Bunree Caravan Club Site, Onich, Fort William

28 August 2017: - Truly lousy weather kept us hunkered down inside the caravan all morning; there seemed no point to go out sightseeing when there was little hope of seeing anything through the murk and mist. You would have thought the strong gusty squalls blowing up the Loch would have moved the bad weather on, but all it did was whip up the white horses on the loch surface.

After an early lunch we headed off hopeful of a few breaks, our first destination the Morrison’s superstore in Fort William where we bought a few provisions and emerged in even worse weather. We decided to head up to the Glen Nevis Visitor Centre which, if at all like that in Glen Coe, would keep us under cover and amused for a while. We soon found this short of two miles out of town, situated beside the River Nevis, the lower slopes of the famous mountain just visible below the heavy cloud; we parked and fed the machine with the required £1. We then found the centre was closed for renovations, albeit it scraps of stock for sale out of a temporary donga; we were unimpressed.

We crossed the river, rushing and raging with rain flood, and walked a short distance along toward the trail that takes the determined walker to the summit. Had the weather been fine and the hour been earlier, we might have been encouraged to set off ourselves, but it was not and we were not. There were some heading off all the same, not as flexible as us but perhaps they had come to Port William with the sole purpose of conquering the mountain no matter what the conditions.

Ben Nevis at 1,343 metres ASL is Britain’s highest mountain, the highest of Scotland’s Munros, but is a relatively accessible peak to conquer. These days there are thousands who reach the top, albeit by the gentler routes.

The first recorded ascent was in 1771 when the botanist James Robertson headed up the Ben to collect plant specimens for the College Museum of Edinburgh. He was followed some three years later by a man called John Williams who was sent to determine whether the rocks on the mountain held any commercial value. Fortunately for posterity, they did not.

Believe it or not, since 2006, there has been an annual Ben Nevis Race, and the record held is eighty five minutes and thirty four seconds, achieved in 1984. Surely they were on steroids! Generally a fit walker will take six to eight hours for the round trip, and if we should decide to try it tomorrow, a whole lot longer.

We returned to the car disappointed on many fronts, not least the fact that there had been no notice on the parking machine that the Centre was currently closed. Instead we headed to Neptune’s Staircase, the rather imaginative name for the series of eight locks that carry boats from sea level at Fort William up on to the Caledonian Canal, that viewed and walked along at three places further north east; at Fort Augustus, Dochgarroch and the Muirtown Locks at Inverness.

The season is now that little further on, and today we found far fewer using this marvellous waterway. We fell into conversation with a woman who was walking the tow rope for the yacht she and her husband, and a female hanger-on, were sailing back to Glasgow. They had sailed up the west coast and across to the Orkneys, then down the east to Inverness and were now on the home run. She was absolutely delightful and we could have chatted for hours, however every now and again, her husband would shout out for her to do something with the rope.

It turned out that the two of them had sailed out to Asia and New Zealand in the past, and circumnavigated our own homeland, as did my own father some years back. She expressed her concern about settling back into life once age slowed them down, although some years older than us, it looked like any retirement from adventure was still some time away. We wished her safe journeys, and to continue to have fun, as she echoed the greetings to us, before we continued on along the tow path heading toward Loch Lochy. A few rain spots drew our attention to the blanket of bad weather creeping up from the west, so we turned and headed for the shelter of the car, heading home.

We did learn that the locks on the Caledonian Canal are all twelve metres wide and all but one are between fifty two and fifty five metres long. However if your boat is longer than 47.1 metres or wider than 10.7 metres, you will not be allowed into the locks.

Despite the late start and the inclement weather, we had touched on all the aims of the day, although not succeeded giving anything our full attention. Hopefully tomorrow will bring better weather; I do hope so as my plans rely very much on good visibility, and none of these include an ascent of the Ben.