Yesterday was a quiet day catching up on things in Fort William.  A very helpful laundromat sorted out my washing and I managed to get a haircut.  Wyn arrived soon after 4.00pm and we both enjoyed our meal at the Alexandra Hotel.

Breakfast with several coach tours was a bit of a scrum but we managed to escape to the quiet of the bistro.  As the hotel lift only took two people, and as the people on the tours all seem to have two huge cases each, we took to the stairs and departed at 8.45.

The path through the housing estates of Fort William, Inverlochy and Caol was fairly uninteresting. The original Fort William and Inverlochy Castle are on the route but little remains of either.

At Corpach we reached the Caledonian Canal near the sea lock and walked up to Neptune’s Staircase, a series of eight locks. We had a brief stop at the top and then set off towards Gairlochy.

There were almost no boats using the canal and it was therefore very exciting when a large yacht appeared. The walk was easy and as the day progressed and the low cloud lifted the north face of Ben Nevis started to appear.

At Moy there is a very attractive swing bridge. This was installed so that the farmer can access his riverside meadows. It has its own keeper as only one side of the bridge can be opened manually at a time. The keeper uses a small boat to cross the canal and open the other half.

Just after 1.00 we arrived at Gairlochy Locks and stopped for lunch. Our accommodation for the night was at Spean Bridge which involved another 6k of road walking.

This took us past the famous Commando War Memorial at Spean Bridge which was justifiably very busy with tourists.  We reached the Spean Bridge Hotel at 3.15 and have a comfortable cabin for the night.  As we are getting old we have sorted out a taxi for tomorrow morning, rather than reverse the walk back to the canal.