Day 1 | Fort William to Spean Bridge | 23km

Ah, the East Highland Way. The smaller, quieter, younger cousin of the West Highland Way. This hike has been on my radar for a while and I have finally managed to get round to walking it with my good friend Jen Jen.

We were dropped off by my brother in Fort William (chur bro), the rain gently pattering down and the windscreen wipers working for the entire journey. We took our photos beside the traditional terminus statue by the ‘Spoons, laughing in the drizzle as we did so, before bidding Cam adieu and walking down the high street. Adventure time, yay!

But, like, within twenty metres, we stopped. Needed to buy more gas just in case! Don’t want to be running out of hot meals! But then, yes, we were off for sure. We walked out of Fort William along the hard pavements, cars splashing along until we turned off, past the industrial estate and into the woods. Finally! There was heaps of trash about unfortunately, including a good coat hanger. One up on the clothe pegs Reid (and now me too) carried maybe?

The trail continued along muddy forestry paths, just in some nice solid woodland. Fresh air after walking beside the roads. We crossed many burns which were in spate from the rain, swollen and rushing downhill all in a hurry. Rain continued to fall on us but we weren’t too fussed. Jen Jen did find out that her waterproof wasn’t quite as waterproof as she had thought though!  

Soon lunch was upon us and with the light rain not abating in the slightest, we decided to shelter under a tree and eat our lunch there. However, this is where disaster and a lack of foresight struck! I had thrown all my lighters away when I flew back from New Zealand since they weren’t allowed on planes and so, uh, yeah… I had no lighter. Whoops! No hot food for lunch then it seems! Not to worry though, we were coming upon the town of Spean Bridge soon so I could just pick one up there. No stress… Still, it was a bit embarrassing!

After lunch, we pushed on, following the uncaring pylons above us and the soft forestry path beneath our feet east. And finally, finally, the sun decided to show itself as the rain let up. Ah Scotland, how you tease us. We got to the junction where we could have taken a shortcut along a road filled with cars into Spean Bridge buuutt… It was a busy road, so we just followed the trail up and round (found a dog’s tennis ball and saw the only other walker around today) before finally walking into Spean Bridge where we shed our waterproofs and I bought a lighter. Hopefully, this lighter will be with me forever from now on, you only need sparks really!

As the afternoon grew older, we pushed on, walking out of Spean Bridge and then alongside the river Spean, passing many sheep farms. Jen Jen told me allll the sheep breeds. A couple of the names even stuck in my head. Shocking. We got to the Insh Scout campground and camped nearby, signs warning us off camping on the really nice patches of grass down by the river. Still, a decent campsite. It was beside a back country road with no traffic except for one guy driving back and forth from a farm with a sticker on the back of his car declaring it a ‘Financial Mistake’.

We sat in the tent as it started to rain again (at least we got a dry afternoon!), chatting and reading before we made our dinner and fell asleep. Good day, back out breathing fresh air and moving. I had some hot spots on my feet though, what’s that about!?

Day 2 | Spean Bridge to Loch Laggan | 28km

We were up by 06:30 and I had water on a boil for tea and breakfast soon after. Yeah, this breakfast… I can only apologise to Jen Jen again, her porridge was more liquid than solid… Oops… My hand may have accidentally slipped when pouring her some water for her porridge!

We set off, continuing alongside the river Spean, passing through some farm land, cold squidgy mud around our feet. However! We did see our first waymarker! This trail is so quiet that it doesn’t have heaps of waymarkers like the other trails do, so we were being quite reliant upon the map. This farm we passed through with the marker, it was evidently a sheep farm. They all had curly curly horns, basically making a pair of glasses for the ewes to peer out of.

A school group on mountain bikes zoomed past us as we were heading uphill after this hill before we came across a manicured, whitewashed cottage which just looked ever so idyllic. Could you ever imagine living so remotely in the highlands of Scotland? Would it get lonely, or would it be romantic, or would it just be cold? Hmmm

More sheep dotted the path ahead of us as we passed through the old, ruined croft of Achnacochine. We had a snack stop here, perched atop the tumble down walls. One of the end of the house still remained standing and you could see where the family would have had a fire roaring year round to stave off the cold… What a life! After this snack stop though, I got my poles out for the first time since we had a slippery river crossing, each stone covered in moss and slime, more green than grey. The water was cold as well and my feet were still relatively wet so I didn’t particularly want to slip and fall and land with a foot in the river, á la Reid at Stone Hut.

