Although I have been to Scotland before, I've heard the weather is nice in April. To be exact, there is less rain than in most other months. Let's make this perfectly clear, "less rain" in Scotland does not necessarily translate into "mainly sunny days". However, we lucked out while walking the Great Glen Way. We experienced a few brief episodes of drizzle. The kind of rain where you debate stopping to put on a raincoat, and when you do so, invariably the rain stops.
A few years back, I walked the West Highland Way, a wonderful way to experience the Scottish terrain from Glasgow to Fort William. The Great Glen Way can be considered a continuation, as it traverses from Fort William to Inverness.
Once again we relied on Macs Adventures, a company centered in Scotland that specializes in adventures worldwide. Macs set up the hotels, luggage transfer (we walked with a day pack) and provided maps, emergency contact and most important - advice.
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| The Caledonian Canal |
We completed the roughly 120 km GGW in six days. As an observation, it would have been nice to have a day or two off during the walk. As we were only averaging 20K per day, it was not overly taxing, but 20K is enough to limit the time available to explore the towns in which we were billeted.
The trek from Fort Williams to Inverness actually follows a fault line, called the Great Glen Fault. I think I know where the walk obtained its name! What happened (feel free to ask someone who actually knows about the fault) is that the north eastern part of Scotland was actually in Canada, about 200 million years ago. I'm guessing there was some sort of disagreement, so what is now north-eastern Scotland gave the rest of Canada the finger, and headed east. The mid-Atlantic ridge had something to do with the kerfuffle, but I see it as an innocent bystander.
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| Loch Lochy |
Shortly after the year 1800, someone had a rather obtuse idea to put in a canal along the fault line and named it the Caledonian Canal. The name isn't all that obtuse, but the canal runs from Fort Williams to Inverness, connecting the North Atlantic to the North Sea. Look at a map and you will quickly realize that in modern times, this doesn't make a lot of sense. Back in 1800, the powers that be determined it would give Scotland/Great Britain a significant advantage should a hostile navy show up. I'm hazy on the logic behind this, but to be fair, I should mention there are an incredible number of Scotch whisky distilleries in the area.
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| Some of the locks |
The Great Glen Way proceeds primarily along the canal, locks and lochs. No, that isn't a typo. There are a bunch of locks (29) and 3 lakes, which the Scots call lochs. Most people have heard of Loch Ness, on which many have claimed to see a monster. Again, look up the distilleries in the area and it all makes sense.
The Great Glen Way starts near the MacDonalds restaurant (I wish I was kidding) in Fort Williams and after a few dekes, heads out of town. It then follows the canal to Gairlochy, which is at the south end of Loch Lochy. The Scottish are known for their sense of humour, so it comes as no surprise that they named one of their lakes "lakey"...
The GGW heads into forested land along Loch Lochy and be on the lookout for detours, described as diversions. There is considerable logging in the area and parts of the trail are re-routed at times. This avoids have to run very very fast to avoid having a tree dropped on your head. Loch Lochy comes to an end at Lagan Locks and the GGW again follows the canal.
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| Nickie taking a picture |
After a short bit, the canal ends and you walk along Loch Oich. I'm not even going to try to pronounce the lake! Loch Oich is a small lake that ends at the bridge of Oich. Again there is a longish bit of canal, that ends at Fort Augustus. The Romans never did make it that far north, so the fort was named after someone else named Augustus - probably a Canadian. For almost half its length, the GGW then follows Loch Ness . Along this portion, we overnighted in Invermoriston and Drumnadrochit, before arriving in Inverness.
We stayed 3 nights in Inverness, where we recovered (the last 2 days covered 55 km) and toured the town. Inverness has some rather large churches and a castle that unfortunately, was closed for repairs.
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| Ness river in Inverness |
Next on our itinerary was a visit to John O'Groats. This is a small town (yes, it has a distillery) in the far north of Scotland. We had planned to take a ferry to the Orkney Islands, but were not aware that the ferry schedule is limited in April and early May. After considerable investigation, we realized that we needed to take a bus, then a ferry, then another bus to get to where we wanted to go on the Orkney Islands. We would then have 34 minutes and 12 seconds before having to board a bus for the trip back to John O'Groats. Instead we hiked along the coast of John O'Groats, which had some fascinating striations caused by the latest ice age.
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| Ice age striations covered in algae |
To get from John O'Groats to Fort William, we had to take a taxi (no buses on Sunday!) to Thurso, a train to Inverness, then a bus to Fort WIlliams. Strangely enough, even though there is a train on Sunday from Thurso to Inverness, there is no train from Inverness to Fort Williams (?)
Nickie claims that I get sick every time we travel. This is nonsense. Back in Fort William, we decided to hike Ben Nevis. I was sick. We walked to the base of Ben Nevis where I bid Nickie adieu and turned back. Nickie went on to summit Ben Nevis, which is a considerable challenge. I had summitted Ben Nevis on 2 previous occasions, so resting was a better option.
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| Nickie on her way up Ben Nevis |
The trip back home was uneventful, which was a bit eerie. We are getting used to landing in a country just as it declares a state of emergency, or our flights being cancelled since the airline went bankrupt. In this case, all was calm and boring.
Next trip: Italy (visit Venice then hike in the Dolomites).
Cheers!
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