This was another last-minute weekend trip – this time driving up to Killin on Friday evening having booked two nights at the Killin Hotel.

On Saturday morning I drove the short distance down the road to the Ben Lawers Hotel for the start of the circuit. At this time of the morning the hotel was shut, and as I didn’t have any cash for the honesty box, I left a note with my registration number and a promise to pay when I returned to the car.

Meall Greigh and Meall Garbh were both fairly straightforward – I don’t recall any difficulty on either. However, the “scramble” up An Stuc briefly had me questioning my life choices and cursing myself for hiking alone – it’s a pretty simple path most of the way up, but there was one section where the ground was slippery and the handholds were loose to nonexistent, where I had to find somewhere safe to sit down, put my poles away and have a word with myself before plucking up the courage to continue!

I suspect there was a better route which I had missed – there had been a very brief bit of scrambling up a short rocky section, after which the path appeared to split and I took a route to the right; I suspect the route to the left would have been better. When I eventually got back onto solid ground I could see the top of what I presumed would have been the left hand path and it looked completely benign!

Apart from that my abiding memory of this day was the horribly boggy path alongside Lochan nan Cat after coming off An Stuc. It was the worst, most continuous bog I had ever encountered and I ended up just having to slosh resignedly through it and allow the water to seep into my boots – it was absolutely impossible to avoid it. If I ever do this route again, I’ll wait until after a sustained dry period before tackling it.

When I got back to the hotel I went into the bar to pay for parking and buy a drink – it was a gloriously sunny day and I went to sit outside and enjoy my shandy. I got chatting to an English couple who were out cycling for the day and who had stopped for a break – it turned out they live in Killin, but incredibly, they were very familiar with the Lake District and Oxenholme station. When I mentioned that I was travelling to London weekly and parking at great expense in the Avanti car park, they told me about the much cheaper alternative parking facilities available nearby. I certainly never expected to get advice on parking at Oxenholme while visiting Killin, but the amount of money I’ve saved since, has paid for the cost of the weekend many times over.

Dinner at the Killin Hotel later that evening was superb and worth a photo of its own! Chicken with haggis and bacon in a brandy cream sauce – absolutely divine and the perfect way to round off the day.