After crossing this river and finding the track again, we pushed on up the hill and into Inverlair Forest, tall pine trees on every side of us. There were mountains about us as well (the Grampians), through the small gaps in the trees. Soon though, we were heading back downhill, dipping back onto a road and round towards Fersit. There was a horizontal line, high up along the hill to our right where an abandoned railway ran apparently. That was cool to see, I like trains.

We walked along this road, passing An Dubh Lochan where we sat for a bit observing the majestical mountains surrounding us before pushing on to a farm where we sat and ate our lunch. Had a lighter this time, could make hot tea. Winning!

The afternoon was filled with heaps of forest that we walked through above a reservoir that was fed by the river Spean. There seemed to be Munros everywhere all around us and it was just extremely pleasant walking. We chatted as we went, getting to the end of the reservoir and on to the bottom of Loch Laggan where we called it for the day. After hunting about for a bit, we found the most perfect campsite ever and pitched up. It was a bit blustery, the tent shaking and flapping about us, but we had a bit of tree cover and a view over the loch as the sun set, soft golden light leaking through the grey cloud cover to light up the beach that was close by.

Day 3 | Loch Laggan to Dalnashallag Bothy | 33km

OK, longest day. We were up and hustling quite early. We were aiming for a bothy though we so weren’t too stressed since, in theory, we wouldn’t have to set up our tent that night… Let’s see how that turns out shall we?

We marched along the banks of Loch Laggan, a good night of rest behind us. We chatted as we made our way through all the woodlands and forest. At our first break for shedding off some layers since we were too warm, Jen Jen tied my hair up into a ponytail since I had mentioned it… Not gonna lie, I actual quite like it up like that! Trying to make Reidso proud!

The mountain Binnein Shios loomed over us on our right, standing like a sentinel that we rounded, working our way up hill to the end of Lochan an H-Earba… No idea in the world you go about pronouncing that, good luck. We turned sharply back east and continued along forestry paths until we past the end of the loch and started walking the River Pattack. We ate our lunch under a copse of trees which looked like the home of fairies or something. Quiet with pine needles everywhere, their scent in the air with the birds singing away up in the upper branches and mushrooms pushing through at the base of the trees. Some cyclists passed us, dressed in bright lycra so they wouldn’t get lost.

After lunch, we continued on, passing the Pattach Falls and through into the Black Wood. Here, we played a game as we walked and Jen Jen discovered just how bad at games I am. I played the name game with Cam on the Cape Wrath Trail (pick a person real or fictional, past or present, and the other people have to ask yes-no questions to deduce who it is) and I took an hour or so to guess a single person. I am terrible at these games! This time around, as we walked through a beautiful old forest, dripping with lichen, we played the song game where we had to guess songs that we both knew, based off one of us humming part of the melody. Again, terrible at this!

We passed beneath the ruins of a Pictish Fort, Dun da Lamh, and emerged onto a backcountry cuisine road which we walked along and into Laggan village. We passed Highland Coos en route, surrounded by the highlands. Just imagine when all the heather blooms and the hills go from brown to purple! In the village, there were signs warning cars to be careful of red squirrels which are endangered here in Scotland due to the presence of the more aggressive, larger grey squirrel. Jen Jen was immediately on the lookout for red squirrels – she hadn’t seen one yet, despite being in Scotland for quite a while now!  

At this point, we had a small road walk which was an unwelcome section since, well, I really dislike walking on roads with cars whooshing past. Nah, not my cup of tea. We hurried along and turned off of it after a couple kilometres and walked up the back of the small hamlet of Balgowan through an echoey forest towards the glen where the bothy was situated. And yeah, you read that right, the forest echoed… We chatted away and our voices came back at us! Pretty cool!

