This is the blog of Mark Wordsworm, the travelling worm. I’m a 36-year-old bookmark (give or take a few years) and I proudly boast my own Hallmark serial number, 95 HBM 80-1. You’ll probably want to read all about me and my Travelling Companion (the TC).
Today’s travel notes
Me and the TC are touring bonny Scotland this week. We spent a day exploring the tracks around Loch Lomond and Loch Long in a Land Rover Defender. Our guide from 4×4 Adventures Scotland was skilled and knowledgeable, and excellent company to boot.
The book I’m in
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, a tale of wonder and woe. It amuses this worm to apply analytic skills to the language and norms of the day, while at the same time enjoying a good yarn.
Cautionary travel tales seem to appeal to the TC while herself travelling.
Travel tips
Come rain or shine, take a day off your busy travel schedule to soak up the beauty of the natural surrounds.
The photos
Me in Helensburgh alongside a memorial to Henry Bell, provost of the town in 1802. Helensburgh lies on the shores of Gare Loch, near Loch Lomond. Henry Bell was the first person to found a steamship business on British waters:
The TC organised a full-day off road adventure with 4×4 Adventures Scotland. The company provided a Land Rover Defender and a local guide named Alan, who knew the off road tracks around Loch Lomond and surrounds like the back of his hand.
The vehicle was a Land Rover Defender 110 with a 2.4 litre engine, 33″ all-terrain tyres, a manual gear box, and differential lockers front and back. Approximately ten years old, she’d earlier served as an ambulance. She bore the name LU55 MAD, of which the first part harks to her base in the town of Luss and the second part harks to her nature. Show her a steep, rocky hill with a stream of water coursing down it, and she jumped at the challenge of getting to the top:
The weather did us proud, throwing us an abundance of mood-filled scenes. This is the gorgeous Loch Long:
The TC, bless her cotton socks, could not restrain the Ooohs and Aaahs. This worm concedes that there was beauty to be had. In particular, these mossy knolls appealed to my delicate body type. The hillocks rise a couple of feet in height and are entirely soft and spongy, with no hard rock or trunk beneath:
Streams gushed down the slopes, ushered by moss and fern:
More views of mount and loch that made the TC go Aaah. First, looking out over the islands in the wide part of Loch Lomond:
To finish off, here’s the track running along Loch Long:
That’s all for today, folks.
Travelling Worm 
Talk to the Travelling Worm!