Fort William

A bit of a rare event this morning: I made it down to breakfast on my day off! Ok, I didn’t rush down there but I managed to be sat down before 9am which wasn’t bad.

As I was sat there tucking in to my cooked breakfast Ashley strolled in having stayed in the hotel last night too. In fact, as I found out later this evening, he was actually just across the corridor from me but as he gorged himself on McDonalds when he got to  Fort William and then crashed out for the rest of the night.

We had a good chat, or should I say moan, about the terrain and weather yesterday and we both agreed it was a pretty bad way to end the West Highland Way. Still, it was good to see him again and to have a nice chat to start the day. But, with a lot of things to sort out I couldn’t really hang around. We arranged to meet up in the restaurant for dinner and I headed off back to my room.

First job of the day was sorting out my accommodation for the next stint of the walk, all the way up to my final rest day – now there’s a thought. Matt’s been an absolute star in the background sorting out lists of places for me to check out at each stop along the route. Having those lists have made the job considerably easier and it wasn’t too long before I’d sorted it all out.

I’ve had to make a minor change to my plans due to the Loch Ness youth hostel being fully booked when I wanted to stay there, but, I managed to sort things out and I’m now set up all the way past Inverness. This now means I can concentrate on covering the miles instead of worrying about getting a bed for the night.

With that out the way I had to turn my attention to yesterday’s write-up, seeing as I’d ignored it last night after being so wiped out. I spent the usual couple of hours studying the route and looking at my notes and finally got it all sorted out and posted just after midday. It was a bit of a struggle but I did an ok job I think?

With the day fast disappearing I headed out the hotel in to Fort William town centre to stock up on supplies. As I was walking in I bumped in to Bas, the Dutch guy I met on the way in to Rowardennan. He’d been in Fort William for a couple of days, getting ahead of me after I took the day off at the hostel in Rowardennan, and was aiming on heading up Ben Nevis that afternoon. It was great to bump in to him again and wishing me luck he headed off down the high street.

I popped in to Tesco to stock up on food for my pack and to get some lunch. I found a bench and started to eat my sandwich when the rain started…joy. As I was sitting there Ashley walked past so we had another chat. He was on the look out for somewhere else to stay seeing as the hotel we’re staying at isn’t exactly the cheapest of places, nice as it is, and as he’s got another couple of nights planned in Fort William he wanted to save some pennies.

After we’d chatted I headed in to a pub to get out of the rain and enjoyed a nice pint while I uploaded some more photos to Flickr. I had a full 3G signal on my phone so I thought I’d take advantage of it, or is that just an excuse for me to try and justify having a pint?

By the time I’d finished in the pub the sun was out and it’d warmed up quite a bit. I strolled back to the hotel and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. I thought I’d better at least try and find some time to relax before walking again tomorrow.

The rest of the afternoon as spent watching trash TV on the massive number of channels on the TV in my room – four! It was pretty dire but at least I managed to put my feet up for a bit.

I had another Skype call with the girls which was again fantastic. I’m not too sure when I’ll be able to do another video call with them so having two on the trot has really put a smile on my face. Love those girls.

All sorted out I headed down to the restaurant, sat at the bar, ordered a pint and waited for Ashley to come down. He wasn’t too far behind me and we had a nice dinner and a good chat. As the girls had told me to have fish and chips for dinner, I did.

It’s been great bumping in to Ashley again, especially knowing that I’ll not bump in to anyone I know along the final stages of the walk. Ho hum.

I didn’t want a late night as I’ve got a long twenty two mile stretch to do tomorrow so we settled up and I went back to my room to start sorting out my stuff, all of which seemed to be spread all over the room!

Yes, I’ve managed to relax a bit today but to be honest I still feel utterly shattered. Hopefully tomorrow will go well, setting me up for a good penultimate leg of my walk. We’ll see tomorrow won’t we?

Photos

I f you want to find out more about this day you can see the photos I took.