We emerged from the forest and crossed some open moorland/bog where we trapsed our way towards a 4WD track that was leading up the glen we were headed to. Once we emerged from the bog and onto the track, we took a seat in the dirt as evening came on to us. We looked back at where we had come from, across the quiet glen. There were birds singing quietly and the wind rustled the stiff heather. The sun slanted through the clouds and onto the hillsides. We sat there, appreciating the beauty for a good long moment, quietly eating some Kendal Mint Cake (stuff which powered Shackleton’s Antarctic expeditions and Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay up Everest. Clearly the EHW is of a similar calibre).

It was time to get going and get to the bothy before dark though and so we set off once more towards the bothy, finally arriving close to 19:00. Balnashallag bothy wasn’t maintained by the Mountain Bothy Association (MBA), but rather by the estate and as such, when we entered through the door, stooping to avoid the lintel, I saw to my great disappointment that there were no beds and we had to pitch the tent anyways!… Good thing we both liked my beautiful Hilleberg!

Finally having pitched it, we could rest our aching feet and we climbed into our sleeping bags as I put some water on for a cup of tea and some dinner. There was the most beautiful stream close by. Tumbledown rocks, ice cool water and a happy babbling noise, it soothed us to sleep that night before long.

Day 4 | Dalnashallag Bothy to Ruthven | 21km

Well, after a long day yesterday, it was a short day today. As such, we had a ‘lie in’, meaning we slept in another half an hour. Luxury, right? We packed up slowly, washing our faces in the river close by, it’s ice coolness waking us as good as a cup of caffeine does! Jen Jen was a big advocate of this type of waking up.

Our feet had been dry thus far. Fortunate, especially since we had been walking through moorlands and bogs and it had rained. Well, that ended within ten minutes of starting today since both us separately ended up squelching through water and mud, getting our feet lovely and wet. Joys!…

We pushed our way down Glen Banchor, crossing a fancy new deer fence, separating a section of the glen off from the deer. This fence was proper fancy mind you, high end sorta thing. After bog womping our way down the glen, following the River Calder, we arrived onto a road which we followed into civilisation, Newtonmore. There were tonnes of birds twittering away, sending each other tweets no doubt. There was an old folk walking group ahead of us which we followed until we found a café, The Wild Flour. This place was incredibly cute. Pastel purple and teapots you could only find at your grandmother’s house lined the shelves. We had ourselves an early lunch, some hot chocolate and tea. What a treat.

We then headed to the co-op and stocked up on some more essentials, primarily peanut butter, wraps (mine had been nibbled by rats!) and some fresh vegetables! Gotta stay healthy after all. We then headed along the road to continue on the trail. The next section was actually closed, but Jen Jen found a little work-around on the map and so we headed up that way.

We cruised past some fancy farm houses (one of them for sale!) on our work-around before heading down a farm track, fences on both sides penning in flocks of sheep. We even saw a deer nibbling on the grass and we passed within five metres of it! It looked well uncertain and was very skittish despite us making as much space around it as we could. At the end of the farm track, we met back on to the EHW trail and turned east again, heading across some moorland. There was a large bunch of people heading towards us, another school trip it seems!

We walked on past them and up to Loch Gynack. There was a grand old, stately building at the other end of the loch and we walked along the banks of it and into a forest as it started spitting with rain. Joy oh joys. We passed through another birch forest and down into Kingussie, arriving at tea time at The Duke of Gordon, a pub café hotel thing where we got ourselves another cup of tea… You can see a trend right, we both like tea! We checked our messages as we sat at the picnic benches outside of the hotel. Alllll the tea stops.

We then continued out of civilisation for the last time today and headed along a road, over some train tracks (yay!), past the high school and under the A9. We walked on the quiet country road and looked out across Ruthven Barracks. Amazing! These tumble down barracks were built way back in the eighteenth century after one of the many Jacobite uprisings. Most northerly fortification built by George II to control the Highlands. It sits proudly atop a small hillock on the floor of the large glen, keeping watch over the area through its broken windows. History is so cool. We joked about camping inside of it, both of our feet were quite sore at this point. We were very much semi serious as well…

We continued on past it though until we reached the Invertromie trail. I must confess, at this point, I was getting a bit grumbly and anxious since the light was starting to fade, but we found ourselves a good place to wild camp. Well, it was a good place except for the fact that it was on RSPB reserve land, just off the track. We were kinda afraid that someone would come along and tell us to bugger off, but it was raining and we doubted anyone would be coming out for a walk… So we risked it. Plus, it was evening and we would be off early in the morning! Won’t lie, I was a bit stressed about that until I had had a cup of tea, eaten some dinner and rationalised it out. Jen Jen wasn’t stressed at all, of course. It was a prime camping spot though, looked out over all of the glen just like the Ruthven Barracks! We drifted off to sleep to the sound of rain, drumming down. 

