Day 12: Fort William to Kinlochleven

Distance: 15.5 miles
Time: 6 hrs
Weather: Cloudy
Cumulative distance: 211.0 miles

Starting the West Highland Way and managing to miss the rain.

Last night I ate at Cobb's, a bistro/bar attached to a sports shop. Another excellent, good value meal - venison and stilton pie, new potatoes and four fresh veg accompanied by some Otter ale from the Isle of Skye brewery.

As the Travelodge only offered a continental breakfast in a box, I popped into the nearby Tesco Metro to buy my own assortment of breakfast and lunch items for the next couple of days. These were more enticing and much better value than the Travelodge version.

The West Highland Way starts (or technically, finishes) from right outside the Travelodge , so I could see the plaque from my bedroom window. The WHW is a 97 mile path which links Glasgow (well Milngavie to the north of the city) with Fort William.

After following the road for a couple of miles, the path then climbed steeply up a forestry road and then transitioned into a narrow stony track which traversed the mountain for a long distance. I passed about 50 people and 10 mountain bikers making the journey in the opposite direction and eventually caught up a couple who had taken my route.

It was cloudy throughout the day and the air felt damp, but somehow it didn't actually rain. A few walkers mentioned to be that it had rained in Kinlochleven this morning, so I'd been lucky again.

I checked into my second youth hostel of the trip and found myself in a four bed dorm with en suite facilities. I met Ross, one of my roommates, who is from Glasgow and is helping to build a via ferrata zip wire nearby.

I still take each day as it comes, but am delighted that I have now exceeded 200 miles. In fact, 211 miles is exactly the distance from home to Liverpool, which feels like a long way. I know that this is a fraction of my total journey, but I don't ever think about the long distance remaining.