I was full of enthusiasm for a short walk (14 miles) after clocking up 21 the day before. Nae botha. This would take me halfway down the east side of Loch Lomond to a nice place with evening food. I left the Drovers’ and some bloke offered to take my photo.

I walked upstream to a bridge over the river to the east side and yomped down. I took a poor turn over the bridge onto a WHW link that turned out to be problematic due to fallen trees and small landfalls. This cost me precious time. 

The clouds were developing around local hills as I headed south to LL. 

LL are great initials as Superman only had girlfriends with the LL initials. So he must have right fancied Loch Lomond. The first mile or so was ok, and I came to a bothy, Doune Byre, which was in decent shape, although an Irish couple I had met earlier said they’d stayed there and it was infested with mice. What do you expect for nowt? 

After the bothy the path started to deteriorate. And a mile later it was very difficult. I had to climb, scramble and jump across problematic blocks of stone over a few miles of the route. The views of the lake became lovelier and despite the tough nature of the route the view continued to compensate.

Eventually I made it to Inversnaid, a small community with a hotel and outside seating where I could eat my Drovers packed lunch without a problem, and with a nice view.

Carrying on to Rowardennan the path followed the shore and looked more like the South West Coastal Path on occasions.

Often, between the beaches and difficult boulder strewn stretches, there would appear a patch of new-growing bracken and Bluebells, destroying the myth that blue and green should together not be seen.  

I was running late however and compounded the problem by taking a minor lakeside route that was swamped with path works and difficult boulders to negotiate. In the end at 7.30pm I made it to the hotel/hostel and moved to the bar/restaurant to get my food and drink. The view was awesome.

I had a place booked and slept easily through the night. I’m ready. Night night.

The morning was clear and my tent had dried out on the fence. The views were lovely and Maurice cooked me a manly breakfast of meat, with the exception of some scrambled egg. Big chunks of burnt toast and strawberry jam. Massive pot of tea. Right set me up. Unfortunately I got bit during the day and scratched the bites on my legs in the night, prolonging the misery. It’s such a shame for a beautiful neck of the woods.

I walked over the hill from Inveroran to The Bridge of Orchy and looked back at Maurice’s place, in the middle of the picture, and the loch.

The river running under the Bridge of Orchy is pristine.

The Way crosses the road and up the hill, where I found a ruined car with a seat to mapread in for a few minutes.

The route climbs up a long, but not too steep pass over to Tyndrum. The views en route are reight good. I’m enjoying this walk. It’s not the South West Coast Path. That was special. But it’s got something.

Tyndrum and the area around it are crammed with interest. Gold has recently been discovered and it’s not uncommon to see families panning for gold in the rivers. It also reeks with history. Robert the Bruce and his men were here in 1306, being pursued by McDougall of Lorne and his men. To lighten their burdens Robert the Bruce and his chaps threw their heavy weapons into a small lochan.

Imagine if Robert the Bruce’s sword is in this lochan, preserved in peat. OMG. Which means oh my god. McDougall’s men caught up with their prey, but were all slaughtered. Fight light fight effective. Down the road I came upon a sheep sale.

Miserable looking buggers. They must be German. I’m not kidding I’m going in the opposite direction to everyone else and there are hundreds of Germans and Yanks that I come across. Even, and maybe particularly, the young German couples are the ones who look most miserable and behave like it. They’re not enjoying being together, mustn’t be. Hateful looking Pillock with a beard walks ahead of his lass, almost ignores my greeting and she drags behind like a prisoner being led to her death. Why don’t they stay in Stuttgart and argue for a week?

Round the corner is St Fillan’s Priory ruins. Fascinating stuff.  Goes back to the 13th Century and the graveyard goes back to the 8th! Unbelievable.

It was a right long slog from there to Inverarnen and the legendary Drover’s Inn. A total of 21mile in the day. Down the valley to Inverarnen there were lovely little stretches of river where I would love to loaf around and spend an hour or two with a fishing rod.

