West Highland Way - Kinlochleven to Fort William

We have finished the West Highland Way! Hooray! And what a last day it was. The weather forecast had predicted a mixture of sunshine and rain, but in fact it rained all day. Relentlessly. We had quite a long ascent through the woods out of Kinlochleven at the very beginning of our walk, about 250 metres, and I again successfully used my “listening to music” method to distract myself. James encouraged me to join his Spotify account yesterday so I had a couple of playlists downloaded and ready to play. We were quite sheltered in the woods during the climb but when we reached the top of the path it was very exposed as we walked a long way through the glen. If it hadn’t been so wet and the cloud so low it would have been a stunningly beautiful walk; it was still quite attractive even though it was raining. I couldn’t be bothered putting on my climbing trousers which was very silly of me, because the rain ran down my legs and soaked my socks and boots. Also it didn’t help the path had turned into a stream in the wet conditions, crossed frequently by proper streams. So we just walked as fast as we could, and covered the 25 km / 15 miles in 6 hours and 20 minutes, which is very fast for me (James of course can walk much faster without me!) I reckon that this was about 4 km per hour in quite rough and hilly terrain, with a final steep descent to Fort William. We also didn’t stop at all which is unprecedented for me, and attests to the rainy conditions - it didn’t even look dry under the few clumps of trees so we just kept going. The last couple of kilometres was along the Glen Nevis Road, and I felt so excited as the first houses of Fort William came into sight! Soon we saw our old favourite haunt, Nevisport, and despite our wetness we nipped in there for coffee and soup - and in my case, pancakes with bananas and chocolate sauce. Oh it was delicious!

Then we walked the last hundred yards to the end of the West Highland Way, where a couple of walkers who arrived a few minutes after us took a photo of us and we returned the compliment. Our bed and breakfast, Ardblair House, was close by and as soon as we checked in James ran me a hot bath and made me a coffee and it was wonderful! I felt so clean and above all dry, when afterwards I changed into my jeans and my newly purchased “I’ve walked the West Highland Way” t shirt. We strolled down to another favourite restaurant, The Crannog, for dinner at 7.30 p.m. dinner was delicious- what a lovely way to celebrate completing the West Highland Way and also our 36th Wedding Anniversary.