Log No 135. Fri 20th Sep 2013 - Strachur to Portavadie, 27 miles (2085 miles walked)

Hooray it's not raining, no sun but it is dry.

I had camped in the picnic park at Portavadie, never mind the No Overnight Parking sign, so I was ready to catch the 08.00 bus back to Strachur via Dunoon. It wasn't going to get there until 09.25 so it would be a late finish today.

Apart from the last couple of miles it would be all road walking.

I had an hour along the shore on the main road before taking the B8000. This is a narrow single track road signposted as Argyll's Secret Coast, it's so secret that for most of the time you can't see it.

The points of interest were Kilmorie Chapel, Old Lachlan Castle and Tearoom/Restaurant at Lachlan Bay, The Oystercatcher Pub at Otter Ferry and the Kilfinan Hotel.

I resisted all these temptations and stuck to my ham & cheese sandwiches and assorted chocolate bars and bananas, eking them out over the 25 miles of road.

For the most part it was cloudy but the sun did put in an appearance on a couple of occasions. It was good walking weather.

At 17.00 I turned off the road to walk the last 2 miles to Portavadie along the Cowal Way.

This was harder than I thought it would be. I nearly missed the start as it was such a small marker post.

I had a short section of track through a field then a footpath round Asgog Loch.

I thought I was finished with ferns and ticks but for the most part the path wound it's way through ferns and gorse, and here's me with shorts on.


The weather had closed in and it was starting to rain, I had almost put my waterproofs on anyway to walk through the ferns so I was quick enough to put them on this time, I had already taken 2 ticks off me.

There are quite a lot of forestry operations ongoing and more tracks here than shown on the map.

This made following the Cowal Way tricky as the ferns had overgrown the path and hidden the few small signposts.

After a couple of false turns I finally got down to the road to the ferry, it had taken me an hour for these 2 miles and I got to the camper at 18.10, nearly 9 hours of walking, the longest day I have had for some time.

At least it is easy to relax now, just put the kettle on and hang up the wet clothes.

Thanks to all, known and anonymous, for your donations, it's good that you are enjoying following my trek.