West Highland Way: Day One -Sunday 13th September 2026

Milngavie to Drymen: 12 miles

I’m Nordic walking the West Highland Way with my son Isaac and we picked him up yesterday in Dumbarton, he is camping with us in our Campervan awning. We spent last night camped at the West Highland Way Hotel and Campsite just outside Milngavie. After packing up the van and enjoying our complimentary breakfast we took the awning down and stowed everything in Clara, traveling the 15 minutes to Milngavie to start our walk. After picking up West Highland Way Passports from a newsagent we set off to the obelisk that marks the beginning of the 96 miles along the WHW.

The start of the WHW goes past a number of rust coloured panels depicting parts along the WHW as you descend the slope away from the shopping precinct.

After passing through the rear car park of shops the route goes through a nicely planted area and under a road before going alongside Allander Water, a small river or locally known as a burn! This path leads into Mugdock Country Park, with very pleasant walking through attractive woodland. We came across several of these wooden plinths with coloured ceramics atop them which turns out to be a trail called Scholars Rocks created by Rachel Mimiec. The highly glazed, hand built ceramic ‘rocks’ make visual and physical connections to East Dunbartonshire geology, landscapes and industries that once utilized resources provided by the landscape.

Further inspiration came from ceramic artefacts found in the area -Medieval and Roman pottery, as well as more recent Allander Pottery and Campsie Ware. These influenced the colourful glaze effects, which were combined with a unique home-made glaze created by grinding lime-kiln waste that was collected in the landscape.