Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023
- Start: London, England
- End: Glasgow, Scotland
- Distance Traveled: 403 miles (via train)
One of the downsides of taking a 10-day trip to the UK and Ireland immediately preceding West Highland Way is that I ended up getting sick. I’m not sure if this happened on one of my flights, or on the bus rides to/from the airport, or just while in proximity to another ill person somewhere along the way. Whatever the source though, it was definitely not the way I wanted to begin my trip in Scotland.
I was now on my third day of being sick and feeling utterly crummy, but I didn’t appear to have any Covid symptoms . Nonetheless, each day of being sick had been worse than the last, and I so ready to be done with whatever it was that plagued me.
In all honestly, I was probably due to catch something on this trip. I haven’t been sick in more than 10 months – ever since my trip with Keith to the Big Island to climb Maunakea (Hawaii’s high point) last November. Let’s just hope I have fewer sinus and ear complications than I experienced on that epic hike!
HEADING NORTH
After a final breakfast with Amy at our airport-adjacent hotel in London, we took a shuttle to Heathrow together. It was time for us to part ways. Amy was heading back to the US, while I hopped on the tube to Euston station – where I’d eventually grab a train for the 400-ish mile trip north to Glasgow.
My primary symptom today was a horrible, throbbing sinus headache, which plagued me for the entire hour-long tube ride into central London. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for some Sudafed with a NyQuil chaser to make it all go away. But in the absence of that, I might just opt for a glass of wine tonight in Glasgow so I can get a decent night’s rest before tomorrow’s initial 12 miles on the West Highland Way.
My head felt even more miserable on the 5-hour train ride from London to Glasgow. And the First Class train car I was riding in felt uncomfortably warm. There didn’t seem to be any air moving within it, making me nauseated as the train swayed through the English countryside.
What’s more, there was a squealing 2-year old girl just two rows away. Her voice was like a piercing scream that made my pounding sinus headache feel utterly wretched.
And then, about three and half hours into my journey, the train stopped for 40 minutes while the police attended to a dire situation where a man was threatening to jump off a bridge somewhere to our north.
By the time we finally rolled into Glasgow at a quarter to 6 pm, I was so ready for this travel day to be over. It was not great start to my West Highland Way adventure. But hopefully I’ll be over the hump with this head cold and fully on the path to recovery by tomorrow.
