The Great Glen Way started beside our hotel, and we donned our raincoats and set forth. We soon left the city behind as we followed the Caledonian Canal. David was mesmerised by another feat of engineering, Neptune’s Staircase: a flight of eight locks. The walk from there was easy on a canal path through fabulous mountain scenery until we reached Gairlochy. We hadn’t been able to find accommodation near the canal, so we had a diversion of another three miles mostly uphill to our hotel in Spean Bridge.

A Backward Glance

Carol is a forager. If we are out having a coffee and there’s a large bowl of white sugar lumps on the table, she will rummage through them meticulously until she finds the one brown sugar lump sequestered among them. Ask her why and she will reply in the immortal words of George Mallory “because it’s there”, then pop it into her mouth because she doesn’t take sugar in coffee or tea. The start of our walk along The Great Glen Way took us out of Fort William to Banavie, site of the famous ‘Neptunes Staircase’ and two horizontally turning swing bridges next to each other. One of the bridges supports a railway line, the other the A830 road and both are operated remotely. Neptune’s Staircase is a series of eight locks designed by Thomas Telford which are used to lift canal traffic sixteen metres vertically over about a quarter of a mile length of canal. Heaven on earth for a structural engineer. Carol was getting ahead again but I caught her up more quickly than usual: she seemed to be rummaging around in bushes along the path. “Wild raspberries” she exclaimed. Carol was finding them everywhere, foraging as we headed along the canal route. Then it happened: “Carol, keep up”, I said and “David, slow down” came the reply! It was a pleasant and interesting walk, passing Moy Bridge, another old horizontal swing bridge comprising two cantilevering sections made in cast iron giving pedestrian access to the opposite side of the canal. There was a gate keepers house where the gate keeper used to live and manually operate the bridge as necessary, having to row across the water to turn the remaining cantilever section from the opposite bank. Designed by Telford and the only remaining one of its kind along the length of the Caledonian Canal. Great day spoilt by a three mile hill climb on a busy tarmac road to our off route lodgings in Spean Bridge, where the wild raspberry pickings were much leaner.