Inverness

Inverness pictures
Today is to be our rest day and a look around Inverness. So what do we do? Walk of course, the 1 km or so into town then all over the town, in and out of alleyways, through their markets, in and out of outdoor shops, through their very good museum until plum tuckered out.

Chain male

Inverness Castle

The River Ness

We finally board the hop on/hop off bus that takes us on an hour's tour of the city and find that one of its stops is three doors from our accommodation.
I am thinking of getting a kilt, however don't know what clan I belong to, to get the appropriate tartan.
I finally ascertain that I belong to the Ramsay clan and they have discontinued the tartan anyway.
I must admit that the 399 pounds asking price for a kilt leaves me cold. I then think "how often I would wear a kilt anyway?", and finally decide that it really is fanciful idea and the one I have will do.
The castle which dominates the town, is not open for visiting. Rater odd that.
Arrienne stays on the bus for another round, then off at our stop for a nanna nap. Peter stays on the bus to get off at the library, and I exit so I can look at kilts and wander on my own.
It is at this point I come to the above conclusions about kilts.
The walk back to the B and B threatens rain, yet holds off.
It's time to think of packing for tomorrow's train journey to Edinburgh, Carlisle and St Bees for the start of the Coast to Coast.
And that's it really.

Day 6 Drumnadrochit to Inverness

Day 6 pictures
Our last day and our biggest by far. We finish the Great Glen Way with a 29 km section.
We have to add to this the 1 km we have to walk to rejoin the GGW, and then the extra to get from the end to our B and B.
It's an easy start, through Drum and out along the A82, the highway that we have flirted with since Fort William. It has hummed in and out of our hearing range the whole time.
There are views of Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, and the gradually the views disappear as we climb and climb and climb.
We eventually circuit away from the loch over an expanse of exposed heathland, the biting wind cools the sweat we shed with the climb. The sign posts all indicate our walk is far from over and I think we  are making slow progress.

The highest point on the GGW

Finally, we pass the highest point of the GGW, and it's all downhill from here, apart from the uphill bits.
There is a very interesting track past a camp ground where we are entertained by a series of posts advertising the wares of the camp cafe (see the days pictures), however when we get to the turn off, it is decided that we won't drop in for a coffee or what ever.
This leads to one of those road walks from hell. Bitumen, 6 km, good views that soon become tedious and our decision to miss the coffee looks like a poor one.
Once over though the track becomes more interesting, passing through forest with moss and lichen, then for some long time past an old wall, then suddenly our first view of Inverness.
It looks tantalisingly close until a sign announces we still have 6.5 km to walk.
Finally we rejoin the Caledonian Canal, then cross the River Ness and reward our proress with an ice cream. The River Ness is followed downstream, across a couple of islands and then the castle seems quite close.
A short climb up the hill and we're done.

The Finishers.

But of course we're not done yet. We have to get to our accommodation, yet another 20 minute plod through Inverness.
It's a fine old house and I have a room of my own.
Showers, changed, then off to find the laundromat to do some essential washing.A nice Asian lady watches the clothes whilst we repair to the corner pub for a beer.
Some pipers emerge from the local British Legion, so we follow them and have a pipe and drum performance in the main pedestrian mall of Inverness.

By this time it's after 8 PM and we need to eat and get back to the B and B.

Another nice pub with "Home cooked Meals" and yet another beer.

We stagger back to the B and B with bags of washing, sore feet and full bellies.

The room is overheated, as most are, and I start to sweat, then peel of my clothes.

This edition of the blog is completed naked(there are no pictures, thankfully)!!

Day 5 Invermorrison to Drumnadrochit

Day 5 pictures
Today was to be our biggest day so far with 22 km from Invermorrison to Drumnadrochit, or the Drum as it's known.
Walking along Loch Ness with a couple of pretty good climbs and lots of forest.
There are in fact few view of the loch, however when present worth getting.
Some of the walk was through menacingly dark forest with overhanging branches and rather evil mossy undergrowth. It was also on very pleasant single file track.
It was also very cold with a biting wind when we left the forest and became exposed.

