Stronachlachar

The Arrochar Alps over Loch Arkaig

After another night when the mercury almost disappeared we drove up to Stronachlachar. It is always an inspiration with the Arrochar Alps beyond Loch Arkaig luring you onwards towards Inversnaid before the alternative attraction of the road to Stronachlachar pier on Loch Katrine. There were quite a few cars parked but everyone had retired to the excellent cafe. We strolled along the lochside taking in the scintillating views and admiring the Victorian engineering that had provided Glasgow with clean water since 1852.

The by-product was to make the Trossachs a favourite tourist destination for the central belt residents in the Edwardian era. It prospered in the days when the ferries and railways provided a fine round trip for walkers or cyclists from the railway station at Balloch by ferry up Loch Lomond to Inversnaid and then to Loch Katrine. There were youth hostels and hotels on the approaches to Callander and Aberfoyle from where trains were available before these lines closed in the 1950s and 1960s as road travel ruined the sort of sustainable tourism that we yearn for today.

The area has become a mecca for the sort of coach tourism where visitors are held captive in group hotels and trailed round the so-called 'woollen mills' that are sourced with cheap imports. There has been far too little attempt to attract the energy and enterprise of younger visitors and residents. Cyclists and adventure racing events are beginning to exploit the natural advantages of the area including the hundreds of miles of forest trails, proximity to the main centres of population and potential for outdoor activities and promoting local arts and crafts.

The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park has been notably poor at encouraging creative enterprises utilising indigenous produce and materials to entice visitors or at facilitating new housing and environmental developments with distinctive sustainable designs. The National Park has been too wedded to conservation, there has been no encouragement of development and the main centres of Ballat, Callander, Aberfoyle and Killin have stagnated since the inception in 2002. It has failed to take advantage of its designation to the extent that the Cairngorms National Park has achieved since it was designated at the same time. The Cairngorms has had a more open approach to developments, this maybe because responsibility for planning was retained by Highland Council. There has been a resultant strong insurgence of younger people keen to live, work and promote an outdoor lifestyle in the Cairngorms national park.

View down Loch Katrine from the pier cafe

Loch Katrine from Stronachlachar

Tourists

Loch Katrine and Ben Venue

The pier cafe at Stronachlachar