After a long time I rolled up at the Inn and had a gorgeous warm bath. FIsh and chips and an earlyish bed. Knackered. The place has been going for hundreds of years and is haunted as hell. Not in my room though.

Night  night.

First time I’ve put the departure point and destination on since the blog started I think. And I’m not going to check. That would be sad. I’ll do it later. I got up in an inner tent covered in midges. How did the blighters get through the fine mesh? For blighters read bastards. I had breakfast in the hotel attached to the campsite and I ate for Scotland. I went to pack and take the tent down and was met with a mist of midges, blighters, which I countered with my stylish midge mesh hat which will be the talk of the town when I wear it at Bramall Lane for the first match of the season. 

Nevertheless I still got bit. The blighters got my legs below (and slightly above) the bottom of my shorts. Blighters!

The Co-Operative store produced sandwiches and crisps for later and I set off up the four mile hillside leading to the Devil’s Staircase. A pass in the hills with a steep drop down on the south side. The weather was poor but dry when I set off,  and it remained dry all day. The climb up was long and wearing; it’s far easier without a rucksack but it dunt matter.  The views were great. 

Finally I came up to the last pitch up the back of the Devil’s Staircase.

The view opened out from the top and it became an expansive valley rather than a constrained glacial glen. 

I was enjoying this walk. The views were great, the weather was cool enough for a dude with a rucksack and there were nice features. The Cape Wrath Trail is an experience. So is wiping your backside with a cactus but it don’t mean you liked it and want to do it again. Having said that I’m glad I did it, and equally glad I started the WHW. 

The weather brightened in patches and I passed by Glencoe and the skiing centre up there.

The road went ever on and on. 19 miles in total to Maurice’s place at Inveroran. He takes b&b overspill from the Inveroran hotel. I showered, heaven, hung my tent out on Maurice’s back fence, had haggis and beer in the hotel and got an early night. Maurice is great. Long haired fifty/sixty summat who retired from the Fire and Rescue service last year after a heart attack. He’s a highlander. Me too (when it’s warm and no midges).

Maurice’s place and views from it.

I like him and here. Night night. 

What a great night’s sleep. I fell asleep shortly after ringing ‘the wife’ as they say on Tipping Point (not that I watch it), round about 8pm or summat. I listened to the Incredible String Band doing ‘The Half-Remarkable Question’.  Just cop it on you tube or summat and you’ll share the joy of a song vying for greatest ISB song of all time, with ‘The Iron Stone’ and dozens of others. They do something to me. I then put on the Killers. As it’s on my iPad it switches off after the 4 classics I’ve got on there and I’m asleep before the end of ‘When You Were Young’. But I hadn’t done my teeth or had a wee so I woke up at 1am and got out of the tent. OMG!! This means Oh My God. It was that brief hour of darkness round here at this time of year. The clouds had lifted and the black mass of Ben Nevis was revealed to me. Not by an outline against the Universe; the cloud was lifted but not evaporated so it was black outside. But by a fabulous array of lights which were making their way up or down the mountain. It was magical and I wished I could watch for a long time but it was now cold. I weed and brushed my teeth, in two completely separate processes and went back to bed, after once again admiring the magnificent display of AA powered torches snaking up and down the highest mountain in the UK. 

This morning I packed in the rain, which had hung around since 4am, no doubt dousing the Elven lamps on the high mountain. The site has a chuck wagon and I had two breakfast rolls, big uns. 

Walking down to the river to pick up the West Highland Way (WHW) the bluebells were in belated beauty.

The Way rises up and passes through passes. The first one culminates in a high peak of an ancient fort,  Dun Deardail. It’s up there somewhere.

The route cuts south and then east to Kinlochleven, which I aimed to overshoot and carry on a few miles further. In the end I stopped at Kinlochleven. 

En route was a loch with a tiny island on which Macbeth was reputed to live before he became big time. You can see it at the far end. 

Lots of people on the route, all coming in the opposite direction. Mostly Germans, as in the south west. Miserable looking as well. It dunt cost owt to be happy and smile. Jesus! 

