The Great Glen

Wednesday 4 July – Thursday 5 July :  Fort William to Gairlochy to South Laggan

Wednesday 4 July

When we leave Fort William we are walking the Great Glen Way over five days. This 79 mile / 127 km Way connects Fort William to Inverness and tracks a path up the Great Glen.

A geological fault line runs across Scotland in a diagonal line between these two towns, giving rise to the peaks of the Highlands. During the ice ages, huge glaciers filled the valleys between these peaks, and as the ice receded it gouged out the fault in a long, narrow glen, the Great Glen, leaving behind the Lochs that lie within the Glen.

The combination of low altitude and the lochs made the Glen an ideal transport route. In order to facilitate transport of goods between the coast out past Fort William to the west and Inverness in the east, famed engineer Thomas Telford was engaged in the early 1800s to design and build the Caledonian Canal to link these Lochs. The Loch and Canal system were large enough and deep enough to allow free movement of sea-going ships, thus allowing them to avoid the hazardous journey around the northern coast of Scotland. While the Canal’s original role has largely ceased, it’s been reincarnated as a brilliant pleasure boat, cycle and walkway – the Great Glen Way.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we had decided to use our second rest day in Fort William to get a head start on our long haul through to South Laggan. So we caught a bus out to Gairlochy and walked back in to Fort William. Well, to be more precise, we caught the bus to Spean Bridge, 3km further out, and walked from there as there was no direct bus service.

Once we were at Gairlochy it was a very straightforward 16km (10 miles) back in to town. This section of the Great Glen Way follows the Caledonian Canal for most of its length apart from the final 2-3kms in to Fort William itself. So it was level easy walking with pleasant surroundings. This time, as well as the canal we had the bonus of hills and peaks around us as well. As the Canal connects the large Lochs and is both wide and deep, the craft we saw were quite different from our previous canal experiences – motor launches, masted sailing yachts, but no narrow boats.

Just 4km outside Fort William the Canal has a series of eight locks in a staircase, known as Neptune’s Staircase – the longest lock staircase in Britain. We had hoped to be able to watch lots of activity here, but sadly there were just two small craft nearing the end of their descent. A little disappointing, but we were able to overcome our dismay with diversionary tactics – coffee and cake! Enough to see us through to the end of our walk.  It was such good walking that our 19km walk was completed by 2pm, leaving us with time to catch up on emails (Peter’s work stuff), postcard writing, blogging and watching Wimbledon before a delicious dinner at a seafood restaurant on the wharfside.

Thursday 5 July:

Our day started with the bus trip out again, to rejoin the Great Glen Way at Gairlochy and this time walk on towards South Laggan. The walking was quite different today though – almost immediately the path climbed up to join a path through the beech woodland as the Canal runs in to the first of the Lochs – Loch Lochy (yes, really !). The path winds round the edge of the Loch, past some huge houses, and eventually sadly joins a forestry track that runs just high enough above the Loch that there are not many views. It was quite a long trek through the conifers. But our little guide book gave us a great spot to look for, where we could get to the water’s edge and enjoy superb views of the Loch sparkling in the afternoon sun – yes, it has been another glorious sunny day! We spent about half an hour soaking up the view and peace. Lovely.

Just a couple of kilometres (1 mile) from our destination the Loch ended and the Caledonian Canal took over again. We were headed for Laggan, a very small settlement on the Canal. Essentially there is a hostel, a B and B, and a bar on a barge!  That is it! But our B and B, Forest Lodge, proves to be a fabulous place, and our hostesses Lorraine and Laura are very welcoming. We are sad to only be here one night!

Tonight we were able to meet up with friends from New Zealand – Isabel and Scott have been on their big OE for almost a year now, and have taken a week in Scotland mainly so they could meet up with us. It was fabulous to catch up with them – they cooked us dinner at their hostel – and they are going to walk with us for part of tomorrow! Thank you – we really appreciate it.

Distances yesterday and today: each 19km/12 miles.

The Canal, looking west:

Loch Lochy: