Day Fifty Two

Sunday 7 November – Invergarry to Invermoriston

As it was a fine day, I decided to go off piste again. Instead of rejoining the Great Glen Way, I headed due North from Invergarry, climbing beside Aldernaig Burn, on to what is more or less a plateau, at a height around 500 feet. It's also a peat bog. Surprise (not)!

For the second day running all the cloud was lying as fog in the valleys. I quickly climbed out of the gloom and into the sunshine. It was a few degrees above freezing, with no wind. I was following a stalkers' track which meandered through woodland before arriving at the tranquil shores of Loch Lundie, which is nearly a mile in length and a sort of raggedy s-shape.

A stag stood a couple of hundred yards away, assessing whether I was either a desirable female or a worthy foe. Since I obviously failed on both counts, it bounded away with little urgency. The sun was now fully out, the only visible cloud looking like smoke rising from the valleys and dissipating. The track was a bit soggy-boggy, but there was always a ready alternative when things got too damp.

North of the loch, the track snaked across the landscape, visible well ahead. As I approached some ruined buildings, one cottage standing out clearly against a backdrop of conifers, I met a family – man, woman and two young girls, with camping gear on their backs. They were picking their way through a particularly boggy bit of ground, and gave me a cheery welcome. The chap told me that they had spent the night in a nearby hut, and were now making their way down to Invergarry. I didn't envy them – it must have been pretty cold during the night.

The next item of business was to get from the end of the track, across (according to the map) pathless country, to the start of a forestry road. Actually there was a path on the ground, and a wopping great clue as to the whereabouts of the forestry road – two big yellow tractors and a pile of logs. I was soon on the road and heading into the trees.

It was the usual sort of Forestry Commission road – a large layer of hardcore, overlaid with gravel and shale, all tamped down to make a great walking surface. There is a pattern to these roads. When tree felling is about to start, the road will be upgraded, holes filled and drainage ditches cleared, with turning spaces and hardstanding for felled logs. After the felling, the road will be left to deteriorate very gently, weeds growing through the surface, until the next time it is needed. It's all very sensible.

The most interesting part of the day was over – the walk across the moorland had been first rate – but the walk through the trees was not without interest, and I could up my speed on such a good surface. The road rose and fell, but not dramatically. There were a few junctions, my route being obvious in each case. After a couple of miles I reached a tarmacced road, which I followed for a few yards before turning off into the forest again.

I was now walking along the floor of Strath Oich, the section of the Great Glen between Loch Oich and Loch Ness. Where there had been more tree felling, I could look across the clearing and see the River Oich and, running parallel, the Caledonian Canal, with at one point water tumbling down an overflow from the canal to the river. I could see people walking, and a child cycling, along the Great Glen Way, which runs between the two watercourses.

Arriving back on a public road, I was soon in Fort Augustus. Today this is a village heavily reliant on tourism. Until the early 18th century the settlement was called Kiliwhimin, and the Gaelic name for the modern village is still Cill Chuimein. It was renamed 'Fort Augustus' after the unsuccessful Jacobite Rising of 1715. In the aftermath of the uprising, General Wade built a fort (taking from 1729 until 1742) which was named after the Duke of Cumberland. The settlement grew, and eventually took the name of the fort. The fort was captured by the Jacobites in April 1745, just prior to the Battle of Culloden. Then it was sold to the Lovat family in 1867 and in 1876 they passed the site and land onto the Benedictine order. The monks set up Fort Augustus Abbey and later constructed a school there, but abandoned the site in 1998. For several years after that it was owned by Terry Nutkins, the naturalist, author and TV presenter.

The flight of locks through the village, as well as bringing in boaters and their money, are an irresistible lure for inquisitive landlubbers, breaking their journeys along the main road. So it was to prove today. Out of season there were no boats to look at, but people were wandering round the lock anyway, taking pictures of it and each other. I bought a pork pie and an apple for my lunch, and found a picnic table to sit at, just by the lock. Had I looked at a nearby notice, I would have seen that the table was reserved for customers of a nearby bar, but I averted my gaze and munched my lunch.

In the season this is a really bustling place, with plenty of spending opportunities. On a dull November Sunday – the sun had disappeared under a pall of cloud while I was among the trees – there wasn't a great deal to do other than wander about, and that's what most people were doing. Had they wanted to walk with more purpose, this would be a good base. The signposting of paths in the area is excellent, with fingerposts and colour-coded posts, no doubt coordinated with a locally-available guidebook. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to set Fort Augustus up as a walking centre. Good work.

The Great Glen Way, meanwhile, was ready for me after my lunch. Had a good feed, David? Fine – let's work some of it off again, The Way went up the hill – straight up, a punishing climb to 300+ feet, where the route turned to head along the side of Loch Ness, above the main road. After yesterday I was not surprised when the path, another forestry road in fact, started to rise and fall relentlessly. It kept this uo for more than five miles.

Every now and then the trees would thin on the right hand side, giving good views of the loch, a sombre sight in the overcast light. A couple of very small deer crossed the track and were swallowed up by the dark wood. I saw nobody on this section until I was almost at Invermoriston, where I met a woman walking her dog. I say almost at Invermoriston, and so it was, as the crow flies. The chump on the ground had the occasional tantalising view of houses as the Way headed determinedly uphill again, passing way above the village, then turning back to meet a minor road which gently ambled down to join the A82.

Traffic was fairly light, which was more than could be said for the day. The heavy cloud had hastened the dusk, and it was almost dark by the time I reached the middle of the village.

Invermoriston is at the junction between the A82 and the the A887, an alternative to the road from Invergarry through to Kyle of Lochalsh and Skye. Apparently the village's most visited attraction is the Thomas Telford bridge, built in 1813, which crosses the spectacular River Moriston falls. This bridge used to form part of the main road but was replaced in the 1930s by the new bridge used today. I could just about make out Telford's fine bridge, now sadly neglected, in the gloom. Before the coming of the bridges and the new roads, the military roads built along the Great Glen in the 1700s had passed to the east side of Loch Ness, leaving Invermoriston heavily dependant on water transport. The village grew slowly through the 1800s, and by the 1890s the Loch Ness steamers called regularly at the pier half a mile to the south. Now the cars and lorries thunder through.