Hiking alongside the wonderful Lochs...........NOT!

This is what was in our minds, A lovely, although very long, hike along the shores of Loch Ness. That's how it looked to us on the map. The reality was quite different!


After we had left Fort Augustus check point, Paul and I set off on the first leg of the hiking section to the Bronze finish at Invermoriston. We chatted about the biking leg, how brilliant it was and how we would love to do that section again some time. Blah, Blah blah and LOST. Now the guy at the Safety Briefing said that we would have to be pretty constructive to get lost as they had laid out markers all along the route to keep us on track. Here we were, 5 minutes left to our own devices and we had arrived at a road junction, no markers, no signs, nothing. We had to backtrack along the road until we saw this great big fluorescent sign with a great big black arrow, pointing left up a country track.

When I say UP a country track I emphasise the UP bit. There was a lot of UP bits, Up bits that would take the breath away from mere mortals, but not us! Onwards and upwards!



All the hiking sections are quite a blur really, I can't remember which sections were where but I do remember coming down the hillside into Invermoriston and hearing a brass band playing away in the distance, could this be for us? Yup and quite tear jerking it was too as we approached the checkpoint. We asked this lovely woman to take a photo of Paul and myself, unfortunately she was 'too busy' eh? Got one in the end though from some helpful guy.

Looking and feeling good at the bridge at Invermoriston. With loads of people clapping and waving, we checked in and then went into the village hall to gather some supplies. One of Maggie's volunteer helpers was dishing out cracking rolls and ham/cheese etc with a salad. We both scoffed one of these down changes socks, replenished our bags. As we were leaving I fancied another roll and ham to go but the lady had already put them onto paper plates with the salad etc. I asked her if I could just have a roll on its own. None too pleased about this, she said "typical man, won't eat his greens" I tried to explain that I had just eaten one of her lovely rolls with salad and was just wanting another to take with me, but...Got my roll though, then Paul asked for the same and lifted a roll off one of the made up plates. This totally confused our poor helper, as now she had these two plates full of salad but with no rolls. I could see her wondering if she should just add more rolls to the salads or bin the whole lot and start again. We beat a hasty retreat. On checking back out again we picked up some jelly beans (for Paul) and a couple of bars of chocolate. (Brilliant organisation) We had light sticks tied to our bags by Maggie's helpers, for the night section. These are like the things you get at the fair, when it gets dark we had to bend them which mixed some stuff in the sticks and they lit up as if by magic. We left Invermoriston at 1:25 pm