Day 5 | Ruthven to Aviemore | 28km

We packed up quickly in the morning, aware that we might not actually allowed to be there since it was RSPB reserve land. Still unsure about those rules… No one passed us though thankfully and we continued along the Invertromie Trail early in the day. There were heaps and heaps of camping spots along this section and my goodness, they were all so good! We would have had absolutely no trouble finding a hidden place if we had continued on just a wee bit… Ours was pretty sweet though so ‘no ragrets, not even one letter’.

We passed over the ancient humpback Tromie Bridge, and walked through Drumguish (where we saw red squirrels to Jen Jen’s delight!) and along some more forestry paths. We chatted as we walked along before we got lost, trying to get around the hill Craig Far-leitire since we were following signs for the Speyside Way which, evidently, follows a different trail to the EHW! We were fools, whoops. Got carried away, walking amongst the tall pines.

We eventually found our way to the banks of Loch Insh where heaps of memories came back to me. I had been here when I was, like, eleven or something on a school trip to the outdoor centre. Jen Jen and I sat on the beach for a small while whilst we watched some kids in big Canadian canoes row past painfully slowly. There was a kid telling his partner to row faster whilst he sat at the back doing sod all. Sounds like me on the Whanganui River!… There was a large flock of swallows swooping and dancing and waltzing less than a metre above the loch surface, an aerial display better than any air show with planes.

We picked up some more water at the outdoor centre where the kids in canoes had come from before we sat on the sandy beach and ate our lunch. Eating food on sandy surfaces is always risky and indeed, my wraps were slightly more crunchy from the added sand.

From there, we continued on through some farms until we came upon the Sculpture Trail which we toured around for a bit. We were in absolutely no rush, we didn’t have far to Aviemore from here after all. These sculptures were made by a guy called Frank Bruce where he carved them from dead trees, and then is letting nature reclaim them so that the sculptures change over time, you know? Art, innit?

We crossed Feshie Bridge where I immediately thought of Rob. If Rob was here, he would have stripped off (or maybe not) and dived straight into the river below. It was crystal clear and deep and looked inviting. You know how some things just look so inviting? Like, a lit up house in a cold and snowy night? Or a sofa and some blankets and book whilst it is grey and raining outside? Or a cool, clear river in the height of summer? Yeah…

Nearing the end, we eagerly continued on our way. We passed through the (badly named) Moor of Feshie which was actually just a really large forest. Tall pines swayed as one in the wind, akin to a field of grass or wheat swaying in the wind. The sun was out in force at this point and I covered up and lathered up on suncream whilst Jen Jen did the opposite and wanted to get a tan going. Oh the contrast. Oh the joys of being ginger. We got to Drake’s Bothy (another one which wasn’t looked after by the MBA) and we sat on the grass for a good while, drinking some tea and basking in the sun. I missed a spot with my suncream and my neck was turning very red by the time we got going again. Jen Jen so totally didn’t tease me about it…

The last stretch from here. Our shoulders were sore, our hips were bruised, but what a wonderful time we had had. We walked up to Loch an Eilein and round the side, seeing the ruined castle in the middle of the loch (because who needs fantasy novels when you have Scotland?) before we headed along the last bit and into Aviemore. Walking the last road section was a bit surreal and is the same as every end of trail, it passes in both slow motion and also is over before you know it. We walked into Aviemore and to the hostel where we had booked some beds and then just… Collapsed. Finished. What a trip. We got a Chinese takeaway and ate it in the quiet hostel before we did some washing and had some showers and then we headed to sleep.

I would just like to thank Jen Jen for accompanying me on this trip. Spending time in the Highlands with friends is just simply the best. I am sure she will love doing the West Highland Way with my sister later this summer (when the midges will be out in force though!).