Great Glen 1 - Fort William to GairLochy (Spean Bridge)

Today was so great, I can barely believe it happened. 

Just as I felt at the start of the Ridgeway, I was uncertain that my 55-year old body could actually walk long-distance with a 12kg pack on. I also didn't know how I was going to get from the trail end-point at Gairlochy on the Caledonian Canal (not a proper town), to my accomodation 4 miles away past Spean Bridge (a proper town), and then, back to the canal again the next morning. 

It all turned out fine. I met an experienced long-distance walker, a 68-year old Welshman called Patrick, who has climbed Kilimanjaro and been to Everest Base Camp, so for him, a stroll up the Caledonian Canal was no big deal. It turned out he is staying at exactly the same place as me, so we shared much of the day and planned things together. The weather was perfect, the canal and river country extraordinary, and we made it to Gairlochy by about 2pm. Again, my physical complaints stopped bothering me after a few miles and I powered through. Along the way I also enjoyed: 

- The Neptune Loch Steps, an incredible piece of canal infrastructure designed to get sailing boats up a very steep hill, and, the Balnavie Swing Bridges in operation to let them through. 
- A red squirrel, my second of the trip
- Domestic goats pestering Patrick and I for food when we stopped for a beer.
- Several new bird species, yet to ID

Perhaps the most fun part came at the end, when we decided to walk to Spean Bridge rather than wait 2.5 hours in Gairloichy, in the hope of getting the school bus to take us to the town. Our walk went some way along a road, but then, we spotted a track along the Spean River, and walked through a forested area in which stands the remains of an old bridge where the first shots of the Jacobite Rebellion were fired in 1745. I had heard of the site, but did not know I would end up walking right past it. We made it to Spean Bridge with about five minutes to spare before the school bus caught up with us, and dropped us about half a mile from our farmhouse lodging. It is really quite remote around here. You miss your bus, and you might be in trouble. 

After we cleaned ourselves up, the farmhouse owner dropped us back in Spean Bridge, where I ate venison terrine and haggis, and we drank Ben Nevis whiskey, and talked walking, and politics. We could see Ben Nevis all day, from various angles, all of them in the sun. Then we shared a taxi back to the farmhouse. 

Total walk time 7.30am til about 5pm, estimated 18 miles. Crazy. Hurricane Erin will influence the weather from now, on so it may not be so sunny going forward to Inverness, but I am still happy. 

Sleep time now, will post pics tomorrow night.