The rain was intermittent and the glen twisted south and then east. It was through here that the Campbells retreated after a bloody defeat in 1645, pursued by the MacDonalds. With fries. 

Poor little buggers. 2nd February. Must have been bitter. And they lost and saw their mates cut to pieces. 

The sky cleared a little after I passed the cairn marking the point where the  MacDonalds gave up the chase of the stragglers, looking back down the glen.

And now looking forward and south.

It was now the usual grind towards Kinlochleven, a further six miles.

Kinlochleven sits at the end of a sea loch and as I dropped down into the town there was a campsite over the road at the bottom of the hill. Tent up, washing done, showered, watered and fed. The view is impressive. I stopped because I was tired. I’ll be strong tomorrow after an early breakfast in the hotel whose grounds contain the campsite. A long way south and aiming for the Bridge of Orchy. We’ll see.

Night night.  

Well, I’ve now been along the Cape Wrath Trail (Been There) and climbed up Ben Nevis (Done That). 

To recap I had breakfast and left the B&B yesterday as dear Elsie, the owner, had a doctor’s appointment. I wandered into town and came across the end – being the beginning for me – of the West Highland Way. 

It took me longer to find the end of the Cape Wrath Trail. Mostly because it isn’t a trail for many miles along the way; it’s difficult to follow when paths don’t exist! But it’s an embryonic trail and an attraction for devoted walkers. So it deserves it’s unmarked roundabout conclusion, shared in true Caledonian fashion with a stalwart of the glens – McDonalds!! I kid you not, this is the published start/end point.

I made my way along my new trail – The West Highland Way – up Glen Nevis to a campsite where I pitched my midge-proof tent. Thank you god that I didn’t bring Wilson (although he was sick) as I would have been bitten to buggery. I made my way to the camp restaurant/bar and had haggis, neaps and tatties and a coupla beers.

Oh that aromatic haggis!

I was keen to get up Ben Nevis, as the highest mountain in the UK, and I couldn’t get a glimpse of it in the low cloud. 

I got an early night, got up and had a Scotch Egg and Prawn sandwich, which I’d bought at Morrisons, the previous day, for breakfast. What a treat!

I set off at 7.30 and made my way up this amazing hill. It’s not that high compared to the Alps or Pyrenees, and Puig Campana that I’d climbed in Spain earlier in this blog is higher, but it’s high enough. It’s also very north, so it’s colder and more desolate, particularly in low cloud. 

The path up is hard and steep, and being almost the longest day in the year and a Saturday the mountain was crawling with charity walkers, several hundred of them; and there’s only one safe path. After 3 hours of slog I reached the snow line and it had turned windy and very cold. 

Where else can you find a group of nuns at 4000ft?

It was knackering walking through snow in those conditions but everyone plunged on. There’s a great, supportive camaraderie going up mountains. Strangers sharing words of encouragement. 

A bloke volunteered to take my photo.

It’s just a question of keeping your head down and grinding away. At 11.15 I finally made it to the summit, with the charity crew.

To eat my Morrisons 69p pork pie I had to lean against the leeward side of the stone cairn at the summit, with other pilgrims, to avoid most of the icy blast. 

On the way down I saw another group of charity walkers together crossing the snow and it was a great, evocative photo.

When I got down to the lower levels of the mountain the views up and down (to my camp site) were great. 

I got down at 13.30, doing a not bad 6 hours. It’s warmer in the valley, and the midges are delighted. Loafing about and ready for tomorrow for the start of my journey South on the West Highland Way. 

Bite Bite. 

I woke up earlyish in the tent and tried to pack as much as I could in the inner tent, which keeps out the midges. I had a sandwich left which I’d bought in Inverness and a Bounty bar so breakfast was provided for and I’d surely come across a shop at some time before Fort William. Sadly my water bottle top wasn’t fixed tightly enough and most of it had leaked in the bottom of my rucksack. I took a couple of mouthfuls, packed the tent and set off up the footpath into the mountains at 8.15. Not a bad start. It was raining and my boots were still wet inside from the previous day but my feet and legs were in reasonable shape. 

