Day 1 and 2, less brief

When we arrived in Fort William, we had a nice lunch and walked to the Ben Nevis Distillery and had a really cool tour. I sort of figured out the differences between types of whiskey. Some random facts were that scotch whiskey is aged in used oak casks (preferably sherry casks) for at least three years and a day. (American whiskey can only be aged in new casks) Single malt is one "batch" from one barrel. Blended can be from several different barrels from the same distillery, or from different distilleries. I got some and it was good, and that's all that really matters, right?

We set out from Ft. William around 9am after a great breakfast from what we decided was the best B&B of those we stayed in. There was a honed process for rating the B&Bs consisting of kindness of the proprietors, availability of tea, hot chocolate, and biscuits, amount and quality of breakfast, comfort of pillows, and number of bedcoverings.
The B&B bar was set high.

We had beautiful views of Ben Nevis for many miles and at all angles. "Look, there's Ben Nevis." was a common phrase when things got boring. We found ourselves at the beginning of the Caledonian Canal which basically cuts Scotland in half. Boats travel through many locks, canals, and lochs. Locks are the things that transport boats through the canals where water travel would be impossible without them. Lochs are basically long, skinny lakes.

A boat could technically get all the way 'through' Scotland in about 14 hours, but the lock keepers only operate 9-5 so it takes a week. The most impressive series of locks is called Neptune's Staircase. This is eight locks in a row, raising the boats 64 feet in 500 yards. It takes a boat 1.5 hours to get through.
From here, day one was mostly canal tow path that was easy to navigate. We arrived in Gairlochy which consists of a lock keepers house and I think that's about it. We had to walk an additional three miles (bringing our total for the day to 13) to Spean Bridge. Here we had a nice stay an were able to have dinner and get lunch for the next day.


In the morning, our B&B owner drove us back to the trail, saving us a few blisters and an hour or so of walking.

Here the trail left the canal and wound to the shores of Loch Lochy (which is basically like calling it Lake Lakey) which was beautiful. I was wishing that I had a kayak to play on the windy surface of this loch. We went about an extra mile to see a double waterfall called Eas Chia-aig meaning "Water of the old witch" Where apparently a witch had been run out of town and fell down these falls into the pool below to her demise.

The rest of the trail on day two was in the woods of Clunes and Sough Laggan Forest. It was beautiful, old forest and the trail was a double track logging road, which wasn't too bad to walk on.

We arrived, 14 miles later at South Laggan at 3:45. This town is so small that we had dinner and breakfast at the B&B, because there was literally nowhere else to eat. Great food here and an "honesty bar" which was great mostly because it was loads cheaper than regular bars.