Day 10 – Fort Augustus to Fort William
Actual distance 59.45Km or 36.94 miles
Total Ascent 698m
Staying at Insh Scout Campsite
Phew- it was a tough one today. We finished the Great Glen Way but it really had a sting in its tail.
We had planned a long cycle to finish today but were slightly flummoxed by the diversions on our route. By the Bridge of Oich the Sustrans route 78 was diverted back onto the main walking trail causing us to do lots of climbing and technical descending (or a walking) further exacerbated by our second puncture of the adventure.
The puncture was swiftly dealt with and we were away. We descended into Invergarry, refilled our water and boycotted further off road climbing deciding the A82 would be a better choice for a few Km. We quickly got back on track but then the low level trail round the north side of Loch Lochy was closed and a long stretch of logging track ensued with lots of dastardly climbs to test us!
We did survive but it was a close run thing! We were saved by Paul and Jayne who met us with 7Km to go and rode into Fort William with us where we ended up at McDonalds for tea! In our defence despite leaving the campsite at 10 we didn’t start riding till after 12 as we had to pick up fresh water from our support crew, drive to Fort William to leave the van for later and then drive all the way back to Fort Augustus to park and start! We finished at 19:30- a little over the 4hours activity which we optimistically planned!
Once we had collected the car and got back to the campsite it was past 10 so we headed straight to bed to prepare for tomorrow- hopefully this will be less brutal!
