Morvich and Bunree

We stopped on the way to Morvich an the National Trust car park for the Balmacara Estate, chancing that there would be room to park the car plus caravan. Luckily there was, and we set off with the dogs to do the woodland walk and have a look around the gardens. It was nice to have a walk surrounded by trees after the lack of them on Skye and the Hebrides, and when we were in the estate gardens we got chatting to a couple who were there with their dog, a Lab called Teddy. They were staying at the Morvich site and when we arrived there later we were only a few ‘vans down from them, so at least we had friends there already!

The next day we set out for Eilean Donan castle which sits on an island on Loch Duich, we went over the footbridge and had a great time walking round the castle grounds and exploring the inside of the castle. The castle was originally built in the 13^th century but was almost completely destroyed in 1719 by the Spanish. It was lovingly restored in 1932 by the MacRae family, and is now one of the most photographed monuments in Scotland. On the way back we went via a minor road and stopped at a viewpoint with a great view over Loch Duich, when we got out of the car we heard a strange noise on the other side of the road, and it turned out to be a pig oinking so we went over to say hello to the big friendly chap, who just wanted his back scratching (pork scratchings, anyone?!). In the afternoon Phil went out on his bike up to the Glomach Falls, a 7 mile ride with some beautiful scenery over Kintail and Morvich.

The next day we moved to a Caravan Club site just south of Fort William at Bunree after setting up we had a cuppa when Phil realised that he had left his biking waterproof, two pairs of riding shorts and his riding shoes in the drying room at Morvich, 70 miles away, whoops! We rang the site and the warden hoped they would find someone else heading our way to bring them down, fingers crossed.

While we were here we wanted to head to Mallaig. The road follows roughly the path of the Jacobite railway line from Fort William to Mallaig, and the journey has been voted the top railway journey in the world 2009 and 2010 by ‘Wanderlust’. We stopped en route at Glenfinnan where we had a walk to the 21 arched viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter films, it’s an amazing structure, and the only viaduct we’ve seen which goes round a bend! While we were there we spotted loads of ripe blackberries, and set about picking as many as we could in the shadow of the viaduct so that Linda can make some jam later! We also visited the Glenfinnan monument which sits at the head of Loch Sheil, erected in 1815 to mark the location where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the standard at the start of the Jacobite Rising (see our visit to Culloden in August). You are allowed to walk up the narrow spiral staircase to the top of the monument where you get a great view down the Loch at one side and the viaduct at the other. Mallaig is a small fishing village at the end of the A830, with its harbour made busier by the ferry going to and fro from Skye. We had a walk around the port and the village, getting some supplies from the butchers on the way. On the way back we took a detour off the main road to stop at a beautiful white sand beach called Silver Sands at Toigal, we had a walk to the end of the bay and back undisturbed by anyone else. Back on the road Phil spotted a Scotrail train making its way along the track in the same direction as us, and took much delight in pointing it out every time he could see it, much to Linda’s annoyance! Our final stop of the journey was at Neptunes Staircase, a set of 9 huge Locks which take the Caledonian Canal down the hill to sea level and into Loch Linnhe. It takes a boat two and a half days to get from Inverness to this other extreme of the canal, which we didn’t think was bad given it had taken us over a month by road!

We’ve also been for a day out in Glen Coe. Went to the visitor centre and had a look round the exhibition where we learned about the massacre, when in 1692 the governments troops were sent to stay with the MacDonald clan (supporters of the Jacobites), where they enjoyed their hospitality for 14 days before they were ordered to slaughter the lot of them. 38 were killed by the soldiers and at least another 40 men women and children died of exposure as they tried to escape, there is now a memorial in Glencoe village to commemorate the loss of life.

Then we set out in the rain for a walk. We’d heard there was a woodland walk just up the road, but after a mile of trudging up the busy A82 we gave up and went back for the car. The walks were actually about 2 miles up the road, so we moved to that car park and took the dogs for a nice walk in the woods (still in the rain). Back to the ‘van and the lady in reception told us that someone had come from Morvich and brought Phil’s biking gear, so we called round. The friendly chap had plenty of tales of woe for us as he had a bump in his car a few days ago while on holiday and spent 2 days in hospital, we thanked him profusely and shared our own tales of our dented ‘van!

Phil set off with his biking gear for the Nevis Range the next day, a ski area which has a world class downhill and cross country MTB facility. Unfortunately the ski gondola closed to bikes on 15 September, and only the cross country tracks were open. Not to be put off, Phil walked up the new red downhill track to the gondola station at 2,200 feet (which took an hour!). Riding down the world cup downhill course I was told off at one stage by a course repair guy, who said it was closed, but I could carry on anyway if I took care, yippee! Once at the bottom I had a banana before walking all the way back up so that I could ride the new red downhill (phew). It was really good fun and worth another hours hike-a-bike! Then I set out on the 2 cross country routes, the ‘World Champs’ track was better than the ‘10 under the Ben’ but they both had lots of fun bits. After 25 miles and around 4,500ft of climbing I was beat, so headed home to the ‘van.

Linda did a 12.5 mile walk with the dogs, first off was the forest walk over the road at Inchree, quite a steep climb up to a section of General Wades military road and then a loop through the forest , back at the car park again we then did the waterfall walk. Due to the heavy rain the falls were amazing and very noisy. Then off to the ferry at Carron, the next hamlet to Bunree, with a diversion to see what Bunree is like (tiny – about 10 houses!) . The ferry is still free to foot passengers and I got chatting to 2 couples who are on holiday here and just wanted a ride on the ferry across Loch Linnhe and back. Off the other side and did a walk along the loch and then through a forest and past a couple of lochans to Ardgour , which is a lovely quiet little village across the loch from Bunree. Back to the ferry which was again full for the return journey and back to the van, what an epic walk!

We visited Kinlochleven the next day, where Phil set off on an 11 mile bike ride which was classed by MBR as their ‘trail of the year’. The route, called the Ciaran Path, followed the line of the pipeline from Kinlochleven’s hydro electric power station. The pipeline takes water from the Blackwater Dam 1,000 feet further up the mountain, and channels it through a set of turbines to generate lots of lovely ‘leccy. On the way up I passed a graveyard which is deemed the remotest on the Scottish mainland, the few gravestones there represent the final resting place of some of the navvies who worked on the construction of the dam, one of the stones simply reads ‘unknown’. I rode over the huge dam and on the other side entered a peat bog, which I promptly fell in right up to the top of my legs! Then it was the descent back to town, via the Ciaran Path, an awesome rocky descent which really kept you on your toes!

Linda did a 5 mile walk initially following the West Highland way up the opposite hill then turning right and going round the side to the Grey Mares falls, another nice waterfall but not as impressive as those at Inchree yesterday! Very warm with a steep climb at the start to 800 feet and a tricky downhill section of loose scree where the path has been washed away and replaced by loads of rocks and hardcore.

Back at Tonks we had lunch then went into the Ice Factor for coffee and cake, this former smelting works has now been transformed into an amazing climbing facility, with multiple climbing walls and even a huge ice climbing room!

We then went into the visitor centre where we learned about the town’s aluminium smelting history, as well as finding out that the road between Glen Coe and Kinlochleven was built in the 2^nd world war by German prisoners of war. It’s a really twisty road because they had to go round all the mountains because they couldn’t use explosives!

We were due to move the next day but it rained so much and so hard, we just hunkered down and waited it out another day!