Laggan

The rain started around 1700hrs yesterday and relentlessly fell until around 1300hrs, where we had sunny spells and showers for the remainder of the day. I managed to get in touch with the hostel at Laggan, so a dry bed for tonight.

Throughout the night the wind and rain battered the tent ensuring we had little sleep. We packed our very soggy tent away and with luck this will be the last time for the trip.

The Scottish weather has again spoilt our photographic opportunities. The start of today’s stage follows the road up a hill (our usual starting incline) out of Gairlochy and winds it way through pine trees before dropping back down alongside the Loch.

As we finally got an unobstructed view of Loch Lochy, a party of canoeists paddled by; equally drenched. We waved from the bank before continuing our journey.

We eventually rejoined the road and passed a surviving training landing craft that was used to prepare the soldiers for the D-Day landings.

The military used this area extensively for this prepartion. Training the pilots for the boats and such vessels. There were numerous plaques dedicated to this along this stretch.

The route eventually turned off the road and onto a cycle path that passed through a large pine forest; this followed the rest of the length of the loch. We passed a few cyclists doing the GGW and only met two fellow walkers however they were going in the opposite direction.

Around the 8 mile point the sun made a brief visit and the deluge subsided; finally we could see some of the views.

Spending the last 3/4 of the today in rain, had taken its toll and the wetness breached my boots. I felt a hot spot forming on a toe to my right foot. This meant stopping to apply the kinesiology tape, thus hopefully preventing a blister developing.

Soon we were back into the pine forest and came across a wild camping spot complete with composting toilets. It was a nice spot on the shore of the Loch, but this was too short for the day plus we need a resupply of food stocks.

We reached our stage end at Laggan, but there was a further mile to walk to the hostel. Our feet were sore by this point as the path mostly consisted of road or similar surfaces today. The continual impact on the hard terrain isn’t kind on our bodies.

We booked into the hostel, had a shower and put our clothes in the drying room. We set out following google maps to where a pub should be located, however there was no watering hole in sight. We passed a barge that is a floating pub on the way to the hostel.

I saw this on the map the day before and the opening hours were 1700hrs to 2300hrs. We tried our luck there to no avail. We returned to the hostel with our bellies rumbling; we will have to raid the tuck shop on site.