at his watch and wondering when lunch is. I had pancakes, because I contain multitudes and also because I have some baseline respect for my digestive system during physical activity.

Here's the thing about walking the back roads of Argyll on a warm sunny day: it's magnificent in a very quiet, unpretentious way. No drama. No scrambling. Just beautiful empty lanes winding through countryside that seems mildly surprised anyone's bothered to visit.

We settled into a rhythm fairly quickly, ​walk for an hour, stop for ten minutes, repeat. It sounds simple because it is simple. The genius of it is that it works. Every stop felt earned without being collapsed-against-a-wall desperate. We were moving well, conversation was flowing.

Andy complained about his boots/left foot ​at least twice. I mention this purely for the record.

We found a spot for lunch that felt a bit Tolkein. A big sprawling oak tree next to a stream, the kind of place you'd describe to someone and they'd assume you were being poetic about what was actually a slightly damp verge. It wasn't. It was exactly that good.

We ate. We sat. The stream did its stream things. Andy said something I've already forgotten. It was probably fine.

We rolled into Taynuilt around 3pm, which felt like a reasonable achievement. The sensible thing, at that point, would have been to stop. The legs were talking. Not loudly, ​not yet, but they were definitely making themselves known in the way that legs do when they want you to know they've noticed what you've been doing all day. We got some juice and snacks and then hurried on. ​Why, because apparently that's who we are now, rugged mountain men on an adventure.

We found a camping spot on the banks of Loch Etive under Glen Noe that made the extra miles completely worth it. Completely. The loch was still, the mountains were doing their mountains thing in the background, and the evening light was the sort of thing you'd pay good money for in a gallery.
Camp food. A bit of conversation. Sleeping bags.

Day one: done.