Loch Lomond is just a 4.5-mile walk from Lochside House and Apartment along the scenic Old Military Road to Inversnaid. As you head out of Stronachlachar, keep your eyes peeled for the signposted footpath on the right hand side about half a mile from the house. The undulating path runs parallel to Loch Arklet and spectacular views gradually open up towards the distant hills behind Loch Lomond.
You're now marching down an old military road, built in the 18th century as part of an historical network to improve access through the Scottish Highlands, especially for military purposes following the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 - 1745.
After about four miles of fairly easy walking, you reach the site of the old Inversnaid Garrison, its main purpose being to monitor and maintain control of movements along Loch Lomond. The Garrison was built in 1718 and remained a garrison barracks for 80 years. Don't miss the information board for a quick history lesson!
Continue walking along the quiet road and down the hill to Inversnaid, on Loch Lomond, where you can join the footpaths along the tranquil shoreline, which is part of the world-famous West Highland Way in both directions. To the right of the large hotel are the bonnie, tumbling falls that feature in Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Inversnaid".
Inversnaid
Gerard Manley Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