I followed a Scottish Right of Way through up to the top of a pass and down to some ruins of an ancient and small farmhouse. I expected the spectre of an old Highlander to appear on the photos: the place had that feel to it. Particularly with the skeleton of a sheep in one of the two rooms.

It was a difficult walk to the ruins, across a waterlogged plain with very deep peat bog ‘holes’ where the unwary would disappear up to their thighs. After that it was less boggy but straddling a steep mountainside for a couple of miles. I found a decent crossing of the river, it didn’t matter too much as my shoes were sodden, and went downstream reasonably quickly into a pine forest with a decent woodland path through it. All the time a mechanical banging was growing louder. 

In a sudden clearing I came across a dam building project for a hydro power facility. In the middle of a remote area. I hadn’t met another walker yet. 

It’s not just a small dam that’s involved. As I walked down the project’s dirt track there were massive machines laying waste to trees, planting huge pipes, crushing rocks and spreading them to make more gravel roads in what on e was a lonely landscape. But for a good, sustainable purpose. It’s ok. The machines were in touch with each other and knew I was coming. They don’t get many walkers but they all stopped before I arrived and started up after I passed, over the course of a country mile. 

The track then dropped down to Clunes and Loch Lochy. I got there about 3.00pm and walked down the loch to the end where a river flowed out and the Caledonian Canal paced it side by side. 

The barren, desolate and dangerous Cape Wrath Trail then becomes a canal towpath until its conclusion at the end of my journey at Fort William. Nevertheless this domestication didn’t produce a shop or cafe or pub or nuthin.  I was starving.

After phoning 27 B&Bs in and around Fort William darling babe Maggie found one that had a room for a foot-soaked, fatigued furquahar. I rolled in at 7pm, absolutely exhausted after summat like 25 miles, had a decent meal in a local bar and slept like a baby. I woke up every hour crying and wetting myself! 

Cheers.

It’s raining again. Inverness was good, I had a long night’s sleep from 7pm to 7.30am. However I’d had a few beers with Jimmy from Texas on the train to Inverness and a couple when I got there. Jimmy was a lad. A tall, athletic bloke but a lad. Likeable. His hobby is shooting wild pigs on a mate’s ranch using night vision lenses. He says you look through the lenses and sometimes see 40 hogs (as he calls them). Then the coyotes appear downwind of the hogs; they hear Jimmy coming and know that it’s party time. Jimmy and his mate have  M16 rifles, which were the US army’s answer to the Armalite. They look like this.

They’re not machine guns but they reload automatically and Jimmy typically shoots four hogs before the rest are gone. They weigh up to 200lb because somebody bred a cross with Russian hogs and they’re flipping huge. Jimmy then cuts a strip off the back and leaves the rest for the coyotes. He says the M16 is the rifle of choice in the US. He sometimes doesn’t take any meat as the hogs are rampant vermin and need to be culled. If I was him I’d pop a few coyotes at the same time to show them there’s no such thing as a free lunch. 

I got the 9.15 bus from Inverness to Skye and got off at the Claunie Inn, where I  quit the Trail in May. From there I was to cut south over the hills to Loch Garry and then dog-leg south again through the hills to Clunes on Loch Lochy. From there it’s a 12 mile dap down the Caledonian Canal to Fort William. Flat and boring but a terminal challenge for us Highlanders!

I alighted from the bus at 10.40 at the Claunie Inn, had a quick ginger beer (you heard) and set off down the trail over the hills. There was a lot of snow on the tops over 2000ft and it was peeing down, which it did for the next 36 hours. 

This shot looks back to the Claunie from the start of the hill track. 

I struggled to get down the first hill range as the Trail sends you in an epileptic zig zag routine. I spent far too long trying to find crossings for a river and several streams. However a stag furnished testimony on the foolishness of taking too little time.

It’s knackering, climbing uphill particularly, with a heavy rucksack. Downhill is ok and you can appreciate the waterfalls, which are all over these mountain ranges, running from melting snow or pouring rain, or both as in this case.

