Day 61- Glen Nevis to Gairlochy Lock 12.5 Miles

   Today was rubbish. Woke up feeling desolate and finished the day exhausted after 12 or so miles when I'd planned to walk 20. Yesterday was pretty much a rest day and while today's scenery wasn't the best I'd stridden through much worse without blinking an eye. A week's worth of companionship came, to put it simply, to bite me in the ass. Everyone got to go home and I was suddenly walking alone again starting yet another trail with more than two hundred miles left to walk. As I passed the transition  for the very first time I was tempted to buy a ticket and go home. Diverting my eyes I carried on. Urgh.

Trains from the station, wonderfully old fashioned and tempting

  I woke up to rain, which probably didn't help, and ferried my things to the toilet block shelter to pack them up. Practiced by now I did it all without thinking much, ducking into the toilets to retrieve my EasyAcc external battery which was once more fully charged. On the way out of camp, which was already bustling with people determined to walk to Ben Nevis, I stopped in the shop and bought a lemonade, as well as a bacon roll from the burger van outside. That was breakfast sorted.
  On the road into Fort Williams I spotted the man from yesterdays and stopped to wait for him, walking the last stretch of the trail together and going to explore Old Inverlochy Castle before he caught his train back down to Bath. It was quite a way to the Castle, through a  council estate and across a river. Its a pretty ruin, the grandeur still evident, the walls impressive masses. From there I bid him goodbye, mumbling something in-distinctive when he complimented my venture. Never know what to say, usually settling for something like "you've walked a week right? well the rest is repetition." I wondered whether I should have added him on Facebook o made some sort of signal of friendship but as he made none I left it alone. A three day long friendship has its virtues, plus he was buggering off home.

My companion at the Old Inverlochy Castle

Road after Neptune Stairway

  From the ruined castle I crossed over River Lochyand along a rather horrible A road to Neptune's Stairway, a series of lochs raising boats to the Caledonian Canals. The path for hte next few miles is nestled between the canal and the River Lochy running to my right. I say path but it was close to a single lain road in width, the ground flat and even but rather unpleasant under your feet: too hard to use hiking poles effectively. Even when it changed to stones it didn't make comfortable walking. The boats along the bangs were very different from the canal barges of England, these were closer to ships, mass in size. 

Caledonian Canal to the left and River Lochy to the right

Camp

  As my mood, as I might have already hinted at, was dour I struggled and stopped a few too many times. I passed a bunch of people sat waiting on the bench for a bridge to be put in place so that they could cross the canal, and stopping I talked for a while trying to steal some energy from their admiration with little success. No one else was visible all day except the people taking boating holidays and the soles that manned the waterways and opened the locks for them. 
  I was tired, bored and aware that while I was walking down this long straight path Murray was playing in the third round of Wimbledon. At the Gairlochy lock I gave up, dumped my bag and set up camp. Along the Great Glenn Way there are areas you're allowed to camp for free, and due to a very kind cleaner I also had access to the water ways toilet facilities including showers and wash basins. It was a lovely camp, and having arrived at 3 in the afternoon I had most of the day to enjoy it. I sat around and listened to the radio in the hope of catching snippets of the tennis news but soon fell asleep in my tent, waking at about 6. A couple of canoeists set up a sent a little further along the bank but otherwise I was left in piece. 

Gairlochy Lock Wild Camping Site, on the edge of Loch Lochy- the block across the water is the shower and toilets

Okay...not the worst scenery. Just takes perspective to realize just how stunning it is.

   Fed on a 'just add water' packet of tomato pasta and Parmesan I watched a few more episodes of Buffy before going to sleep. Angel (the vampire boyfriends- for those who've not watched Buffy) had just turned evil and was trying to kill her, I took comfort in the fact she was also fed up. Ten miles short on my target tomorrow promised to be equally disheartening. 

The view at 9:30 o'clock at night, the sin still bright