My free day in Balloch

Today was the sixth day of my Scotland adventure, and my first completely free day. It was also the first sunny day of my trip. I was happy to spend the day enjoying Balloch and hiking in the hills outside the village.

Hike

After breakfast in my hotel, I decided to walk to nearby Balloch Castle, doing the Balloch Castle Country Park Walk. This is a short loop path that starts right by my hotel. The entire loop is about an hour’s walk.

It was a pretty walk:

At the top of the loop I came across a sign suggesting a longer route.

This was a perfect hike, with impressive vistas, delightful bird songs, and pretty trees and wildflowers. In total the two walks combined were about three hours.

I was mesmerized by the bird songs and took this video. Turn up the volume!

At the end of the hike I came all the way down to the edge of the loch.

And for the first time, I got a view of Ben Lomond, the southernmost Munro. (A Munro is a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet.) That’s the photo at the top of this page.

After the hike

After the hike I wandered around Balloch for a bit. I came to a shopping plaza that was teeming with families (today was a bank holiday) but offered nothing of interest. Then I came back to my hotel and enjoyed a brew outside on the deck. And I had dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Tomorrow I’m off to my next destination. My train isn’t until 12:38, so I have more time in the morning to discover if there’s anything I’ve missed in Balloch.

All my photos from Loch Lomond, including yesterday’s driving tour and today’s hike, are here.