I finally got down to Loch Garry, with a laughable sign saying that I’d only come 9 miles from Claunie and that the route was potentially dangerous.  It did’nt do the stag much good.

In the end I got a few miles further and pitched my tent (you heard) by the side of the footpath. Wilson got a sick note from his mum that he couldn’t make it this time; signed “My Mum”. Good job. When I got up in the morning my body heat on the ground – no lilo – had brought a swarm of midges to life. Bar Stewards. If they’re too small to bite then they get in your eyes. 

By the way, on the train, before I got tiddly with my mate Jimmy, I did the Daily Mail Scrabble Grams and got 129. The Par Score was 85-95. Now I’m not a typical DM reader in any aspect apart from age but I nailed it.

See you Jimmy.  

Hello Peeps, I’m back again in Inverness to finish what I started.

I set off from home this morning by train and Edinburgh was great.

I took a connection to Perth and from there to Inverness. I’m there now and all is fine. Tidy little town. I’ll check into the B&B in an hour and get some food and sleep and get a bus tomorrow morning to the Cluanie Inn and walk down to Fort William over two or three days through a landscape, desolate. Can nature make a man of me yet?

Still a bit of snow around.   

 Bye Bye

I got out of the plastic sheet with wet, cold feet at 5.30 and took off down the valley aiming for a Youth Hostel in the middle of nowhere, with no road running to it and no phone. However there was a new footbridge near it which would get me over the swollen river to the track leading to the Claunie Inn. This sounds relatively easy but it’s a long 18 mile slog and it’s steep, boggy and just starting to rain again. In fact it deluged all day. On setting off the deer were having breakfast in the Glen.

What caused me greater concern was the herd of Highland cattle at the end of the first bridge that I had to cross, including Big Daddy and young bullocks. I bottled it and walked further downstream past Loch na Leitreach and over a lower bridge, with a view to climbing up a very steep gully past the Falls of Glomach. I had to cross the River Ghlomaich to get to the path, climbing any other way was too steep and hopeless, and then cross back over above the Falls to get back to my original track. The river was rampant and I had to wade. Jesus! Freezing water in my bloody boots again. The track climbed along the side of the massive gully cut deep into the mountains by the Falls. One slip and you’re in deep doo dahs matey boys and girls, and it was slippy from the torrential rain. After two hours of solid grind I approached the Falls.

The track went up the hilltop to the right and dropped back down again to the top of the Falls. They are immense. I tried to look right over the edge but the bank was too slippy and I couldn’t get a photoshot as I was holding on to heather for dear life. But spectacular. There’s nowhere to stand or lie down on your belly to get a full perspective of the drop. Here’s a photo from the internet taken on a sunny day with much less water passing over the edge.

I was glad to get into the high, flatter valley and eventually came across a point on the river where it split and there was an island in the middle. I could get across both tributaries on stepping rocks. From here it was another four hours to the Youth Hostel in terrible rain and wind. This was beginning to piss me off. I eventually made it and pushed open the door of the hostel, which was literally plonked mid-nowhere with a windmill to power it. 

The manager was a pleasant woman who opened in April and shut down in October. She had a satellite phone for emergencies. She made me a pot of tea and put a blanket round my shoulders. I dried out a bit for half an hour, took my leave and crossed the strong, new bridge over the last river before the Claunie. It may have been the last river but there were hundreds of streams pouring down the Glenside crossing the path and making deep pools to be forded or avoided. This was now really brassing me off. Four hours without any letup in the rain, soaking wet clothes and feet, which were re-blistering with creases in the wet socks. 

I reached the Claunie Inn at about 17.00, made my way to my room and had a bath for half an hour. I was only three days away from Fort William and the end of the trail but with no buildings or bothies to take advantage of tomorrow night. I switched on the TV and got a weather forecast of continuing rain with some snow for the next three days! 

