Journal:
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.