Day 50 - The Not So Great Glen Way

 

The Scottish heatwave of the last couple of days lasted as long as the Scottish World Cup campaign and, not only was it raining this morning, it was also around five degrees cooler than yesterday. That meant my gloves were back on: merely owning a pair of gloves in Scotland during the 1970s would have earned you a goalkeeping spot in that World Cup team.

Rachel and I were soon on the Caledonian Canal, which runs through the Great Glen and links the Atlantic Coast on the West to the North Sea on the East. The Great Glen itself runs on a fault line between Fort William and Inverness, with mountains rising high on either side. It was Thomas Telford who designed and built the canal which links Lochs Lochy, Oich and Ness. Opened in 1822, it was a safer passage for cargo than round Cape Wrath and was also a safe haven for the British Navy, the design commencing at a time when Napoleon was a significant threat to national security.

Today's walk was supposed to be a flat 27 miles all the way to Aberchalder, the path running alongside the canal or on good forestry tracks. As it transpired, there were two separate diversions; in the end, we reached Invergarry at 26 miles having already climbed ober 600m and decided to call it a day about five miles short of our intended destination. That means I will revert to my original plan of walking to Invermoriston tomorrow and will have to look more closely at the John o'Groats Way to see if I can change the daily schedule as I am due to walk 25 miles on my last day and want to make it easier than that.

The canal is more like the Manchester Ship Canal than the Bridgewater but there were a few leisure craft around and the mountains make it a nice enough journey. After 6 miles we reached Loch Lochy, at which point we headed on to a forest path that didn't really let you catch a glimpse of anything but, well, trees. There wasn't even much in the way of wildlife. Ever since I joined the West Highland Way, the haunting call of the cuckoo has been following me round but always seemingly at least 100 yards away. I am led to believe it is the male cuckoo who actually 'cuckoos' to which the female replies with a call like a manic chuckle. Based on what I have heard, there are a lot of lonely male cukoos in the Highlands. 

We went down to the banks of the Lochy for lunch where we suffered a significant midge attack, my first of the trip. Rach did also finally meet a bear in woods, although it was a plastic one used as an ingenious sign for the nearby compost toilet, another delightful experience (I mean, 'please cover with wood shavings...?').

Other than the somewhat frustrating diversion signs, the main other feature was a World War Two Commando Memorial. 25,000 troops used the area around Loch Lochy as a training base before going into battle, with particular focus in the build up to the D-Day landings. Boats were built round the shore from which soldiers would practice disembarking at speed and then running through water. The training team made the scenarios as realistic as possible, even using live ammunition, which seems a little extreme. 

With little else to see, it was up to me and Rach to make our own fun. This included Rach teaching me that snails and slugs are hermaphrodites and me enlightening her that Basil Brush was based on a fox and not a squirrel. I think I can be excused for not knowing the mating process of the slug but how can anyone reach the age of 30 thinking Basil was a squirrel?

I'm back walking on my own tomorrow so will have plenty of time to consider the other great questions of life.