Loch Sunart day 06 - Fort William

Saturday 23rd June,

Beinn Resipol from the lounge 06.30 – seriously wet this morning

It was raining hard this morning when we got up. We had hoped that after a spectacular thunder and lightning storm last night the weather would have been fresh and clear. I guess that's why we're not weather forecasters! After a lazy breakfast and a brief discussion we decided that we'd wander off in the general direction of Fort William with a view to buying the usual paraphernalia that will remind us of our holiday, if we ever come across it when we're tidying up that is. So instead of taking the ferry we carried on through Ardgour along the narrow A861 towards Loch Eil, stopping along the way to take some photos of course.

Sometimes the weather looked to be clearing up

The weather teased us a little bit by giving the odd hint that it might clear up, but it was only kidding us on and although we glimpsed the odd shaft of sunshine through a break in the cloud it stayed overcast and damp. We joined the A830 at the head of Loch Eil and from there into Fort William. We considered going the opposite way, to Glenfinnan to have a look at the monument and the viaduct, but decided we would give the weather another couple of hours to clear up and try again later in the day. Fort William was wet and busy with tourists, lots of whom reminded us of us! In other words people who would probably have preferred to be walking, or at least exploring the area in some way, rather than wandering around the town centre in the rain.

A dreich day in Fort William

After a cursory look around the shops and the purchasing of the mandatory souvenirs, we retired the The Tavern pub for a very pleasant, and reasonably extended, lunch. There wasn't much cheer about the town when we finally left the pub so we got back in the car and headed out the Mallaig road. We pulled over briefly at the start of the Caledonian Canal for a walk up the Neptune's Stairway lock system, and very impressive it is as well.

Neptune's Stairway

After our short walk in the rain we headed out to the tourist information / exhibition at the Glenfinnan memorial but the mist was now so thick we decided that it would need to be a destination for another day. So after a brief stop and look around the shop we headed back along the narrow A861 to Strontian then back to the cottage and the inevitable packing. So not much of a day really, although maybe we were just being shown the West Coast in a different light although it left us wondering what it might have been like if the weather had been like this all week.

J
More Photos

Loch Sunart - the end

Sunday 24th June,

Beinn Resipol from the lounge 06.00 – it’s dry but only just

And then, quite suddenly, it's all over. We had packed last night so were ready to get on our way fairly sharp, but we hung around for a while, thought briefly of squeezing another walk in before we left but, in the end, decided that the drive across to Aberdeen would be long enough without adding anything else to it. There was one last treat for us however. The visitor's book had mentioned in several entries a visit from an otter but we had never seen any signs of such a thing. We put this down to a combination of bad luck and the presence of a large black dog at the next cottage up, so it was a nice farewell gift for us when this fella swam past on his way up the loch.

Not a great photo I accept, but it cheered us up as we headed off home

All in all it had been a good week. The cottage is in a great location and is in an ideal spot to explore Morvern and Ardnamurchan. The weather had been better than we could have hoped for and had let us get out and about to explore by foot an area that deserves more of our time. The only downside really was that a week wasn't long enough so maybe we need to give serious consideration to coming back again, there really is so much more for us to see and so many other places to visit.

I hope you've enjoyed this little record of our week and we'd be delighted to read any comments you might like to make!

Cheers

John & Mo.
Walking in the Northeast of Scotland