Fort William; Sunday, 06 May, 2012

I treated myself to breakfast in the café in Morrisons before setting off for a Sunday morning walk along the first part of the Great Glen Way.

The full route, over 70 miles runs the full length of the Great Glen from Fort William up to Inverness, I was only looking to do about 5 miles to Neptune’s Staircase where the Caledonian Canal make its descent down to sea level.

First stop on the walk was the ruins of Inverlochy castle about a mile and a half outside of Fort William; I had a look around that before continuing on through Caol to the sea lock at the very end of the Caledonian Canal at Corpach.

From there it was about another mile to the impressive 8 lock flight of Neptune’s Staircase. I had a look around the area before stopping at the canal-side hotel for a late lunch.

I had originally planned just to catch the bus back into Fort William from there and have a wander around the town, but looking up the train times I noticed that I could get the train out to Glenfinnan to have a look at both the viaduct and the monument (it’s at Glenfinnan that Bonny Prince Charlie first raised his standard and started the campaign that would eventually lead, just 8 months later, to bloody defeat at Culloden.)

The view of both Loch Shiel and the viaduct are possibly more spectacular from ground level than they are from the train and I was so captivated by the views that only just made the return train (and last train of the day) back to Fort William.

After a spot of dinner I headed back to the hotel to pack.