Day 1 - Milngavie to Balmaha

After a restless night battling jetlag and excitement, we all had a cooked breakfast at the Travel in and hit the trail. Got on the road by about 9:10 am after dropping our bags off with some shifty looking characters. Conditions just about perfect - 15C or 60F and overcast skies. The way starts off very simply in parkland before tracking an old rail trail followed by lowland hiking. Took a long time to find a suitable lunch spot and ended up stopping in front of an estate around 1:30 pm after about 12-13 miles. Seemed like we were going to be in the digs by about 3 pm at that rate. Shortly after lunch we made it to Drymen (pronounced drimmen) and enjoyed a nice forest trail leading up to the culmination of the day's walk - Conic hill (apparently there is more than one way of spelling this). It was no conic section, however, dropping up and down before making the ascent with breathtaking views of Loch Lomond. Dad did fantastically well up the hill and Malc and I took a quick detour to the summit for more of the same views (see subsequent posts!). The piece de la resistance, however, came on the way down which was a bit testing on the old knees of all of us. Safely made it to Balmaha around 6 pm and the trail rolled conveniently into the Oak Tree pub. After a wee dram and a rub down we had a spot of dinner and recounted the day's walking. Dad booked us into a single room with three beds so it'll be quite pally tonight. Malc and I opted for the camp beds. I'm sure we'll all sleep through the night. Everyone doing fine and not too much the worse for the day on the trail. Malc has a blister which we're going to pop before lights out tonight, but other than that we are all doing pretty well. Looking forward to the walk along Loch Lomond tomorrow which should be a breeze after Conic today!