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Tough day!
I was late getting to bed after repacking with my dry-bags and
preparing maps, not to mention messing around trying to get my GPS
track for the last two days loaded onto the web (unsuccessfully).
Breakfast was at 7:45am and those of us there were entertained by
the landlord, wearing his kilt and serving us, who had an endless
fund of one-liners, no doubt much practiced on years' of guests.
By the time I had done a few more chores, it was 9am before I
left and headed into town. I was a bit anxious about whether I
will have enough cash to pay for my B&Bs and supplies for the next
12 days (given that my credit card with signature doesn't seem to be
acceptable anywhere), so resolved to get as much money as I could
out of ATMs in town before I left. It took three ATMs, but I
eventually got enough cash to make me feel comfortable. Then I
visited a large supermarket and bought enough food for three days,
even though for the first day and a half I will be able to eat in
pubs.
My pack was the heaviest it has been as I made my way out of Fort
William along the sign-posted Great Glen Way, which I will be
following for most of the morning. It was already 10am and the
guidebook said the day's distance to my target of Tomdoun was
approximately 37km, including some cross-country work through a
boggy high pass. I called the hotel I had booked to tell them
I might be as late as 8pm arriving.
After a few kilometres of Fort William suburbs, the path reached
the banks of the wide Caledonian Canal, which crosses Scotland and
turned eastwards to follow the towpath. The Canal was flanked
by impressive mountains and there were a few yachts and pleasure
cruisers making their way along. I was trying to maintain a
good pace, but the pack was heavy and the prospect of a long day
sapped my spirits a bit. Soon after 1pm the Great Glen Way
left the Canal shortly before it opened into the huge Loch
Lochy and followed a pretty pine-needle covered path along the
northern banks of the Loch until the village of Achnacarry.
Here I bid farewell to the Great Glen Way and headed north into the
hills, passing some nice homes and an old church on the way. I
stopped for a late and short lunch on the banks of Loch Arkaig
before passing below the Cia-aig falls and beginning the strenuous
climb up Gleann Cia-aig through a thick pine plantation. The
path was steep and difficult in places and I sat down hard at one
point, but no harm done.
Eventually, the path left the forest and climbed gradually over
boggy moorland along the valley floor with mountains towering on
both sides. The only sign of civilisation was the hard to
follow path and a huge deer fence designed to keep the deer out of
the pine plantations. The weather was deteriorating at the
higher altitude and it began drizzling as I reached the top of the
col. From there I had about 4km of very boggy and difficult
moorland to cross following a compass bearing. Fortunately,
despite the drizzle, I had reasonable visibility and was able to
take a compass bearing on a low peak some way ahead and just work my
way towards it. Progress was very slow as I wandered this way
and that trying to find the least boggy way of crossing the
innumerable bogs. Despite all this, I quite enjoyed the
challenge of crossing this remote and seldom-visited part of the
Highlands and the adrenalin was perhaps pumping a little as I tried
to avoid navigation and footing errors.
I saw a few deer and, later, saw one break through a damaged part
of the deer fence to get into a forest. Eventually, I began my
descent through the same forest on a very boggy and
barely-discernible 4WD track. By now it was raining more
heavily and the bogs and wet undergrowth meant that my boots and
socks were thoroughly wet. I realised that I was now going to
be lucky to reach the hotel before 8pm, as it was already past 6pm.
Then I missed a very hard-to-see path and cost myself another 20
minutes. Curses. Gradually the quality of the path
improved as I moved lower into the valley and closer to
civilisation. Eventually I reached a narrow bitumen road and
worked out that I had about 5km to go and it was already past
7:30pm. I walked briskly for the next hour and reached the
Tomdoun Sporting Hotel at 8:35pm. The manager said he would
order my dinner for 20 minutes time to give me a chance to wash and
I hurried to shower and change. Except, I found that the
shared bathroom only had a bath so I had my first bath in decades.
The dinner, though pricey, was excellent and I thanked them for
keeping it for me. It was a very tiring day and the peat bog
and navigation challenges will be repeated every day now until I
reach John O'Groats. However, the scenery and remoteness makes
up for it and the weather forecast for the next few days isn't too
bad. For the first time on the trip, the guide-book distances
were way out and I had to walk 7km more than I had bargained for.
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