Loch Ness back to Fort Augustus

We climbed and we descended, we climbed some more until lunch when we stopped near the final climb, to savour our repast. My panini disaster was resurrected by a microwave at the B and B and wasn't too bad, albeit cold.
Of course after lunch there was another hill and we stumbled upon a large group of walkers having lunch. They were doing it easy, with a barge on the loch retrieving them every evening  and moving them along the bits they didn't want to walk.
Finally we descend into Drum a nice little village with a pub on the outskirts that is delighted to hand over a couple of beers.
The Drum is also the home of the Official and the Original Loch Ness Monster Centre and attracts people from all over the world.
It was also the home, two days ago of the highland games, though the oval they were held on is quite minuscule. I think a caber could be thrown right across the entire field, if you were any good.
Our accommodation, Tramps, is comfortable, has wi-fi however no single room for me.
Luckily there is an Indian cafe on the outskirts of town, at the end of the road the B and B is on, so it's vindaloo, and not too bad one either.
Arrienne and Peter's choices were somewhat more flaky.
A cheap Australian Shiraz made things much more pleasant.
Tomorrow, Inverness the end-29 kms away-think of the feet.

Hairy coo

Day 4 Fort Augustus to Invermorrison

Day4 pictures
This was to be our day of terrible weather, gale force winds and up to 50mm rain in northern Scotland, clearing tomorrow.

The day was certainly dull, with leaden skies and very, very slight drizzle.

Breakfast completed with the usual cereal, bacon and eggs or Eggs and beans or full breakfast. After the success of Roberts coffee at Forest Lodge, see previous days blog, we have set up a new system of scoring coffee.

It is called the Scot Rail Coffee Index (SRCI) with zero being the score for Scot Rail and 10 being Robert’s effort.

Peter on the first climb

Coffee this morning had an SRCI of 3, too weak and watery.

We set off at 8.30AM our earliest star yet, to beat the weather. We only had 13km for the day so should be short and miss most of the weather.

Quite a lot of up and down through forest, with too few views of Loch Ness.

The weather deteriorated, and pack covers came out, yet we managed to walk without jackets.

Morning tea, as has been the norm, was on the trot. In fact we don’t usually stop until lunch. By that time I am famished.

Finally, it drizzles to the point that the jackets come out. Of course it’s then rather hot.

We make good progress until we reach a diversion sign that says there are branches across the track, and that we should take the 3.2km extra diversion. We debate this for a while, then decide, as we have plenty of time we will take the diversion. It’s tempting to just use the normal path and take our luck.

Oh crap

After 45 minutes we reach the other end of the diversion and see why! They weren’t branches, they were full sized trees just wiping out the path for as far back as we can see.

Telford Bridge, Invermorrison

Then quite suddenly, at 11.45AM we arrive at Invermorrison.

Arrienne is not hungry enough for lunch yet, however would like a cup of coffee, so we repair to a cafe that Jerry Foster has recommended. We sit, Peter and I order coffee and Arrienne orders soup!! Go figure!!.

We find a spot for Peter and I to have lunch and as a concession Arrienne buys us a beer from the local Post Office/shop. The owner of the shop has a brother-in-law in Adelaide, of course.

I get out the lunch I bought last night, a roast chicken Panini with pesto sauce, to find it needs to be heated with a microwave. Crap.

Our B and B is run by Sandy and Isabelle, he is the uncle of our previous B and B’s owners. We have quite a small room for the three of us, however Sandy lets drop the information they have one spare room, so for 5 pounds I am on my own. Yippee!

Dinner is at the local inn, the Glen Morrison and i elect to have the very popular Haddock and chips. Half a whale is duly delivered on a bed of chips with peas, for god's sake.

I now know why Scottish men have so many heart attacks.

Home and some TV and to bed

Day 3 Laggan to Fort Augustus

We finished yesterdays walk at The Forest Lodge a B and B run by an ex-farmer with a great sense of humour and very hard to understand, a bad combination. It was wise just to laugh and hope you did at the right time.

We got in and as I said y’day I got a single room. We had just unpacked and it bucketed down.

Dinner was at the local restaurant and a pretty good Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, of course, in Scotland.

Breakfast was served by our affable farmer, who was rather put out that I only wanted cereal for breakfast. Now he made great coffee.

Arrienne went for the kipper. I wish she hadn’t, the smell is awful.
I think in the end she wished she hadn’t too.

The morning was overcast, yet quite comfortable walking and we followed the canal and an old railway route NE towards Fort Augustus, along the shores of Loch Oich. Today’s climb was 30 m compared with somewhat more yesterday, 300m I think.

