Day Fifty

Friday 5 November – Fort William to Spean Bridge

I nearly didn't get to Fort William at all. On the way to the airport yesterday, I had sat for two and a half hours on a coach on the M1, missing the only flight that day from Luton to Inverness. I was also too late to rush to Gatwick for an alternative flight, or to catch a daytime train from Euston. One option remained: the Caledonian Sleeper. It was damnably expensive but otherwise delightful, like a relic from a past age. Just like in the films, helpful people stand at the doorways with clipboards, directing you to your tiny but comfortable cabin, having established what time you would like your breakfast in the morning.

So instead of turning out of a Fort William hotel this morning, I had decamped from the train just before ten o'clock, and started walking almost immediately. The next five days were to be a walk up the Great Glen, with variations. Accommodation is difficult to find in November at some of the smaller places along the “official” route, The Great Glen Way, including Gairlochy at the end of the first day. Instead I aimed for nearby Spean Bridge, and decided to forego the GGW's route along the Caledonian Canal, and do some forest walking.

Leanachan Forest is not in the Great Glen at all; it's in a parallel glen which carries the main road (the A82) and the railway which, although it comes from Glasgow in the South, loops around and arrives at Fort William from the North, having called at Spean Bridge on the way. There promised to be sufficient forest paths to take me well away from the road, and provide a peaceful walk, much desired after a night of fractured sleep.

The first trick was to get into the forest from the road. The railway needed to be crossed. A reliable access point seemed to be via the golf course. It's one of the strangest golf courses I've come across. The clubhouse lies within yards of the road, but there is no sign of the actual course. To get to this you have to go up a path behind the clubhouse, under the railway through a narrow tunnel, and there are the greens, which are also black and brown and red and yellow. The whole thing has been formed by shaving the peat bog, leaving a lumpy, bumpy adventure playground of a course. It's probably great fun if you like golf and enjoy a bit of a challenge. Probably not too much fun today, though. It was damp and drizzly, and the fairways were soggy.

I walked the path I had identified on the map, saying hello to a greenkeeper riding a small truck. He stopped and looked gloomily in the direction I was walking. “They don't usually come this way nowadays”, he told me. “They usually start further across. Still, if you carry on the way you're going, you'll come across the path. I assume it's the North Face path to Ben Nevis you're wanting?” I assured him it wasn't – this is a very challenging route up the mountain, for which I was ill-equipped in every possible way, and anyway it wasn't in the direction I wanted. I told him where I was heading, and he became more gloomy still, saying that it would be difficult to find my path that way. I must have looked determined to try, as he turned way and made for his truck. But he changed his mind, came back to me, and spent five minutes giving me detailed directions across the golf course to find a more reliable path into the forest. Naturally his directions took as their salient features the components of a golf course (fairways, greens, tees,etc.), but luckily I recognised the tee which was crucial to finding the right route. The man's instructions were spot on, and I thanked him for the trouble he'd taken.

I was soon into the forest. Like most forests these days, particularly in Scotland, Leanachan is mixed use. Commercial forestry lives easily alongside leisure uses, footpaths and cycle paths being signposted, car parks provided and picnic tables dotted around. I studied a map on a sign near the first car park I reached. The Ordnance Survey is, of course, very useful, but it's always worth having a look at these “maps on sticks”, because the paths they identify are likely to be well looked after. So it proved today.

The first path I followed was an engineering marvel, not at all adventurous, but then I like my adventures to be interspersed with a bit of easy walking. A shale-on-hardcore path had been laid through the trees, with boardwalks over the particularly soggy bits. I made good progress. I was soon near the Ski Centre, the first signs being some scary-looking structures for kids to climb and whiz through the trees on wires. Then there was a huge car park, the whole thing running with water as it was now raining quite hard. From a building on the far side of the car park, I could see gondolas rising through and then above the trees, until they disappeared into the low cloud. There was an impressive queue at the ticket office, but everyone had just got off the single coach which was parked nearby, along with a few cars.

In a good (ie snowy) winter, this lift is used to carry skiers up the slopes, and for the rest of the time it carries tourists up for the views from the top. Except on a day like today, when there would be no views apart from the clouds and the ground beneath your feet. At £10.50 a pop, I wasn't at all tempted to take a ride. But I was tempted to shelter from the rain and enjoy a coffee in the cafe next to the ski-lift.

When I emerged the rain had slackened, and it soon stopped altogether. I even caught sight of some sunshine, picking out hills across the glen. The sun never reached me, but the rain didn't come back. I was now in the commercial part of the forest, walking on broad, well-made forestry roads. Signs warned of maintenance work, and soon I passed a chap inspecting a large motorised roller, and another driving a tractor which was scooping mud and rubbish out of the drainage ditch. The trick when meeting a vehicle like this is to get fairly close and then just stop and wait for directions. The forestry workers are used to walkers, and appreciate a bit of cooperation. The tractor driver stopped and signalled for me to walk past him, which I did. I then passed a large swathe of recent felling, with new planting beyond it.

The forestry roads were easy to follow, with few junctions, all shown on the map. But as I got near to Spean Bridge, there were some extra paths not marked on the OS map, but clearly signposted. I took the most direct path towards the village. This was another bespoke walking path – no room for forestry vehicles but a very good walking surface. I joined a minor road for the last half mile into Spean Bridge.

The village takes its name from the bridge over the River Spean on General Wade's military road between Fort William and Fort Augustus, and not from Telford's bridge of 1819 which carries the A82 over the river at the heart of the village. Being a Telford bridge, it's built to last, solidly defying the turbulent river below to give it any trouble. A variety of tourist attractions and spending opportunities cluster around the bridge, but I pressed on for a few more yards to find my hotel, for a static night's sleep.