LEJOG Day 81: Gairlochy to South Laggan

Weather: Sunny and warm

Distance covered today: 22.5km (14.0mi)

Last night's B&B: Dalcomera (£65)

Cumulative distance: 1649.2km (1024.8mi)/ % Complete: 86.2%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 81 (click!)

The Great Glen is a major geological fault that splits Scotland in half from northeast to southwest. The top half slid 100km (60mi) southwest-wards during a period of geological activity 400 million years ago.  Apparently, if you cut a topographical map of Scotland along the Great Glen, and shift the top half upwards the right amount, you can see just how the land matches as it originally lay.  Along the fault, the rocks were weakened and broken up, and in the ice age, they were no match for the glaciers which ground them down, forming the deep, straight lochs that look so magnificent now.  My first encounter today was with the tautologically named Loch Lochy, which indeed appeared to be a very lochy sort of loch (Forgive me!  I’ve been alone for a long time. Sense of humour malfunction…..)

The path initially followed a minor road and then forest tracks near the side of the loch, because the actual shoreline is often so steep that it would not be possible for a path to be routed along it.  The disadvantage of this approach is that only fleeting glimpses of the loch are available, which in today’s brilliant sunshine seemed a pity. On the advice of my B&B hostess, I decided to deviate from the path to head inland on a lovely woodland detour to the mouth of Loch Arkaig. On the way I passed Achnacarry House, seat of the Cameron Clan, glimpsed briefly through the trees. Apparently, the Camerons were amongst the most ferocious of the Highland Clans, and their rallying cry was, “Sons of the hounds, come hither and get flesh!”  They came a cropper though, because they supported Bonnie Prince Charlie and influenced many other clans to do the same. When the Prince’s forces were routed at the Battle of Culloden near Inverness, the head of the Cameron Clan, the “Gentle Lochiel” had to watch from the mountains as the victors burned his house down.

On the way I also passed a lovely waterfall, known as “the witch’s cauldron” after a witch who had been accused of casting a spell over the Lochiel of Cameron’s cattle. She was chased over the falls and drowned. Also, according to an information poster at the site, in the 1995 Liam Neeson film “Rob Roy”, he escapes his redcoat captors at these falls by leaping into the water.  It does seem from my travels (or at least from the information posters along the way), that the Highlands of Scotland was a very violent place!

Loch Lochy on the other hand was tranquillity itself today, and I returned to its side to walk its length along the forest track all the way to the locks of South Laggan at the upper end.  The sun’s reflection off the water of the loch well below me dappled the trees as I wandered through the forest, providing a curious sort of under-lighting, which I singularly failed to catch on camera. Probably I was too impatient and yet again, too lost in my thoughts.

Once more, I was back in the US, thinking about another lesson from my youth.  I had just arrived at the school at which I was enrolled and I had been told to report to the Students’ Office where I was to meet the President of the Students’ Union. The office was busy that morning, with a number of students coming and going, resolving minor issues with the kindly and rather matronly officials behind a counter. I joined a queue and eventually was told that no doubt the President had been held up, but that I should take a seat on a bench seat provided and await the President’s arrival. I did as I was told and they carried on with their work, ignoring my continuing presence.

After about half-an-hour, I grew restive. Surely, something must have gone wrong?  I approached a girl who had been sitting just a little further down the bench from me and I told her my problem as I prepared to leave. You’ll have guessed it!  She was the President of the Student’s Union!  In my prejudice, I had automatically assumed that the president would be male.  In her prejudice, she had automatically assumed that a student from South Africa would be black.  We had been sitting almost next to each other for half an hour, steeped in our prejudices!  We were both enormously embarrassed!

I’d like to think that I learned a big lesson that day, but sometimes I wonder....  It is so easy to leap to the wrong conclusion about things, based on a set of assumptions and inherent prejudices that are simply false. I wondered as I wandered down that forestry path today, just how many flawed judgements I have reached, even on this journey, based on insufficient information and inherent prejudices.

Maybe, for instance, there wasn’t all that much violence in the Highlands after all!  Maybe it’s just that the history of DWM (dead white men) is so biased towards their violence that it obscures the reality of the average citizen? And what about all those economic and political generalisations of mine?

Good grief!!!

This red deer stag wandered unconcerned into the field next to me. He took note of me, but saw no reason to move on. His antlers had the soft, furry look of new growth, but it can't be too long until the rutting season

Trees dappled in the sunshine

Loch Lochy appears

And looks as placid as a millpond in the still morning sunshine

A view up Loch Lochy towards my destination for today at the upper end

A view of Achnacarry House through the trees, the seat of the Lochiel of the Cameron Clan

Beautiful moss-covered rocks in the so-called Dark Mile

A view of Loch Arkaig, to which I had detoured

The waterfall into the "Witch's Cauldron"

Light filtering through the trees in the "Dark Mile"

Back on the easy forestry road through the conifer forests

Ben Nevis from Loch Lochy. It would soon disappear from view after four walking days in which I had at least caught sight of it

Loch Lochy

Most of the sheep have now been sheared. The lambs still don't look much older than when I met them in Cornwall!

Loch Ceann at the head of Loch Lochy, just before I rejoined the Caledonian Canal

Just above the lock at South Laggan. Apparently, the engineers raised the height of Loch Lochy by 3.65m (12ft) when they built the canal. I doubt that would have been agreed these days! I was going to have dinner on the barge in the photo, but I was told it was down for maintenance today! In July??!!