Old Oich Bridge

Intermittent views over the loch with Invergarry castle seen briefly on the other shore, now a ruin.

Invergarry Castle

We come to the end of Loch Oich, Aberchalder, where there is the old Oich Bridge a double cantilever design, now only a footbridge, built in 1854.

It is at this point Peter and I incur the wrath of Arrienne when we walk about 800m along a very narrow main road in search of an elusive teahouse, recommended by Jerry and Michelle.
We find, after reading Jerry’s instructions it was on the canal path and we would have walked right by it had we gone straight on.

We stopped here for lunch, a very ordinary bread roll and quite passable plunger coffee. The recommended Cloutie dumplings were not on offer so we really left disappointed.
I gather these are rather like small Xmas puddings.

The rest of the day we walked in sunshine along the canal.
Not great walking, though the scenery out away from the canal quite spectacular in parts.

We arrived in Fort Augustus, which lies on the western end of Loch Ness, in time for a beer and a walk around. The beer was cold. The walk around allowed Peter and I to get back at Arrienne who insisted on navigating to an abbey on the shores of Loch Ness.
We almost ended at Parachilna, though that’s another story.

The abbey was big, old and rather impressive. Less impressive were the apartments built in the grounds of the abbey, incorporating the old walls etc. TACKY.

The place is pretty busy as it’s the Scottish Bank Holiday, a long weekend. There are hoards of people all eating haddock and chips and most waiting to go onto Loch Ness, though I have no idea why.
We will start walking it’s shores tomorrow.

Wine on tap

Day 2 Great Glen Way Gairlochy to Laggan

Overnight at Spean Bridge where we had an excellent meal at the Train Station. Just great to have a really well cooked and flavoursome pasta. Pity the salad wasn't more interesting. So far salads have been a great disappointment.
The day started with a lift the Gairlocky in overcast and threatening weather.
From there it just got better and better until some light rain towards the end of the day.
The walk was along Loch Lochy, I think they ran out of names. It is supposed to have a competitor for Nessie, the Loch Ness monster, called Lizzie. You can just imagine a loch monster cruising along the surface imperially waving its flipper as it goes -we didn't see it needless to say.
The walk wandered in and out of forests on the loch shore most of the day. We passed the Cameron museum, however Simon was out and they didn't open until 11.00AM, by which time we were far past.

And Simon nowhere to be seen

Sometimes there were few views and sometimes great view of the highland hills and the loch.
Lunch we had sitting on a log with no views at all-tough.
At the top of the loch are the Laggan Locks near where we are staying. They raise boats up to the level of Loch something or other.
There is a floating bar here, just the place for a nice beer, if only the bloody place was open. Bugger.
We finish the day at our B and B where we are given separate rooms. That is we are offered a double for Peter and Arrienne and a separate room for me. Great I get a double bed. They might get to...?
We are booked in up the road for tea and our hosts will drive us there and the restaurant owners will drive up back-luxury, sheer luxury.

Day 1 Great Glen Way Fort William to Gairlochy

Today is Fort William to Spean Bridge.

The Start

We start the Great Glen Way at McDonald's as one does!! Well the start of the GGW is near the golden arches at what remains of the Fort.
It then does a pretty characteristic feature of most great trails, it goes in quite the opposite direction ti it's final destination-Inverness.
Inverness is to the north east so it start by going north west! Go figure. It takes us past Inverlochy Castle, quite a nice old ruin.
Eventually the GGW joins up with the Caledonian Canal, which we walk along all day. It rather like walking a fire trail, only flatter.
It's quite pretty, though the walking gets a sameness that becomes a slog, especially towards the 17 km mark. My feet hurt and my quads are really sore from the previous days exertions.

Neptunes Staircase

We look over fields and the River Lochy. We walk past Neptunes Staircase, the eight locks that lift the canal level from the west to the level of Loch Lochy. It's all of 19.5 metres and is our hill of the day.
I must say the weather is terrific and we walk in short sleeves.

Ben Nevis nude

Bloody Ben Nevis is there for all to see without a skeric of cloud or mist all day. Today would have been they day to summit. Such is life.
The day finishes at Gairlochy, another set of locks at the start to Loch Lochy where we go on tomorrow. There is a funny lighthouse there. We've had enough walking and summon our hosts from Spean Bridge to pick us up. They are only six kilometres away, of the GGW. Too far with sore feet.
Our room is quite comfy and we have wireless internet, yipee!

