On Day 1 of our hike, we hopped off the bus at 6:30 a.m., strolled past the Milngavie Welcome Sign (Town Motto: “You’re definitely saying it wrong”), and began the first steps of our hike.
The West Highland Way, one of the UK’s most popular trekking routes, begins 7 miles northwest of Glasgow in a town spelled M-I-L-N-G-A-V-I-E. A beautiful string of letters that clearly wants to be pronounced “Miln-GAV-ee,” or possibly “Mill-en-gavy,” or, if you’re panicking at a train station, “Mullin-Gravy?”
None of those are correct.
It’s pronounced “Mil-GUY.” Which sounds like the man you buy lumber from.
Historians explain that many Scottish place names originated in Gaelic, but when English speakers began mapmaking, they transliterated them phonetically and inconsistently—creating spellings that no longer match their pronunciations.
But I think the real reason is simpler: So local pub regulars can have a laugh at your expense.
Pub Regular 1:
“And then he goes, ‘Excuse me, I’m visiting from Wuss-tah, Massachusetts… What train takes me to Miln-GA-Vee?’ Can you believe that?”
Pub Regular 2:
(shakes head)
“What a daftie. It’s pronounced Wor-CHES-ter.”
To assist fellow tourists, I’ve created the following pronunciation chart for towns along the trail:
(I wouldn’t be surprised if Fort William was pronounced that way.) But pronunciation problems aside, our 20 mile hike to Balmaha was sunny and scenic.
Day 2 began with a cow standoff.
Four miles out of Balmaha, I rounded a corner and found the trail blocked by a Highland cow. A big one. With horns. Standing directly in the middle of the narrow trail like she had just dropped out of a VisitScotland brochure.
Now, I don’t know if she saw me.
I don’t even know if she could see me—because her thick red bangs covered both eyeballs like a moody teenage drummer from a 2003 Indie Band.
All I know is this: Those horns looked sharp. Sharp in the way that says, “I don’t want to charge you, but I have the resume for it.”
I didn’t think Highland cows were aggressive, but she did have a baby cow with her.
So I was taking no chances. I decided I could either:
- practice patience
- practice parkour.
If I timed it just right, I could execute a modified precision vault off a mossy rock, redirect off a tree stump, and launch myself over the cow in one majestic Kong leap. This plan relied on two assumptions: The cow would remain stationary and the laws of gravity were taking a personal day.
In the end, in the time I was daydreaming about parkour moves, the cow chewed grass, stared through its forehead curtain, and eventually wandered off out of sheer boredom.
It was another beautiful day of dry hiking. By sundown, we had completed 35 miles in two days—still clean, still dry, and still aware that Scotland doesn’t give out sunshine without a receipt.
Day 3 welcomed us to the Real Scotland.
After two days of suspiciously sunny hiking—which, for Scotland, felt like we were cheating—we woke up on Day 3 to find the West Highland Way had remembered where it was.
Scotland was punching back.
Wind.
Rain.
And a chilling dampness that fought dirty.
We were huddled around the morning coffee pot at the bunkhouse in Inversnaid when one troubled hiker, clinging to hope like it was a dry sock, asked the staff: “Do you know when the rain’s going to stop?”
The employee, in a helpful and upbeat tone smiled and said:
“Ten.”
We looked at each other, relieved.
“Ten A.M.?”
“No,” he said. “In ten days.”
And that’s when the coffee stopped helping.
It was time to pull out the rain cover.
Six miles into the day, I stopped for a quick break. I was wearing light khaki hiking pants —skin-colored, as it turns out, when soaked—which had suctioned to my legs like they were vacuum-sealed.
I squatted for a moment—not quite sitting, just resting the hamstrings—since the trail was surrounded on both sides by tall, wet grass. From 40 yards back, Ian saw this scene and, quite reasonably, concluded:“Oh. He’s taking a Balmaha if you know what I mean.”
Now, in thru-hiking culture, this isn’t that weird. If you’re squatting that close to the trail, it’s 60% chance you’re pooping, 30% you’re filtering water, and 10% chance you’re just too tired to fall over properly.
So Ian stopped hiking. To give me privacy. Then his brain caught up: Wait. He’s still… on the trail.
He later admitted that his second thought was, “I bet he has a reason.” Which, frankly, is the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me while assuming I was defecating in public.
His suggestion? “Maybe don’t wear pants the exact color of wet thigh.”I noted this in my journal.
Right below the entry that just said, “Ian trusts me too much” and just above the sketch of the Mil-Guy building me a cow ramp out of treated 2x6s.
By the end of Day 3, we’d hiked 48 miles. We were halfway. I was wet, sore, and I still didn’t know how to say “Crianlarich” with confidence, but I also felt like I belonged—like maybe I was getting the hang of this trail. I closed my eyes that night, exhausted and content, knowing tomorrow we’d keep making progress toward duh-MOIN.
Disclaimer: No cows were vaulted in the making of this article
Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4.
Chris Stiffler
Economic Professor and Author of Economics In-Other-Words
