After a pleasant walk up a shady lane to open farmland (and sheep), we walked through open forestry plantation, up and over Fairhaired Lads Pass and slowly and carefully down to the road along the loch. The views to the loch were amazing at the top!

Yesterday was a bit of an endurance test.  Although it was a bit shorter, (at about 14 km) it was just as hot and there was a long set of switchbacks down from Fairhaired Lad’s Pass on some loose stones that made the going slow.  Then, due to forestry works there was a two mile section along a narrow and unexpectedly busy road which was a bit of a slog.  But finally we made it to our modern and comfortable B&B right on the shores of Loch Ness – and crashed!

Dinner last night was at the Dores Inn, an old pub in a tiny village absolutely bursting with folk enjoying the long summer night by the loch or watching the England v Belguim World Cup game.  Our B&B is about 2km away but the Inn runs a shuttle 🚌 to get you there and back.

Today we are transferred back to Inverness for a city walk.  At least it will be cooler-the temperature today has dropped and Loch Ness has disappeared behind fog.  And early tomorrow we are off to Orkney.

And this morning we saw one of these little guys 🐿.

Pictures to follow…

From the stillness of Loch Ness early in the morning and frolicking bunnies on the lawns at the hotel in Fort Augustus, it was up to Suidhe, down through farmland and finally lochside at Foyers – the squirrel is the symbol on the marker posts of the South Loch Ness Way.

Back on the trail yesterday – it was supposed to get to around 27C but it got higher and much of our walking was in the open, across farmland and country roads.  It was as hot as some of our Italian walks!😎

We began with a ride up to Loch Tarff, just outside Fort Augustus to join the South Ness Way.  The track doesn’t yet extend all the way down to the town, and it’s quite a steep road so we were quite happy not to have to slog our way up!  Then we walked from Loch Tarff up to the Suidhe viewpoint – fabulous views across the loch and of the surrounding country and not particularly difficult or steep – bonus!

After that it was a longish walk down through cleared and replanted forestry commission plantations and through farmland. By now it was getting really hot and by the time we made it to Whitebridge after a long walk along a straight, seemingly endless road we were ready for a beer at the Whitebridge Hotel.  That one evaporated (!) and we were just about up for another when the power went off – no more draft 🍺!  All I can add is don’t bother with Carlsberg Export in a bottle – all it had going for it was it was cold and wet! The locals were not happy!!

After that is was an afternoon of walking across the Dell Estate farms until we reached Foyers, our stop for the night…where there is very little except a small waterfall, a cafe, our hotel and a campground on the loch. The Craigdarroch Inn, our hotel here is not quite the standard of The Lovat at Fort Augustus but it’s comfortable, clean and the pressure in the shower was good.  Priorities!

Today we walk to the even smaller village of Dores, further down the loch.  Forecast is for more of the same…

Not sure that the wifi here is up to multiple photos so they might have to wait!

In the meantime…

After our walk yesterday we had a free day in Fort Augustus. It’s very small and seems to exist mainly on tourism – it’s on the road from Oban to Inverness and a centre of tourism for Loch Ness as well as having on of the lock ‘staircases’ on the Caledonian Canal so folk travelling the lochs/Canal depending on their timing wind up staying here waiting to traverse the canal lock staircase.

So we’ve had a relaxing day tootling about, checking out the few shops and people watching, and relaxing at the hotel. The walking tomorrow looks a bit tougher than yesterday!

Yesterday was our first day of walking. After a transfer from Inverness along the north bank of Loch Ness (Nessie world and assorted other attractions!) we arrived at the village of Invergarry, got out the walking notes and set off. Invergarry is broadly half way down the north bank of Loch Oich, and our walk took us through a forestry plantation and around the end of the loch across the Laggan locks of the Caledonian Canal and up the south bank of the loch to Oich Bridge where we then walked the tow path of the next section of the Canal to Fort Augustus on Loch Ness.

Except for the first part of the walk through the plantation (a gentle up and down with a view down to the loch) the walking was easy and flat; it was a sunny, almost hot, day and there were only a few other walkers and bikers, chirping birds and folk in hire boats navigating the locks on the canal. We’ve been surprised by the number of boats we’ve seen in our travels so far, and cruising the lochs up here seems very popular.

We arrived on a sunny Sunday afternoon when the world was enjoying the World Cup in the bars along the River Ness. We get transferred to Invergarry tomorrow morning for the start of our walk. The weather looks good for the week 🤞

We had a bit of a walk around – Inverness seems to have alot of churches, as well as lots of nice spots along the river for a drink or a meal.  We particularly liked the Catholic church which serves the local polish community – lots of vibrant modern stained glass.

For those of you puzzled by the lack of photos in the last two posts – I am too!  While I posted quite a few last night, for whatever reason only one or two are showing up!  So I will edit the posts to add some progressively. We are currently on a Scotrail train heading for Inverness – we start walking tomorrow.

And now it looks like it was just a problem with loading the big pictures on a mobile device so apologies if you are seeing everything twice! 😳

Some more pics.

We set off on our cruise last Saturday; it bucketed down in Oban in the morning but by the time we got on the Glen Tarsan late in the afternoon the weather was fine. The boat is a converted fishing trawler, set up for 11 passengers and 4 crew – small and not luxurious but comfortable.

Unfortunately the weather for our 6 days wasn’t good enough to out beyond Ardnamurchan Point to see puffins, but we had a fine time cruising the Sound of Mull between the Isle of Mull and Morven, exploring various lochs, going ashore for walks, visits to castles and just generally getting out and about. We had the best part of a day on Mull, visiting some of the suppliers the chef uses, meeting highland cattle, visiting the local artisan cheese producer and having an artisan chocolate tasting.

We were the only folk from our side of the world, the others were all from the UK. We were lucky in that we all got along – there’s not a lot of space to escape to!! The crew were great – Gordon, the chef, turned out amazing food from the very tight kitchen, Claire and Ray – purser and engineer turned their hands to all kinds of tasks including making sure everyone got in and out of the tender safely (very few pontoons in the areas we went to) and Steve the skipper was always happy to have folk hanging out with him in the wheelhouse.

So, here are some pics. They probably make the weather look a little better than it was – we had strong north westerly winds a great deal of the time which made going into open water at the western end of the Sound of Mull too uncomfortable; the sister boat of ours was supposed to go to Skye but it was just too rough so they tried but came back and did a similar program to ours – with boats of this size the itinerary is more of a guideline than a hard and fast program.