The Great Glen Way: To Fort William

On Tuesday 6th May Sybil and I set off for Fort William in Scotland, to begin our walk across the Great Glen to Inverness. I've wanted to do a long distance walk for a couple of years now and decided to take the plunge with a fairly easy one in terms of navigation and distance.

The Great Glen Way begins (or ends, if you do it north to south) in Fort William and passes through the villages of Gairlochy, Laggan, Fort Augustus, Invermoriston and Drumnadrochit, with Inverness being the last stop before home.

We boarded the first bus of the day to Doncaster, where our train was waiting to take us onwards to Edinburgh. The East Coast trains are huge and have plenty of seats, but rather than sitting in our reserved seat (there wasn't an option to book the tickets online without reserving a seat) I opted to sit near the door at the start of our carriage so Sybil had a bit more room to lay down. Having being cooped up on a bus for forty minutes and not yet having had a run, Sybil was a bit fidgety and kept standing up and generally getting in the way of people coming in through the train door. I had to keep shepherding her back under the bench I was perched on and apologising to the people getting on the train. A few smiled, but mostly my apologies were received with blank looks and silence. Perhaps there is an unwritten rule of not speaking before six o'clock in the morning.

Chaffinch

We settled down in our corner for the journey and the train was hurtling through the countryside towards York when the ticket inspector, or train guard as they like to be called, kindly told us we could move to the wheelchair bay where there would be a seat for me and room for Sybil to lay down. Unfortunately the space was right at the other end of coach F, which meant making our way down the narrow aisle with Sybil leading the way and my huge rucksack, complete with mat and tent strapped to the back, bouncing off the seats and the heads of any unlucky commuters who happened to be sitting in those aisle seats.

Slightly flustered and now fresh out of apologies, we got to the seats where Rob the train guard was waiting and settled down once more. Feeling slightly hungry I decided it was time for breakfast. I have to admit I felt slightly undignified sitting there sipping from an Asda smartprice orange juice carton, while other passengers filed onto the train at each station clutching their posh Costa coffee cups. Nonetheless we got to Edinburgh unscathed (which is more than I can say for some of the other passengers) and continued on to Glasgow to catch our booked train onwards to Fort William. Phew. What a journey. But the scenery from the Fort William train alone made it almost worthwhile as it passed through the west highlands and alongside Loch Long and Loch Lomond.

At the foot of Ben Nevis

Upon finally reaching Fort William after a long eleven hours of travelling, we headed down the road to the Glen Nevis campsite where we were booked in for the night. I pitched the tent in Benview Field, which had a good view of, yes you guessed it, Ben Nevis. Sadly there was no time in the week for us to attempt to climb the mountain, so we consoled ourselves with an evening walk along the river where we saw several interesting species of bird including a sandpiper and heard my first cuckoo of the year. Sybil was happy to be finally off-lead.

Common sandpiper

We turned in early, planning to get a good night's sleep each before beginning our medium-sized Scottish adventure in the morning. Finally, the travelling was over and the walk could begin. Great Glen, we are ready for you!