Bugger it. Enough is enough. This isn’t fun. I’d done 175 miles averaging 16 miles a day. I didn’t care about finishing the sodding walk. Take me home country train to the place I belong, western Yorkshire. I had a couple of pints of beer, a hot bowl of Cullen Skink and a plate of Haggis with creamy whisky sauce and went to bed. I got a bus to Inverness the next morning and a train to Leeds. Best decision I’ve made.

Is he playing the Lament ?

Sorry to cut this short kids but I don’t want to carry on for the sake of proving I can do it. I know I can do it but walking needs to have an element of pleasure and that was washed away by the wind and the rain and the backstreets and the backstreets – back to Van the Man and Madame George again!

I’ll do another some time but somewhere warmer and drier. Maybe Corsica or summat. With Andrew. Love to you all.

‘On that train from Dublin up to Sandy Row’ – oh my giddy aunt. The best song of all time on the third best album of all time. Van Morrison you are (were) a genius. Madame George. I spent many a night in smoke filled rooms watching my hair grow and wondering at the beauty of this album and the extreme majesty of this, the best song of all time. How could you burst onto the world stage like this from nifty, but limited rock roots with Them?

I had to get up and go a long way today over the mountains south to Maol-bhuidhe bothy and beyond to be able to reach the Inn I was booked into tomorrow night. It was howling a gale. The family were worried that I was going back up into the hills I’d been blown off yesterday. I had a tin of warmed beans (yes Warmed!) for breakfast and a cup of tea. The most recent milk in Gerry’s fridge was a month old. I had it black. Simon (Gerry’s son) worked on an honesty policy. There was a cupboard with tinned food which you took and left the money for in an honesty box. During the week he works and stays in Aberdeen so the hostel is left open and if you want to stay there you go in and leave money for the night’s stay in an honesty box. This is a different freaking world and I like it, like it, yes I do! When we had the house in France we could leave it unlocked during the day. 

I took a different route up to the top. Longer but more sheltered by bigger mountains. A difficult river crossing though. We’ll see. I set off at 08.00 and went over the same bridge I crossed last night. Up the glen to the left – upstream not down this time – and round a river all the way up to a different mountain pass leading to the same destination as yesterday. The mountains were, as usual, awesome.

I got to the point high up in the hills where I had to cross the river and there was only a wire bridge. 

How lucky am I? The only people I’d seen walking for three days, since Rupe and Ollie, arrived at the same time. Two smashing lads from Perth up to climb two Monros today (mountains over 3000ft). The first one went over and showed me how to do it. 

I got over and continued to climb up, although the weather was grim and very windy. Looking forward up to the top of the glen I could see the clouds down to the level of my path, if there had been a path up there at the top.

My boots and socks, which had dried out in front of Gerry’s fire were long-since soaked and it was getting worse. Eventually I cleared the top of the ridge and started a long road down the valley, up another, down the valley, up another and down the valley to Maol-bhuidhe. As I struggled down the pathless, uneven and soggy mountainside the weather slowly cleared.

Suddenly the track returnd, however the streams and rivers were getting higher and more difficult to cross.  You have go to be kidding!

Eventually I came to the penultimate river crossing on a wire bridge with two overhead wires whereby you held a wire with each hand and walked across the bottom wire like a tightrope walker. 

After a few more miles I came to the last river between me and Maol-bhuidhe, seen here across the loch.

It was a deep and dangerous place and I could only find one spot where it was possible.  I waded across in my boots to keep my footing otherwise the flow would have carted me off. I was pisspot relieved to get to the far bank. Word of the Month – Pisspot. It was still only 18.30. In front of the bothy were the bodies of four dead deer, mutilated and decomposing. I didn’t like this place. It felt evil. It was twenty miles from anywhere and I didn’t want to stay.

I cracked on up the next valley, my pack getting heavier now. I pushed on and on until it was 21.30 and my strength was gone. I couldn’t even put Wilson up so I got out my groundsheet, a builder’s sheet I got for 3 quid, and folded it in half under an overhang and crawled in, fully clothed, wet-booted and all. At least I slept three or four hours.