1st May 2019
Wild Camp in Cona Glen
A Vegan breakfast at the Wild Cat cafe with pre-jammed toast to reduce food waste was an unusual way to start a 400km walk. This cafe is festooned with “wow no cow” and extinction rebellion stickers, the sourdough toast and coffee with oat milk were surprisingly nice!
We boarded the ferry across to Camusnagul with two Frenchmen who were walking to Glen Shiel, then strolled south for 10km along a quiet and pretty road. We then then turned up into the beautiful Cona Glen where we wild camped under a sycamore tree on a small meadow of daisies. The forecasted rain never arrived and a lovely sunset accompanied the Thai green curry made and dried by Expedition Foods.
The Frenchmen passed by as well as 2 others Europeans, we never seem to see any British walk the Cape Wrath Trail.
Distance: 15.9km
Ascent: 259m
2nd May 2019
Glenfinnan Sleeping Carriage
The beautiful glen continued up the river and with the sunshine and call of the cuckoos it made us realise we had hardly ever enjoyed walking through these mountains as we have spent so much time climbing up them.
Although last night was about an hour short of our planned stop, we failed to see anywhere as good, which reassured us that “less is more” on this trip! We had our first climb over a bealach and down to Glenfinnan where waves of coaches arrived at the National Trust visitors centre. Sue managed to prize the last 2 meals from them and came out with a sausage roll and smoked salmon sandwich- with a membership discount. Up the hill is the station where a couple of old railway carriages are converted to a tea room and hostel.
We settled in to our bunks and drank “The Steamy Glen” local beer with our emergency meal as the cafe had closed. The man looking after the hostel apologised for painting various bits of carriage and fence outside, he explained that there is a short window between the ice of the winter and the midges in the summer- the consequence of the latter would leave a nice gloss finish rather pebble dashed!
Distance: 22.9km
Ascent: 385m
3rd May 2019
Wild Camp Gleann Cuirnean
The sleeping cars at Glenfinnan are renovations from the 1950’s and hint to a much more agile and smaller stature customer compared to those boarding our over-night from Euston a few days ago. The kitchen, by contrast was spacious but, given that there was nowhere to buy food, no one seemed to use it. We sat and ate breakfast in the dining car while a few light showers passed then we left in sunshine along the viaduct view point route in time for the 10:15 from Fort William.
On cue the steam train arrived and posed for the hundreds who littered the hillside to get a Harry Potter moment.
A tarmac road took us nearly all the way to Corryhully Bothy, this was reminiscent of times when Joe was young, while one of us was out on the hills the other would go on short excursions with him but I think he may have inadvertently gone to this Bothy twice in one winter week in Scotland! Our commitment to going slowly was perfectly demonstrated by a stop well before the bealach, we removed boots, finished our flasks and enjoyed the sun before continuing up. The track finally turned to path as we crossed the watershed and descended towards Glendessary. We decided to stop well short of our planned destination again, about 8km to be precise, as we found a nice bend in the river with another perfect meadow to pitch and spend the night.
Our new solar panel charged the phone surprisingly quickly as the sun set then the temperature plummeted and it was time to mummify ourselves and sleep.
Distance: 12.9km
Ascent: 671m
4th May 2019
Camp at Sourlies Bothy
After a gloriously starry night, the temperature eventually rose enough for us to start cooking, several groups passed us and our blissful lack of time constraints was having an impact as we didn’t set off until nearly 10am.
We decended to Glendessary and made faster progress on forest tracks to have lunch at A’ Chuil Bothy.
Leaving civilisation behind we made our way into upper Glendessary and the gateway to the wilderness of Knoydart. We have been longing to visit this area for years and pleased that it is as part of a big walk rather than just to bag some Munros. We will undoubtedly be returning to walk the hills but this time it is an unusual pleasure to just experience the glens without the toil to the summits. A well trodden and thankfully dry path took us to the twin Lochan a’ Mhaim where we sat and had tea while chatting to our first encounter of British walking this trail, they were walking the southern half as far as Strathcarron and tempted us by describing the Sutherland Way- another day!
