So the adventure continues, yesterday I left Lockerbie; the plan was to be away by 7am, well the best laid plans and all that... I got out to the car at 6:50am only to find the BNB owners car was parked behind mine and I couldn't get out!! So I was considerate, I waited until 7am and then rang them and got them out of bed so they could move the bloody car. I finally left Lockerbie at about 7:30am.
I had a pretty uneventful drive up the motorway, did get a few hold ups going through Glasgow, which was to be expected, but all in all not a bad drive along the motorway. Then I turned off onto the arterial road leading through the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park, the scenery along Loch Lomond is just amazing, the sun was hitting the water and the mist was rising, it was the most incredible sight, and I drove along with Wazzy in the passenger seat, remembering driving along this same road the last time we were in Scotland. Unortunately one can't drive and take photographs so I don't have any photo's to show you, but take my word it was beautiful.
While I was driving and remembering, the Bette Midler song Wind beneath my wings, which was always my song for Wazzy, because he truly did believe in me and let me fly came on spotify, so I drove along with tears streaming down my face, and then the next song was Glen Fry's You are a part of me and I'm a part of you came on which made me feel a bit better.
As I was feeling a bit fragile I decided to stop for a cuppa, I found a little old Church with the Rectory attached that had been converted into a tea room about 50 miles from Fort William, so I pulled in and had a cup of tea and an amazing cheese scone, and so fortified continued by journey to FW.
I'm now truly in the highlands having just passed Loch Orchy I'm about 30 miles from Fort William, close to Glencoe so I stopped and took some photos.
just what she's done, she hales from Derbyshire, but the highlands call to her, just like they do to me, she calls them home. It was lovely to to spend a few minutes talking to her.
So I stopped at Glencoe where on the 13th of February 1692 (just a few years ago) the Campbell's who were loyal to the British throne, having spent 10 odd days enjoying the hospitality of the McDonald Clan, massacred, with the Crowns blessing 40 odd members of the Clan for supposedly not pledging their allegiance to the Crown quickly enough. Thereby igniting a life long blood feud between the Campbells and the McDonalds.
I spent a couple of hours at Glencoe, I went through the visitors centre and then did the woodland walk which wends its way up through the regrowth forrest. The scenery is so dramatic, with the scree and the heather and gorse up above and the woodland below.
The National Trust of Scotland has built a turf house at Glencoe, it is the same type of home the McDonalds would have been living in at the time of the Glencoe massacre. There are plans to add to this single turf house to show how the Clan community would have been living in 1992.
So back in the car I headed for Fort William and as I had a couple of hours until I could check in to the Lochview Guest House I decided to check out the Caledonian Canal and walk Neptune's steps. It took 21 years to construct the Caledonian Canal, it's 22 miles of artificial cuttings which connected lochs along the Great Glen to make an inland shipping route between the west and east coasts of Scotland.
The canal was designed by Thomas Telford and construction started in 1799. The Government at the tie hoped it would provide employment and stop the migration from the highlands. Construction took 22 years with the grand opening in 1822.
It is truly an amazing feat of engineering and I was lucky enough to be there when the NSL Challenger was going through.
Here in the highlands, during the summer months there is no real darkness, daylight hours go from 4am to 10pm with the hours in between known as the gloaming. Here is a photo taken from my window at about 10:30pm last night,
I took the gondola to the beginning of the ski slopes, and then did 2 of the walks, the first Sgurr Finnisg-aig is 663 meters and a 40 minute round trip from the gondola bay. The one thing I have realised with solo travel, when you go out walking, especially if you're walking the track alone, like I am today, you need to be very careful, you know what a clutz I am, 1 banana skin on the Nullarbor and I'll find it, you have to be really careful you don't foul a fetlock when you're on your own and there's no one to help you, and no mobile service!!
For the first time on this trip I'm truly alone, there's no sound, no sound at all but the cry of the wind, no sound of traffic, just the wind. I'm truly alone and I'm looking around at Ben Nevis, the little villages and then back across to Fort William and all around me its the majesty of the mountain. Janet, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you hoped I'd find healing, and I think that's what I'm finding.
Before I headed off on my second walk to Meall Beag which is 630 meters I'm having a coffee in the Snowbird Cafe which is part of the Great Glen Bar which boasts that it's the highest bar in the UK.
My second walk is an hours round trip and has views along the Great Glen as well as the snow patches further up the mountain.
After I left Ben Nevis I headed to the ruins of Invergarry Castle the ancestral home of the MacDonnell of Glengarry Clan who are Wazzy's clan. We visited here in 2016 and Lexi visited in 2011 so today I came back wearing Wazzy's MacDonnell of Glengarry cap!! Again, this was emotional for me, remembering the things we spoke about while we checked out the family mansion!
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