Today we had Ben (Ken) and Dal walking with us with Mike and Lynn both walking and taking care of transport logistics. Dal decided to up his game today by wearing his wife’s trousers – he looked very fetching in them!
The day started with rain as we watched from the breakfast room. Mercifully it stopped by the time we left and would not reappear for the whole day. We started out by doing a bit of a route march down the A82 for the first couple of miles (rather than climbing up into the hills straight after breakfast). It was early Sunday morning and the (normally very busy) road was very quiet – never the less we made a good pace to get off the road as quickly as possible. We had some nice views of Loch Oich (every autumn the Atlantic Salmon migrate from the sea using Loch Oich, Loch Lochy and Loch Ness as their spawning nests) and turned off the A82 at the Bridge of Oich (last picture).
We then walked along the Caledonian Canal footpath as far as Fort Augustus and its multiple locks. We were treated to sunshine and some beautiful reflections on the very still canal waters and passed our 1,200 kilometre milestone today. The canal itself was very quiet until we reached Fort Augustus where the main lock had 7-8 boats in it all ready to make the journey downstream. Time for a coffee and scone stop and then we were off again.
From Fort Augustus we thought we might try another sneaky walk along the A82 and avoid a bit of a climb, but one look at the coaches that went along the road convinced us otherwise. So up we went and along the Great Glen Way, with some enticing views of Loch Ness through the trees until the inevitable descent down into Invermoriston. We picked up our lunch (for later in the day) from Mike who then walked with us for the next while – and we dropped Lynn off as she had walked from Fort Augustus.
We remembered (and not with any fondness) the descent into Invermoriston from last year and, sure enough, it was still there except that it was now a lung busting 150m plus climb in a relatively short period of time. Once at the top we had a choice of high or low route alongside Loch Ness. As we had done the high route last year the low route became the route of choice. Some absolutely spectacular views of the Loch and some lovely weather hinted towards a smooth passage. Then we hit an almighty climb up a never-ending steep hill – so much for the “low” route. Anyway, once conquered it was time to sit down, recoup for a small bit and have lunch.
We then continued on and, once out of the forest, the landscape changed completely and (after getting a bit off track) we stopped at a cafe (seemed more like someone’s house to be honest) for a tea and coffee before heading down a steep incline and into Drumnadrochit.
Maybe not our hardest day (we’ll reserve Loch Lomond for that) but certainly a tough one.
Tomorrow we head to Dingwall.
