At the Three Villages Hall in Arrochar on 27th May, Folksinger and Outdoors Champion, Jimmie Macgregor, launched the new Guidebook for the Three Lochs Way on behalf of the Helensburgh and District Access Trust – a volunteer group of about 12 people.
Jimmie was very complimentary about the guide’s comprehensiveness, with nterpretational as well as navigational details. And since no walk is complete without coffee and cake – a celebratory cutting of the Three Lochs Way [TLW] cake gratefully received.
The ceremony marked the completion of the first phase of the Trust’s Three Lochs Way Improvement Project.
It taken 9 years and a lot of dogged determination on the part of HADAT’s trustees to get this far since the Access Trust commissioned a feasibility report on the route in 2004.
Total funding of £29,000 for this project has been provided by The H&D Access Trust, Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs – a local conservation charity, and Love Loch Lomond – our local tourism organisation; with Argyll and Bute Leader programme – European money supplying 50% of the funding.
The Project has delivered iPhone and Android mobile phone apps with maps which have been downloaded approximately 700 times since last June when first launched.
- 3 information panels have been installed in the Arrochar/Tarbet area which help walkers access the local path network as well as the main TLW route.
- 26 signposts and 4 self closing gates have been installed.
- A redundant footbridge has been relocated from Duchess Woods in Helensburgh and installed in Glenmallan/Cullanach.
Working with local graphic artist, Al Pyke, access trust member John Urquhart has provided the text and the photographs for the official TLW guidebook. Priced at £9.99, the guidebook is available from Access Trust members and other local outlets including Balloch, Helensburgh and Tarbet VisitScotland information centres; and here online.
Pretty good value for a modest £29,000.
Many local businesses are now benefiting from the walkers using the route and one business is actively extending its premises to cope with increasing demand.
The beneficiaries from this project have been many and widespread.
Our congratulations to the Helensburgh and District Access Trust volunteers for this first class work. Argyll’s long distance walking trails are a genuine treasure, opening up access to so many of our secret delights and rewarding those who put the effort into getting close to them.