fort augustus and the great glen hike - day 5

the again half sunny half gloomy lake wished us a very good morning~~
we started the day by wandering around fort augustus, a tiny little town at the southern end of loch ness.

the half cloudy half sunny canal connecting to the loch.


pepper light house, aint it cute? ^^

and finally, the loch!

then we went to a farm~
kissing hares!

highland cows with their uncut hair~ like me!

sheep family~

blond highland horses, placid looking highland donkeys, botak highland sheep, everything highlands ^^



"working around the croft. see you there."
this is how we paid for the visit to the farm, coins into a slotted tin ^^

wooden woodman ^^

and that's goodbye fort augustus~

there, we've got the map of the great glen in the camera~ now we wont get lost XD

and it's time for the hike! we were heading north east, back to the direction of inverness. leafy rough sand paths, see de great glen sign along the route, guiding the walkers :)



here! pines! we've unknowingly chosen the toughest part of the great glen, where climbing becomes serious XD U2's "Elevation" blasting in the background again XD

there's a glimpse of the lake, right hand side near centre height, too bright to mean anything in this picture tho ^^ it was dimmer in the woods as u can imagine. loved the rays! ^^

At some point, the woods are so dense their finer branches are all interwoven, admitting minimal light thru. the floor of those parts of the forest is carpeted by moss. occationally, slim creeks break thru the black and white rocks underlying the thin layer of greeny mossy earth. the freshly exposed internal rock surfaces are a crystal like regal white, while the weathered surfaces are black. one thing missing was the game trails... no animals on feets in this part of the loch? or they just dont come close to the great glen... or they just escaped my untrained eyes XP

we weren't quite alone. the walk is accompanied by voices from birds chirping, wind sweeping across the highland pine tree tops, our rythemic footsteps, backpack and jackets rubbing against each other, water bottles guggling, and my pedometer going "tik tik tik..." with every impact my hip bears as my either foot makes contact with the solid path.

well, no scottish song. incredulously, it was jay's 断了的弦 wrapping around me this time aroud as we march on ^^

later i read in a book shop when we got back to inverness:
"I was a listener in the woods,
I was a gazer at the stars"
Cormac macAirt, legendary high king of Tara, Ireland.

haha... he was one of us XD

when we got to the peak of the climb, the path opened up a little, and at some point, we got here

u see i already unzipped my jacket XD
here, we have an open view to the spice island. at the edge of a clift, the pines no longer hinder our view of the lake :)



the snowy mountains in the back drop ^^

after a series of decend, there we've almost walked the first one third of the day's intended distance :)

we continue on without so much a rest :P yean with her scarf in hand now ^^


and the moss ^^

the long lake and a glimpse of the main road down there~


and then, the path started to turn rocky... and we were starting to get tired :P

and the rain came... and we hung on XD

but still, there are interested stuffs along~ like... clovers and fairy settlements ^^


we passed thru a site where sign boards told us that that portion of the forest is undergoing reservation, where the woods were cut down... cut down for reservation??? ok... there's a flash of human ingenuity that i havnt yet grasp. logs were piled up at the two sides of the great glen in stacks. rough engineering estimation says most of them are at least centurians. compared with the size of my yearling baby xmas tree, these giants might well be so elderly...

oh... i havnt mention it here... remember my favourite baby xmas that went missing after i came back from summer in msia? it miraculously reappeared in my room, MY ROOM!! sitting on my cabinet, the day i came back from scotland... dont ask...

and another fun piece to add
"A section of the walking route will be closed to all walkers due to major timber harvesting between 1st November 2008 and 31st March 2009.
The section that will be closed is between Fort Augustus and Invermoriston, and we have to inform walkers that there are NO route diversions possible for this part of the walk. The exact location where the work is being undertaken is between Allt na Criche and Rubha Ban." [source: http://www.greatglenway.fsnet.co.uk/walk.html, site visited: 18/04/09, after coming back obviously...]

phew, this was close... yean would have killed me, and i would have allowed it, if we had to turn back to fort augustus from there XD

and eventually, we saw our destination from distant, invermoriston~~~ horray~~~!!!

hiker's path crosses with the cycler's path on the decend to the village :)

there's yean, very far way in the steep decend thru a very dim patch :P

and these lovely ones welcomed us to invermoriston! :D

and these bridges and structures are again standing here since medieval days~ sorry for the bad picture, u can see how tired i was XD


we ended the hike around 1.30pm. thought we've had a tough day? nay, not done yet XP from invermoriston, we hopped onto a bus to urquhart castle~ "brave heart" and drumnadrochit next ^^