Day 3 Ben Nevis

Today was to be the day I bagged Ben Nevis.

Slept well apart from about 4 trips for a pee through the night, not sure why other than maybe I had some ankle swelling following the flight.

Woke at 5.30AM, 6.15AM, 6.30AM and finally emerged from the sack at 6.40AM.

I had a taxi booked at 9.00AM and breakfast at 8.00AM so I had most of the packing done, before breakfast.

Breakfast looking out over Loch Linne, with cereal and bacon and eggs.

The cabbie arrives on time, takes me with my luggage to this nights accommodation, Rhu Moir B and B, then takes me to Tesco to get some lunch and finally takes me out to the start of the walk for the princely sum of nine pounds or about $15. Not bad value I thought.

The days which had started with sun, now decided it was a good time for rain. The cabbie questioned my sanity walking in shorts.

The top with the great views

Well to say the walk was hard, is an understatement. It’s up all the time with little respite from climbing until you are 200m from the top. It was hard, hard, HARD. On a number of occasions I thought I would quit.

I might add the rain, eased, then stopped and held off until the steepest part of the climb. Then with my various layers, plus my rain jacket it was hot, sweating furiously all the time with rain hitting my jacket.

To say that the views from the top were worth the climb would be an outright lie. I hope my pictures give the real truth, if you can actually see me through the mist. It was also cold up there with a biting wind, so one Mars Bar later and I was off.

The descent was pretty hard too, strain on the quads working the wrong way. I emerged at about the halfway mark into bright sunshine with fab views so stopped for lunch.

I must say the Tesco Roast Chicken with stuffing was a disappointment. The mayonnaise had no flavour and it needed SALT.

However the Chilean apple was quite splendid, crisp and sweet.

After lunch the walk down continued to be steep, and I branched off to an even steeper track as I thought I would return to Fort William via the West Highland Way.

At this point the weather turned on me and we had about an hour of quite heavy rain such that by the time I made the B and B I was drenched.

Luckily mine hosts mother took pity on me and took my wet clothes and boots to hang in the kitchen.

Peter and Arrienne were ensconced in our room with tales of whisky tasking, fiery fiddlers and Tobermory.

We hit the pub for a beer and dinner and had quite a nice steak, but the beer was better.

Tomorrow the Great Glen Way!!!

Day 2 Outward Bound

As often happens on these trips, a day actually starts at night. This one in the Singapore departures lounge at 11.55PM. The A380 holds one hell of a lot of people and they take an age to load.

My seating companion had such a large ass she couldn’t find the seat belt and when she could she problems doing it up. She was pleasant tho, hardly spoke a word all flight except for that gargling noise people make when they throw up, which she did as we were landing.

Once off though, apart from some turbulence and a woman threatening to sue the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Discrimination Board, for not letting her have a pee, when we had been instructed to put on our seat belt.  

It was a quiet albeit uncomfortable flight. Having extra legroom made not one jot of difference, and to say I slept would be overstating things a lot. I dozed on and off for 10 hours to be relieved by breakfast (thankfully prior to the aforementioned vomit).

Heathrow was painless, and I just caught my flight to Glasgow, thinking I an hour more than I had. Flew over England for the first time and what a country it would be, if there was no cloud. You can just imagine how pretty it would be!!

Glasgow, once I found the station, carrying all my gear (I was reunited with my checked in luggage here) is a very pretty city and I took in what I could, having missed the early train to Fort William thankfully. It is clean, no beggars and everyone if very polite. The coffee is tolerable except the bar where I found internet access that was god awful and cold.

The train from Glasgow to Fort William was a delight. My fears of falling asleep was unfounded, there was just too much to look at as we passed over rivers and locks etc, travelling beside Loch Lomond for some time. It's quite odd, as the train hits a hits a rise in the track it starts to gasp, and as the momentum increases it starts to make noises like a woman makes as she get close-well you know what I mean- finally sighing as it reaches the climax of the climb.
HOWEVER that is the only peak it reaches, as I had the misfortune to have some coffee from the vendor on the train. It was so bad as to be almost undrinkable, however I was thirsty and that’s my only excuse. I just can’t conceive how they can make it THAT bad, it must take superhuman effort to bugger up what should be a simple process.

