The way to reach Ardlui from the far shore is to raise a buoy. Walkers coming up the eastern side of Loch Lomond on the West Highland Way get as far as Ardleish, hoist a marker buoy on its rope, and wait for the hotel's small ferry to cross and collect them. For walkers on foot, it is the practical way across the water.
Ardlui sits at the northern head of Loch Lomond, where the River Falloch runs in and the loch narrows to a point. It is a railway hamlet on a thin strip of flatter ground, hemmed in by steep, rugged hills that keep the place small and the views long, out over the water to Highland summits, oakwood and grass.
The Ardlui Hotel is one of the hamlet's main visitor facilities. It began in the early 1800s as a hunting residence for the Colquhoun family and became a hotel in 1886, gaining east and west wings before 1905. The kitchen keeps to traditional Scottish country-house cooking, with homemade soup and macaroni cheese on the menu and fresh salmon and venison when they have them. The terrace restaurant looks over the loch and takes dogs; there is a lochside beer garden with a gazebo, and covered decking for the days the weather does not cooperate. Inside, the Lomond Bar has a wood-burning stove, a pool table and a jukebox. One visitor, Shelia McGoldrick, put it as "friendly staff with fantastic food."
Below the hotel, the marina has floating pontoons, a slipway and a visitor pier. Loch Lomond Wakeboard runs wakeboarding, waterskiing and speedboat trips from it and hires out sit-on-top kayaks. The gentlest paddle follows the sheltered bays; a longer one goes up the Falloch; and an ambitious 2.4-mile route reaches the castle ruins on Island I Vow.
The station is Ardlui's listed building. It opened with the West Highland Railway on 7 August 1894 and still runs trains, south to Glasgow Queen Street and north to Crianlarich, where the line divides for Oban and Fort William. It is a Category C listed island-platform station, its glazed waiting room, subway and ornate wrought-iron gates probably the work of James Miller. There is no staff, no toilet and nowhere to buy so much as a cup of tea, just the waiting rooms and six unsheltered cycle spaces. Shop provision may be seasonal; bring supplies or check ahead. The A82 passes through on its way north, and the Citylink coaches between Glasgow and Fort William stop opposite the hotel.
For a hill day, Ben Vorlich rises to 943 metres above the eastern shore. You reach it through a railway underpass about 250 metres south along the road, then climb by the Little Hills to a long north–south summit ridge with the whole loch beneath you.
The oldest story here is up the road at Pulpit Rock, a slab quarried into an open-air preaching place in 1825 after local shepherds complained to their minister about the eight-mile walk to church. Summer worship carried on there in the open until Ardlui built its own mission church in 1895, raised in four months to serve shepherds, railway workers and summer visitors.
When the last train has gone and the coaches have passed, what is left is the water, the buoy waiting on its rope, and the hills coming down to meet the loch.