Great Glen Way Day 5: Drumnadrochit to Inverness

Our final day. It’s hard to conceive that the idea for this trip was formed during Bruce’s recovery from a hip replacement. He set himself a goal of walking the West Highland Way again and here we are, 15 months post second hip replacement and not only has he done the West Highland Way but the Great Glen Way too! In total, we’ve clocked up 12 days of walking (although Day 1 of the GGW was incredibly short due to changing plans as a result of the weather) and 191 miles!

Leaving Drumnadrochit

I could happily have stayed in our B & B (Morlea) as it was lovely! Very comfortable and with a great breakfast (and bed), it was a struggle to leave.

The first mile and a bit are along the road, making for easy walking but not the most inspiring of starts. It feels good to get off the pavement and onto a trail again.

The climbing starts from this point and continues for the majority of the next five miles.

One good thing about this initial pull is that a fair chunk of it was in the trees. This kept us out of the morning sun, and also provided cooler air. Up we went, with only the occasional down.

We stopped off at a viewpoint overlooking Loch Ness and chatted to a guy from our B & B. He took a photograph of Bruce photographing a ship on the loch below.

The High Route

With the heather in bloom, there was a sea of purple, highlighting the landscape beautifully! Despite lacking the height of the mountains along the West Highland Way, the rolling hills cut quite a dash clad in purple.

The high route takes in a very small hill summit. I struggle to see why anyone would put in the effort to get to this point and then choose the low route; think carefully if your legs are tired as there’s nothing to it! We met some folks at the cairn who were splitting this route over two days and enjoyed a blether with them.

We also made a point of stopping here to have a break and eat lunch, conscious that sometimes we have long days without much of a breather. Off the ‘summit’ we carried on, from this point heading down. The views were good and I was in my happy place!

We enjoyed the easy walking into Abriachan Forest.

There we came upon some forestry works. It was pretty impressive the way that trees were being dragged around. Less impressive was the huge great mud filled trench across the path that had been dug up by the tyres of the vehicle! Thankfully this was only about the width of a minor road and there were a few big logs to help us navigate our way across. Not quite sufficient to see us safely over, Bruce threw down another few branches and voila! I made it across mud free, much to my amazement and delight!

Abriachan Forest

The forest trails thereafter were decent and made for fine walking.

We made good time despite stopping to admire the scenery.

The Abriachan Forest Trust has done a lot of work to develop the area. We enjoyed exploring as we went!

On The Road Again

Leaving the forest behind, we walked along a minor road for a few miles. I was glad to finally reach the turn off onto the softer track again.

From this point on, much as we’ve enjoyed our time on the Ways, we looked forward to arriving in Inverness. Finally we caught sight of our final destination.

Welcome to Inverness

It took a few miles from arriving at the outskirts of Inverness to make our way into the city centre. I’ve previously detailed the underwhelming start (behind McDonalds in Fort William) and the end is not much better.

One pleasant surprise was meeting my friend’s daughter, Naomi, unexpectedly outside her work. Thankfully Bruce was a little more switched on than I, as having been some time since I last clapped eyes on her, alongside being very out of context for my brain to process, the initial conversation was somewhat confused! Naomi, it was lovely too see you!

We moved ever closer to the finish with varying landmarks after the Caledonian Canal …

Finally we reached Bught Park where we made our way alongside the river and finally found Nessie!

A hop, skip and jump further along and we were finished! The castle is cordoned off by barriers so this is the best we could do!

A fantastic holiday in all. Not sure I’m ready to stop.