And Fort William is pretty cute too with a cobbled pedestrian main street. My hotel, the Ossian resided in the main street and I am currently perched in my cell overlooking Loch Linne.

Had a wonderful shower, mastering the funny controls and felt much better. Took a long walk around Fort William, sussing out our accommodation for tomorrow, trying to find the actual fort, which proved elusive and chatting up some cabbies to get me from my hotel in the morning, take my gear to the B and B and then deposit me at the base of Ben Nevis.

Dinner was an ordinary beef burger with obligatory chips and a salad that we would hoot at in derision. Parsimonious is the word that springs to mind and there wasn’t one parsimone in it!! Beer was good tho.

I am sitting here and the room is swaying. I get like that after a long flight (and a few beers I here you shout).

Day 1 Outward bound

They day started well with a sleep in. A sleepy goodbye with Sue then the wait until it’s time to call the cab.

They take an age to answer and this time don’t know where I am. Must have called a different cab company from last year. This time a very pleasant Indian.

Booking slow with the usual person whose Passport won’t scan, like that irritating person at the checkout who has that one item the computers don’t know.
When it’s my turn all is well, I can check my luggage through to Glasgow which is a bonus, as that means I don’t have to clear customs until then too.
Qantas Club where the coffee is still terrible and with my use of the facilities about $50/cup.
Melbourne is sunny and the transit time short. Immigration slow, yet easy, and boarding is not too bad.
I have exit row seats which means scads of legroom, though nowhere to store things, ie no front seat pocket.
It’s still cattle class.
Six hours is less then than the trip to Melbourne from Adelaide, yet seems an age and 20 mins out of Melbourne we have that announcement that every doctor dreads “is there a medically qualified person on the flight?”
Of course all the chiropractors rush forward hoping to get an upgrade.
I slink back in my seat relieved on a young lady comes forward and her offer of help is rejected. Seems like someone else had come forward sooner. A passenger has fainted and assumes the prone position, feet elevated and after 30 minutes is escorted back to his seat.
As with flying you seem to eat all the time, however this time I eschewed the alcohol.
Singapore is hot and muggy and the aircon. struggles. I go for a long stroll, check out the duty free and come away empty handed. Prices are as cheap in Adelaide.
Of course we go back through security, and this time I am pinged. Forgot the sound cancelling headphones I have in my pocket, so get the pat down and the wand treatment. I then get the explosives swab. I knew I shouldn’t have that that @1 haircut and those tatts!
Well it’s boarding lounge and the usual wait.

24 Hours to go, but who's counting

That's right 24 hours to blast off. Sooner really and packing started in earnest this morning after frenzied washing and ironing.

You want me to get that in there?

Yes that's right all that has to go into the blue bag top left and black bag middle back hidden under the clothes.
Power packs, bloody hell, so many power packs, for the phone, the computer, the GPS, battery charger and of course the adapter for UK plugs.
Socks, don't talk to me about socks. Jocks the same.
There really is something to be said for kilts.
Well the final outcome-

Fig 2 Yep, got it in.

That's 20kg all up. Not bad for 7 weeks. What's missing is the little back pack (man purse).

One week to go

Just one week to get go, with many things yet to finalise. Just back from the final walks of E2E3 and the celebrations that follow that event. Washing to do, bags to find from the shed, new pole to purchase or repair the one I broke climbing Iluka Peak, fix the GPS that failed miserable every day on E2E.
Oh and work to get to.
However that's the fun of going away.
Like last year will try the minimalist approach, with just one checked in bag, a fold-up duffel bag that will contain my day pack, boots, rain jacket and walking poles. All my clothes will be on the flight with me (in a carry-on bag).
The small netbook I used last year decided that the excitement of E2E3 too much and kacked itself. Thought I might get a new one for the trip then decided why bother, I have one of those new Android tablets and will give that a go. That's what I am using now.

Three weeks to go

Now less than three weeks to go and preparations have been slowed by preparations for a week away in the Flinders with End to End 3 group.
As many will know they are at the final stile, well maybe the final stiles to finish the Heysen Trail.
It's rather difficult to pack for O/S when lots of your stuff is needed for a Flinders trip.
A picture tells a thousand words-