Abriachan Eco-campsite to Inverness: LEJoG Day 73

After being photographed with a 1905 camera I walked mainly along a tree lined path to Inverness.

Breakfast at the campsite was so large it also supplied me with my lunch. The entertaining couple running the place are also involved in the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution), having crewed the Loch Ness lifeboat. Staying with them was a fellow attempting to photograph every life boat station and their crews in Britain and Ireland, as well as something of what the volunteers did with the rest of their time. If that was not enough, he photographs them with a 1905 camera using a process dating from 1851! I was proud to be included in the photoshoot at the campsite. The result was a glass plate with a black and white mirror image of the scene, the people somewhat blurry due to the long exposure, but stationary objects sharply defined. See his work at lifeboatstationproject.com.

1905 Camera

Visitors to the campsite for the Lemon Cake baked by the lady at the back, they were completing a sponsored walk for Connect2 which helps people with an addiction.

Leaving the curious café and campsite I started down the Great Glen Way, periodically passing or being passed by other walkers I had met at the campsite. After a little distance on a quiet single track road, I diverted onto a path which a later sign claimed as a drovers' route. Drovers herded cattle from the Highlands to markets as far south as London in 18th and 19th centuries, a long and arduous trip on foot. After a moorland section the trail took me through trees, birches with pale grey green lichen hanging from their every branch, as if it was a scene from some medieval fantasy film. 

A pleasant part of the walk through birch trees.

Through the trees, fleeting glimpses of the Beauly Firth, the area of water I would cross tomorrow, showed I was getting close to Inverness. Reaching a hillside bare of trees the city was spread out beneath me, I enjoyed the view while brewing a coffee and eating lunch on a handy bench. An unseen chiffchaff repeated its tweet at regular intervals.

Walking down the hill and through housing I rejoined the Caledonian Canal for a short stretch in what appeared the wrong direction. However it was taking me to the River Ness, beside which and on islands within, I walked downstream into the city centre with families and children out for a Sunday stroll. The Great Glen Way ends at the castle where I found two of the men who were at the eco café, now with gold medals around their necks, possibly supplied by a wife. Nearby was a sign for the start of the John o'Groats trail, the next part of my trip. I spent sometime brooding, hoping my rather swollen knee will hold up for the next two weeks. However a meal and a few beers at a bar with an aged band singing songs by the "Police" and "Dire Straits" made me forget my knee, and indeed most other things as a guy I camped beside at Gairlochy Lock came up to the bar. He had to remind me I had met him before. Finishing in five days instead of my six I reminded myself it was not a race....