Day 104 Loch Ness and Mushrooms

We had dinner last night in The Boathouse restaurant- in the grounds of the former Fort. The Fort was taken over by a Benedictine priory, and is now apartments-some are holiday rentals.

This morning we woke to find a cloudy day which makes for great walking although the photos don’t look as good. After watching the swing bridge open (we could hear an increasingly irate swing bridge operator chivvying the boats to hurry up and get into the lock) from our bedroom window we went down to the lock to watch progress. Mainly because there was a large yacht as well as the motor boats and Matthew cannot resist yachts of any size. This one was from Sweden and they were heading off to the Caribbean for the winter.

There was a choice of route today. We opted for the high route which was wonderful. We climbed up and up through woodland until we reached the tree line and could look back down past Fort Augustus.

At the top we met Meeta and Peter. We had seen them over the last couple of days, sometimes ahead of us and sometimes behind us but we hadn’t been close enough to talk. They are walking the GGW and also come from Oxford. We chatted about eagles which none of us have seen on this trip. We’re all still hoping though.

The high route gave us lots of views of Loch Ness, although not, sadly, of the Loch Ness monster. It was a gray walk. There were waterfalls, some woodland and an awful lot of mushrooms.

Oh, and benches. And where there weren’t benches there were usefully placed boulders to sit on

After lunch the second round of mushrooms kicked in. There had been a lot as we made our way through the woods to the tree line, and there were more on the way down. Large brown ones, bright red ones, small ones, large ones, ones growing on trees, they were everywhere.

We wound our way down the rather steep path into Invermoriston, feasting on the most perfect wild raspberries. We paused to look at Thomas Telford’s bridge, admiring the waterfalls beneath it.

And then there was St Columba’s Well. Apparently the water that came out of it caused boils and no doubt other unpleasantnesses. However, after a blessing from Columba it became sweet and pure. We didn’t try it, it might not have been quite as sweet and pure as the tap water here. We did however stop for refreshments at the cafe, as, some minutes later, did Meeta and Peter. My second iced decaf latte of the trip. And a large piece of Victoria sponge.

We still had a way to go as we were staying outside Invermoriston at the Lochside Hostel at Alltsigh. Again we had a choice-the high route or the low route. The guidebook said it was 4km. The OS map said it was 4 miles. Despite this we decided on the slightly longer high route. We climbed pretty steeply up a zigzagging road for a mile before the route flattened out. And here we met a couple with a huge basket of mushrooms. She is Czech so knows all about foraging for mushrooms, and they dry them, make soup, crumble them into powder to use as a seasoning and probably do many other things with them.

We were still marvelling over the mushrooms when we came upon a sculpture

The path then wound on over the hills until the turnoff for Alltsigh and the hostel. It was a good mile (1.3 actually) downhill, and towards the end I was ready to finish for the day. It’s the longest I have worn my new shoes in one go (12.5 miles) and my feet were hurting, although there were no new blisters. We did find our first tick though which I skilfully removed from Matthew’s leg

We have cooked and eaten our dinner at the hostel and are now sitting on our respective bunk beds. The hostel overlooks Loch Ness which is lovely -and a good view from our table at dinner-but midgy.