Invergarry to Invermoriston

15 May 2012 - Invergarry to Invermoriston

Distance - 15.8 miles

Weather - Generally sunny, but some heavy hail showers

We stayed at - Glenmoriston Arms Hotel, Invermoriston, Inverness-shire, IV63 7YA  Cost £80.00

Started off today with a tiny bit of road walk, then up into the forest. It

Bridge of Oich

was quite warmish and we had some good views of Loch Oich. After a bit we headed down to Bridge of Oich. There are at least three bridges in the vicinity, although the swing bridge is on the opposite bank and once you're across the river you're in Aberchalder.

While Loch Oich is the smallest of the Great Glen lochs, you wouldn't believe it, seeing the amount of water flooding out of it into the River Oich. For the first time on the GGW the river is heading north with us. We crossed over both the bridge and the canal before heading  northeast along the canal path.

We passed a nice looking teashop, which had a railway theme with railway signs and even a light gauge railway in the garden. We didn't stop, deciding to press on to Fort Augustus.

Approach to Kytra Lock

After a mile or so we crossed the canal to the north via Cullochy Lock, and continued to Loch Ness along the narrow strip of land between the canal and the river. I mentioned the river is already big flowing out of Loch Oich. Near Kytra Lock, the canal which is already wide gets even wider, almost becoming a loch in itself. It has islands, one with a pair of nesting swans.

We met a woman as we were walking along the path, and as we were chatting, recognised her as the one who had asked us for directions back in Gairlochy. It turns out she's been staying in one place, and taking the bus to the start of her walk, and back from the end. She didn't know which way we were heading from the path we took because she'd only just got off the bus, and had never been there before. It all made sense.

Fort Augustus

As we arrived in  Fort Augustus, it started to get cold. There is a set of locks and near the bottom is a jolly nice pub, where we sat near the fire, had a drink and ate some home made Victoria sponge. We sat and earwigged as the barman and an old customer talked about fishing, old times and people they knew back in the day.

Eventually we left the pub and headed toward the north shore of Loch Ness. As we did so a sudden hailstorm hit. It looked like it might, as usual, last five minutes before turning back to sunshine. Alistair suggested to me that it wasn't worth putting waterproof trousers on, as because by the time they were on the precipitation would be over. He said it would be better to make for the shelter of the forest path. Grudgingly I agreed. Unfortunately the hail/rain/sleet downpour lasted a bit longer, and the sheltering forest was further away than expected. Pretty quickly I was writing him out of my will if I died of hypothermia. Soon enough though the sun came out and the forest steamed as the rain evaporated. We dried off, and heated up eventually. Next time the hail came on, I put my waterproofs on immediately. Of course the hail stopped as soon as I did!

View just north of Fort Augustus

We'd heard the GGW is all closed in forest walk with no views. We were pleased to find it's not as bad as that. Trees can obscure the views, but there are clear spots every so often. The path is often a good height above the loch, which gives those views more impact. Also the forest is usually quite open, only hemming the path in on both sides occasionally. This is what the five miles to Invermoriston were like.

As we descended to our destination, we heard the sound of a waterfall - or was it road traffic? A glance at the map showed 'waterfall' on our path, but we didn't come across a stream big enough to produce the sound we heard. 'Must be traffic' we decided.

Waterfalls at Invermoriston

We got to the bottom of what I'm guessing is Glen Moriston, and found a huge set of waterfalls, which are a big tourist attraction. That would explain THAT. So a day of explanations it was...