Fort William to Gairlochy

13 May 2012 - Fort William to Gairlochy

Distance - 10.6 miles

Weather - Heavy rain & gale-force winds

We stayed at - Dacomera B&B, Gairlochy, Spean Bridge, PH34 4EQ  Cost £68.00 (plus extra £30 for dinner)

This was a short day and as we knew that our next B&B didn't open its doors until 16:00 we stayed in Fort William until about 14:00. We spent the morning sitting in the lounge of the Distillery guest house, who kindly let us wait there, watching their wicker garden furniture blow off the decking and the Wendy house in the back garden do somersaults across the lawn.

Alistair heard somewhere that there are five days a year when the top of Ben Nevis is devoid of clouds and you can see the top from the bottom and vice- versa. These days are glorious - the only time he has been up Ben Nevis was one of them. To balance up those five days of sunshine, there are days when you have to pay. Today was one of THEM.

At lunchtime the weather was still vile and we got drenched just going over to the Visitor's Centre, where we ate some hot lunch. It was still awful after lunch, but there was nothing for it but to don all our wet weather gear again and brace ourselves for the onslaught of the elements as we started our walk along the Great Glen Way.

The Great Glen Way (GGW) is Scotland's fourth National Long Distance Walking Route. It runs from Fort
William at the northern end of the West Highland Way to the city of Inverness along the Great Glen Fault. The whole route is 73 miles long and it closely follows the line of the Caledonian canal. We were staying with it as far as Drumnadrochit. The GGW is quite a popular walk and so once again we were able to make use of baggage carrying facilities, leaving us just with day sacks. I'd heard a lot of mixed reviews about the walk, with some people claiming it was just a walk through nondescript pine forests with no views, just a lot of biting midges. So I wasn't sure what to expect from this stretch.

Nice weather for ducks!

Being blown off the path!

The rain was horizontal as we headed north from Fort William, first
through the joined-on village of Inverlochie, then along a cycle path to a village called Caol. Caol has a promenade which looks out over Loch Linhe, Scotland longest sea loch. As we headed along the promenade, the wind took advantage of the flat loch to accelerate the rain to an especially high velocity. Even with hoods protecting our faces, it stung - ouch! We reached the Caledonian Canal and turned our backs to the wind, heading north east. Here we met a couple who were finishing the GGW in the opposite direction. They had been facing into this terrible weather all day, so we considered ourselves very lucky.

Approaching Neptune's Staircase locks

Soon we came to Neptune's Staircase, which are a set of locks along the canal. The Caledonian Canal is designed for sea-going vessels and is three times wider than most canals. It's also deeper, up to 50ft. apparently. Locks along the canal are similarly scaled up, so Neptune's staircase is quite big. As we headed along the canal, away from the loch, the power in the wind diminished, and while the rain was just as heavy, at least it didn't hurt so much. Of course the wind still threatened to blow us into either the canal or the swollen river Lochy. It also created unusually large waves on the canal. A couple of canoeists we met later said it caused them real problems as it spun them round so they were broadside to both wind and waves.

The rest of the day's walk was just straight along the canal side. Only the views of the surrounding snow-

We were pleased to see this sign!

peaked mountains keep it from monotony - except the only clues we had to those views were occasional picnic tables - we expected they were there to allow people to sit and admire the scenery, if it was dry and not shrouded in cloud!

The B&B we stayed at was really nice. The landlady made us very welcome, despite our dripping clothes, and fed us an excellent dinner. As the evening progressed, the weather cleared, promising views of the north side of Ben Nevis.