Monday, 18 July 2022, Day 2 GGW Spean Bridge to Glengarry Castle Hotel. 16.95 miles, 6 hours 35 minutes walking, 2059 elevation gain.
Today is one of the longest distances on the Great Glen Way (GGW). Jo and I are walking while Norma, Sandy and Karen are taking the bus. Simon and Morven at the Coire Glas B&B are most They book tickets online for the bus. We have to wait until after the last breakfasts are served before Simon can take six people, who are walking, back to the bridge at Gairlochy where we start our next segment of this walk.
Straight across the bridge and we start up the hill on a trail. We climbed a lot and walked above and along the northwest side of Loch Lochy. The path varies between mountain trail and forest service road. It does not vary in its continual undulating up and down along the side of the loch. We pass the WW II training location for amphibious landings and the Cameron Museum sign. A visit would add more than a mile and take more than an hour. We continue to walk the direct route to Clunes around the loch.
At the north end of the loch we pass the River Oich which joins the Loch Lochy and Loch OIch. We see some beautiful homes with million dollar views of the mountains and the loch. We also note that a swath of trees have all been cut down in the sector between the house and the loch to protect the view from the picture window and deck of the house. A little farther and the road a logging road with lots of cut logs and the scattered debris of the logging practices that characterizes this industry in Scotland. The surrounding slopes are a mass of broken limbs, bark and litter from the work.
We are still walking along Loch Lochy. We to the A82 bridge at Laggan, where the main GGW route goes to the east side of Loch Oich, but we continue on the west side because our hotel is the west side of the loch. This is an alternate GGW route that shows as dotted lines on my All Trails navigation maps. Our guide book has a note to go to another page with little description. It is still a long 4.5 miles
At about 1.5 miles from the hotel the path climbs and makes a curve to the west into a point and then returns down a highway to the road to the hotel. I tell Jo that we can take the A82, Scotlands busiest long north south highway, and save about 2 miles of walking. It is very dicey walking into the traffic on this road and we stop and scramble to the side for each car and big lorrie We soon see the sign and reach the turnoff to the hotel. On the drive into the hotel we walk past the ruins of Invergarry Castle. The Glengarry Castle Hotel is also a spectacular stone structure with all the turrets and inscriptions of when it was built in 1869.
A message while we were walking indicated the three girls had arrived and that Karen was in heaven with the room and the hotel and its walks along the loch. We had our bags delivered to our rooms instead of us having to lug them upstairs. We asked for a drink at reception and they delivered it to wherever we were: patio, library, room
The four individuals from Switzerland who had ridden with us in the morning also arrived and we sat at adjacent tables for dinner and breakfast the next morning. After dinner we walk along the farm road that the girls used, not the route that Jo and I used.
I sadly throw my boots into the green trash receptacle at Morven and Simons. Sandy takes a picture to have a record that I actually did it!
as to where we get off in Invergarry. Sandy sees a sign for our hotel and wants to get off immediately. to a junction, see a hotel, and swerve to the right to for acton. The bus driver lets us off at the next stop and we alight from the coach and have no idea where we will go from there. There is not a building around so we think the safest thing is to backtrack to the hotel we have seen down the road we do NOT want to take! There is no activity at the hotel but there is a woman leaving as we walk up. She tells us the hotel will not open until 3:00 p.m.