As we descended to Sourlies Bothy we caught site of the expanse of Loch Nevis- a long sea loch with no association with The Ben. The Bothy was as busy as A’ Chuil and made us question the sense in camping outside the Bothy when there are so many better places to stay.
Distance: 19.5km
Ascent: 354m
5th May 2019
Barrisdale Bothy
After a much warmer night we were helped some of the way along the beach by an ebbing tide.
Once we had negotiated the River Carnach, which was low, the upper glen was stunning weaving it’s way along deep sided gorge festooned with banks of spring flowers.
The climb out of the glen was unlike anything we have encountered in this country, a well engineered path made for those carrying a heavy load zig-zagged up to the bealach before descending with equal ease to Barrisdale. Since the Bothy was relatively empty we set up home in a 6 bunk room hoping we would have it to ourselves!
Distance: 15.8km
Ascent: 580m
6th May 2019
Kinloch Hourn B&B
The rain lashed at the windows last night so we were glad with Sue’s decision not to camp. We were briefly woken at 10:30 by a couple of runners who were on day 2 from Fort William but they left us alone for the night. A leisurely breakfast chatting to the runners while they meticulously shoe-horned their gear into a 20 litre bag, they were expecting to take 8 days to Kinlochewe- we’ll be there on our 13th night, hopefully!
Our grand intro to Knoydart was finished with the most amazing morning, a light dusting of snow above 600m highlighted the Munros and the reflection in Loch Hourne was breathtaking.
We strolled along the shore so mesmerised, we missed the path up the hill but didn’t care, this was just the most perfect scene. The ancient track continued with interest all the way just as I was just contemplating the merits of bringing a bike in to Barrisdale when I saw a man with a bike not unlike that you would use to pop to the shops. I suggested he may not be riding much on the track but he had cycled from King’s Lynn so I guess he wanted a break from the saddle!
Speaking of saddles, it was about this time that we caught sight of our objective for tomorrow. The fine line of the Forcan Ridge which is a great winter day (I think, as I have little recollection!) we will be skirting the bottom of it under The Saddle which forms part of Glen Shiel’s southern defences.
We continued to the B&B and teashop where we drank tea and chatted to others on the trail, a mix-up in their booking had left us with an up-grade to the cottage so we spent much of the afternoon in the lap of luxury.
Tony has been running it all for 5 years, the collection of buildings was a working farm until the mid 80’s but when the 2 brothers who ran it died it was converted to the accommodation and tea room.
We had our evening meal chatting before retiring to the cottage and the wood burner to dry our washing for the next day.
Distance: 12.1km
Ascent: 503m
7th May 2019
Kintail Lodge
Over a leisurely breakfast Tony, our host talked about the difficulties of running a business out at Kinloch Hourn. A landslide of 9,000 tonnes of rock and soil closed the road last November blocked the road until the 18th April this year so it was remarkable that the cafe and B&B was up and running. Tony read the weather forecast to us and our glee at a dry and clear patten ahead was contrasted by his frustration that this would exacerbate the issue with his waning water supply- he hadn’t seen proper rain for 3 weeks.
We set out and toiled up into some more familiar mountains bound for Glen Shiel. More perfect weather kept the summits clear and although we had to contend with rougher path-less terrain, it was a pleasure to skirt under the Forcan ridge and descend to Shiel Bridge where we looked forward to our first rest day.
Distance: 20.2km
Ascent: 503m
8th May 2019
Rest at Kintail Lodge
We successfully received our first food drop consisting of 4 dried meals, a bag of milk powder, a gas canister, porridge and sachets of got chocolate. Someone in Kintail Lodge had eagerly opened our Amazon boxes thinking it was supplies for the kitchen, I can imagine the expression on a customer’s face when they are presented with a bag of chilli slowly rehydrating in a bag in front of them! Fortunately, only the hot chocolate went missing which was quickly sorted by staff with hotel supplies. As planned, we did very little apart from a stroll to the shop to get more lunch and snack supplies. We spent much of the afternoon chatting to people we have overlapped with in our first week of the journey.
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