Thursday 21st April 2016 – 971.53 miles
Slept OK last night – ground sloping a bit so found we’d slid down somewhat by the morning! Fortunately the tent pegs were well in the ground.

At this stage of the walk, taking down and packing away the tent etc. is almost automatic. Cold morning but not frosty and we were away by 6.45 again.

Reasonably easy walking along valleys – the path still very uneven and rocky though. We saw Nicolai and Jonas in the distance who had just broken camp and started walking on towards Fort William. This part of the walk follows closely the contours of the mountain so was relatively level except for when it descended to a burn and climbed up again.

Resting for breakfast we saw clouds starting to form around the high ground above us. It was amazing to see it up so close. It soon warmed up as the sun rose higher behind us so another layer of clothing came off at the next stop.

The track varied between a rubble surface and sometimes fine gravel so the pace varied accordingly. As we got about 4 miles into the day we met “the young ones” as they were getting ready to break camp.

They had wild camped as well but had found a more level pitch! We had a great chat about our experiences so far and about the sort of kit we each used. We said our goodbyes to Willem, Jolien, James and Sam.

The walk now was easier, passing through an area where a great deal of logging has been done – on the O.S. map it is evergreen woodland. Very soon we came to the parting of the ways. To the left was a narrow single track lane and to the right, a rocky looking footpath. We decided to take the country lane!

So relaxing to be able to walk on an even surface and admire the view as we walked along without fear of tripping over rocks etc. It was a glorious day and, like yesterday afternoon, I walked without coat and overtrousers.

Would you believe it, we are still seeing daffodils and spring baby lambs!

We had some amazing views of Ben Nevis to our right, still capped with snow, as the road wound through farmland and gradually up a steep incline to Blarmachfoldach Viewpoint at the top.

It overlooks Fort William and gives a good view all around. We met Katy and her young dog Ezra at the viewpoint and she gave us information about shops and the end of the WHW too – thanks Katy.

It didn’t take us long to walk down into the town centre where we met Lucy who had also just completed the West Highland Way and we took each other’s photo sitting near the now famous statue of the man with sore feet – our feet weren’t sore, I think they’ve given up complaining!

We treated ourselves to a pint of beer in Wetherspoons then walked along the high street towards the supermarket. We went into Phone Clinic 4U to buy a spare battery for my phone and met Zeeshan.

He saw that we were walking for Macmillan and gave us a discount and also gave us a donation too plus 2 bottles of water – thanks Zeeshan, it was good to meet you.
After buying a couple of things from Tesco we took a taxi to the Clan MacDuff hotel – thanks Brian of Woody’s Taxi. We stayed at the same hotel last year with our friends George and Lyn. Needless to say we had a relaxing afternoon and evening doing nothing much. A good way to end our walk along the West Highland Way.