Day 103 Laggan to Fort Augustus

Today was a shorter day (I’ve heard that before) to Fort Augustus. We set off in the low cloud having got a lift back to where we left the path yesterday to avoid the A82.

We walked through woodland, planted by Thomas Telford, possibly not personally.

We passed a swing bridge, which opened to let a boat through, and then found ourselves by Invergarry Station. Invergarry is the only remaining platform on the old line from Fort William to Fort Augustus. It stopped running in 1946 so has been out of commission for quite some time. Volunteers are restoring the platform, the rail and some rolling stock but it seems to be just an isolated piece of line. The path then takes over the old railway bed and follows it all the way along Loch Oich.

Happily for us we were shaded from the scorching Highland sun (yes, really) until the path arrived at another swing bridge at Aberchalder. We watched the swing bridge in action and crossed to the other side to see the old bridge over the River Oich which is an unusual type of suspension bridge, according to the informative notice board, and carried the main road until the 1930s.

Realising that even if our book had underestimated the distance, it really was a short day and we would still arrive in Fort Augustus several hours before we could check in, we stopped for an early lunch at Kytra lock. We watched two boats heading towards Fort Augustus and one towards Laggan. The lock-keeper then went off for lunch. We sat for a long time on the beautifully mown grass, listening to the radio – Test Match and then football- in the sunshine watching the swallows flit about.

We relaxed over lunch for more than an hour, then reluctantly plodded along the straight and rather monotonous path to Fort Augustus. I feel I’m being a little unfair to the path. It was good underfoot-firm but not hard with no stony bits-and flat, which made for easy walking. There were also some good signs today beside the path.

Fort Augustus was quite startling. One minute we were walking along the canal with only a few cyclists for company, the next we were thrust into busy, summer-holidaying Fort Augustus. The canal takes you to a flight of five locks down to Loch Ness and alongside these five locks are pubs, gift/ice cream shops and lots of people watching the boats going through the locks, drinking outside the pubs or just sitting on the grass with ice creams.

It was a short day, 10.5 miles so we sat and whiled away an hour or more with an ice cream, watching the boats and the swing bridge. Our B and B is close by (we can see the swing bridge from the bedroom window) so we are now resting our feet before going out to find dinner.