Day - 07 Thursday. A Great Glen.
Not a good night’s sleep. I got up at seven and walked back up the track past Kilfinnan to Laggan Locks, across the Caledonian Canal and up to the main road where there was a telephone box. This one worked and I managed to phone home and chat for half an hour, no doubt making them late for school. I walked back to the locks where I noticed there was a boat bunkhouse which might have been fun to stay on.
I walked along the canal towpath to Loch Oich and then along the road to the very good Seven Heads Store where I stocked up with food (far more than would fit in the pack) and a gas cartridge.
Directly opposite the store is a rather macabre monument.
A little further back down the road is an area for tourists to stop and have picnics beside the loch. I found a table and reduced the size of the shopping I had just bought by eating bread rolls, cheese, coleslaw and spring onions. The problem of how to carry a half full carton of orange juice was solved by drinking it all. I couldn’t help noticing that the soft level green lawns would make a much better camp spot than the stony/brambly side of a forestry track……
Today I had a simple but cunning plan. Simple because all I had to do was make my way up the south east side of the Great Glen, drop down into Glen Turret then make my way a few miles up Glen Roy. Cunning because the south east side of the great Glen is a seemingly impenetrable barrier of conifer trees, but I had found a way through.
I walked back down the towpath, followed the main road for a few metres, then cut across to the forest on the SE side of the glen and followed forestry tracks which gradually zig-zagged up the rather steep side of the glen.
The map shows the whole of this side of the glen as conifer forest with none of the forestry tacks reaching the upper limit of the forest, and as anybody who has tried it can tell you, it can be impossible to push your way through the trees in such a forest. But I had a clever plan. I had checked www.geograph.co.uk and found that the area at the top of the forest in Coire an Sihdein had been cleared, and although it would be tough going I thought I’d be able to make my way up to the open moorland. The area was indeed cleared, and it looked easier than I’d hoped to make my way up onto the moor, but there were some signs warning the public not to enter the area which put me off a bit. However, seeing no alternative I pushed on only to be confronted by a forestry worker who after much discussion (he kept harping on about the signs) persuaded me to turn back and use another track which was just a bit further along.
I never did see that track, and after a while I knew that if it did exist I’d passed it long ago, and the only option I really had was to force my way up through the pine trees. The least said about the next twenty minutes the better, but I then found myself in a grassy open area which, although I couldn’t see it, obviously had an exit up onto the open moor. I stopped for a well earned rest and bite to eat.
Pushing on I found that in fact there was no way out at the top of the grassy area, and once again I had to force my way through the trees. This time the trees were smaller and denser, and in places it required all my strength to push through.
I emerged from the forest sweating, bleeding, and cursing, with pine needles all down the inside of my clothing. The good news was that by luck I’d chosen a place where the forest ended lower down the hillside, also a deer fence which could have been impassable was broken down just here, so it was in a happier mood that I carried on and soon found myself looking down on the bealach to Glen Turret. Rather than drop down to the bealach which looked like it might be boggy I stayed high over Teanga Beag (which was boggy), and dropped down into the glen where the two streams meet at a bridge (not shown on map). I had a late lunch here with stuff bought at the shop (3pm).
From there I followed the track down to Turret Bridge and then up Glen Roy to Annat where I took the path up the Burn of Agie. I found an excellent campsite just below Dog Falls at 6:30. The name alone was enough to persuade me to camp here. Dinner was tomato & basil soup, followed by risotto, then shortbread which is always so much better in Scotland.
I was glad to have left the Great Glen behind; I had had trouble getting into it, camping in it and getting out of it. But I was happy now. It had been a hot sunny day, and if that had made pushing through a pine forest frustrating, it also made it good for sitting beside the Burn of Agie listening to the Dog Falls.
Day 08 Intro