In 1984 I came to Scotland for the first time and it was decisive, as I kept returning to this lovely country.
My friend Ralf suggested the journey and we went to London first to visit my friend Stan and show London to Ralf. From there we went by coach to Glasgow. I will never forget that coach tour as my friend is 6 ft 6" and had problems sitting in the first row having no space for his legs. On the tour back, it was not much better, the couple sitting in front of us keeping on trying to put their seats in the backmost position and us trying to prevent that.
From Glasgow it was planned to hitchhike further north. The original plan foresaw that we would climb the Nevis within a few hours and then travel through Gleann Mor to Inverness and then furhter north to Thurso through Caithness and Sutherland and then back to the West Highlands. But we found out that this was almost impossible without a car. As we got no lift from Glasgow we went to Fort William by train. After shopping in Fort William we climbed up a hill right of Glen Nevis for lunch. Then we tried to ascend the Ben, but we reached just a spot between two burns opposite the Youth Hostel before dawn. It was early in April, the weather was fine and a bagpiper was playing in the glen. Lights of Fort William to the right, absolute darkness to the left we lay in our sleepsacks without tent and unfortunately I fell asleep when on duty during the night. At about 0:30 the following day we awoke, being wet from inside and outside the sleepingsacks. We had bought down-mummies but they were designed for the North-pole, not for Scotland. So in absolute darkness we descended and went all the long way back to Fort William where we camped under the main-road tunnel in front of the railway station. We spread all our stuff through he whole tunnel trying to dry it. At about 5 or 6 in the morning