Sadly the vegan café where I breakfasted on muesli and banana the last two days was closed on Sundays, so I had the cooked breakfast being offered by an establishment nearby. Although the black pudding and haggis in particular were excellent, it did leaving me burping and with a heavy tummy for my morning's walk. After leaving the extensive outskirts of Fort William I joined the towpath of the Caledonian Canal at a flight of locks. Wider than most British canals, it was built so that warships and merchant vessels could move from one side of Scotland to the other without the perils of French attacks, weather and tides in the Pentland Firth off the north coast of the country. Little used due to the development of steam ships, today I saw a handful of pleasure craft motoring down it. However the gravel road beside it allowed for easy, flat walking (or cycling) on what was part of the Great Glen Way, a long distance path across Scotland from Fort William to Inverness. Great Glen, and with it the canal, follows the line of a geological boundary created by a shear fault. Although I could have followed the Great Glen Way and then the John o'Groats Trail to reach my final destination, I decided to stay with the route in the Cicerone guidebook. Its remoteness seemed a bit of a challenge.
The canal section ends at a lock into Loch Lochy, which boats cross to reach the next section of canal. I heard someone suggest that there were so many lochs in Scotland they ran out of names, so they just called this one Loch Lochy. I followed the Great Glen Way around the edge of the loch, through trees, by small shingle beaches, admiring the classic, Scottish image of a loch; a large, long lake surrounded by mountains. Although cloudy, the air was often still, giving clear reflections of boats, trees and mountains in the water.
Leaving the lake (and the Great Glen Way) I proceeded into trees to where St Ciaran's church hides, a small, stone building with a simple interior. There was a tempting sign for Ice Cream outside the Clan Cameron Museum, but it was a tease, the museum was shut. I followed the track through the Achnacarry Estate, its big house in the distance. Informative signs described how the "Commandos" were trained on the estate in the Second World War.
Loch Arkaig was another picture perfect Scottish loch I walked by before turning inland, by a small hydroelectric plant and up the valley of the Alt Dubh, a large stream. Although not quite covering the 30 kilometres I had planned, at 5:00 pm I decided to pitch my tent on a flattish spot by the stream. A wind had come up which made me happy as it blew away some of the biting insects. For water I am filtering the stream water with a device that claims to remove harmful bacteria. However even after filtering the water has a brown tinge from the peat. Slightly offputting.
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