Tom: After spending the night up in the North Face car park again we headed back down into Glen Nevis and booked into the camp site. Rachael was keen to start watching the new purchase, Two Thousand Acres of Sky. Little did I know it would become the main interest for the rest of the week!
The next morning we drove up into Fort William to find a suitable place for Rachael to begin to make the ‘minor corrections’ to her PhD. I parked up in the Morrison’s car park and she headed to the local library. I drove back down to the bottom of Glen Nevis and spent a glorious afternoon wondering around the buttresses of Polldubh situated on the South-West slopes of Ben Nevis. The crags are a compex maze of steep shabby buttresses situated in a woodland environment. I have climbed there on many occasions but on reaching the upper section had to work harder than expected to find a suitable route back down towards the van as it was pretty overgrown and wet underfoot.
On reaching the van I took the opportunity I had never had before to turn on the gas and stand in the kitchen of the van and make myself a cup of tea.
Having drunk the tea and eaten a couple of Tunnocks bars I drove back up the Glen stopping off at the campsite to register for another night using the facilities.
I drove back into Fort Bill to find Rachael in Costa still working incredibly hard.
Rachael: Meanwhile, I’d had a not particularly entertaining day of working in Costa. I still had a few corrections to do on my thesis, but spent the best part of my time there trying to open the file. After I’d managed a couple of hours of solid work, Tom appeared and rescued me, and we went back to the campsite for dinner and more Two Thousand Acres of Sky.
On Wednesday we kicked off the day with a big Morrisons breakfast, and then wasted all that energy wandering around the shops in Fort Bill. Then back to the campsite for more DVD watching.
On Thursday, Tom was eager to carry on watching TTAOS, which we had both developed a minor addiction to. In fact, we binge watched the entire series and barely moved all day. I’m sure Tom would like to thank me for my excellent recommendation even if it did take over our lives for a while.
Friday was a day of decent weather, so we drove down to Glencoe to walk up to the Lost Valley, a walk we’ve been meaning to do every time we’ve come up this way and somehow never got round to before. My foot was still giving me gip but I encased it in my sturdy walking boots and walked a bit gingerly on it which meant we went more slowly than usual. The walk is pretty rocky and there are some areas where you need to use your hands, bum, or any other body parts that are handy to get up or down the rocks, but we managed fine. The scenery along the way is extremely cool – lots of trees and waterfalls, just my sort of thing. And up at the top of the walk is the Lost Valley, so-called because you’d never guess it was there from the main road, and it used to be a hiding place for rustled cattle.
We got back to the van in time for a cup of tea and a jam on the guitar/ukulele as the light was fading. Then we found a great car park to stay the night in Glencoe, just a short walk through the woods to the Clachaig Inn, a popular pub/hotel which often has live music. It’s another favourite spot of ours. We had a couple of jars and then merrily meandered back through the woods to the van.
On Saturday, we decided to head back to Fort Bill so I could finish my corrections in Wetherspoons and Tom could go for a walk. However, after a Curry Club lunch at Spoons Tom spotted the Scotland v Wales rugby match on the TV and instead of going for a walk sat transfixed while I again spent a few hours trying to open the files I needed and doing a solid half hour of real work. I threw in the towel around the same time as Scotland did, and we retreated back to the Clachaig for dinner and live music, and they let us stay in the car park outside since it was pretty quiet. This meant we were an even shorter stumbling distance from the bar than the night before!
By Sunday those pesky PhD corrections were weighing on my mind. The best solution was to go back to the campsite in Glen Nevis so that I could work in peace as long as I wanted, Tom could go for a walk, and then we could wash all our clothes and ourselves in preparation for moving on into the unknown the following week.
Tom: Having disassembled the bed we drove on request to one of Rachael’s favourite breakfast venues: the Ballachulish Visitor Centre and Tourist Information. We both thoroughly enjoyed full breakfast rolls which set us up very nicely for the remainder of the day. We the got back in the van and headed back up to Glen Nevis camp site.
On arrival at the camp site we discovered that it was to be the final night it was open as it was shutting up until 15th March! Complete lucky timing on our behalf as it would allow us to shower, wash our clothes and both fill and empty the vans fluid contents.
I required a decent walk and decided having walked past on countless occasions on my way into routes on ‘The Beinn’ that I would wonder up the hill in the shadow of Ben Nevis, Meall an t-Suidhe. I understand the translation to mean something about a bare rounded lumpy hill with something to do with a seat or sitting, a huge contrast to the translation of Nibheis (Nevis) which means malicious or venomous! The Autumnal colours in the late afternoon light seemed to be at their absolute best as I wandering up from Glen Nevis Youth Hostel (which has been recently completely refurbished both inside and out and looks very impressive). I passed several people clearly on their way down off summiting Ben Nevis and on arrival at the half-way lochan (Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe) the sun was starting to fade in the sky causing a pink glow over the far western hills of Ardgour. I cut a line up to the ridge leading to the double summit of Meall an t-Suidhe threading my way way around deep boggy puddles. The summit was dwarfed by the North-Western flanks of Ben Nevis but gave a fantastic panoramic view from the West into the North-East towards the Great Glen.
I descended the heathery boulder field making up the hillside back toward the path that runs alongside the halfway lochan. I arrived on the path after a wobble crossing the final make-do very loose stepping stones across the end of the locan as the sun went down. On reaching what was the ‘hole in the wall’ (there is now no longer a wall), a frequently used stopping place on ventures up The Beinn, I had a couple of cups of the coffee I had carried in my flask along with a piece of shortbread. I then made for the van down the very well reconstructed mountain path.
Whenever I am struggling for energy walking in the hills I am nearly always able to remind myself that someone has constructed the path I am walking on. I very quickly convince myself that there is nothing to complain or struggle about!
On reaching the fork in the path that either leads back to the Youth Hostel or to the Ben Nevis Inn at Achentee I decided to make the walk as round as possible. About fifty metres after deciding to head to Achentee I rounded a corner and came across two people walking incredibly close together using the light of their phone. It transpired that one of them (Michael) has twisted his ankle pretty badly whilst descending Ben Nevis having began their walk at 09:30. It was now nearly 18:00 so I assisted in helping them back down to the visitor centre where they had parked their car.
On arriving back at the van Rachael had completed her corrections of her PhD. A great afternoon for all!
Rachael: Not only had I more or less finished my PhD corrections, I’d also sketched out a map of the UK and Ireland with places we’d like to go and rough mileages and planned out a possible route that would get us between them. But first, we needed to find a way to celebrate Bonfire Night that didn’t involve us just setting fire to some toast, or hanging drawing and quartering a chorizo sausage. We googled the options and found a couple of possibilities.
So on Monday we paid a visit to the tourist information centre in Fort Bill, who told us that our preferred option of Ballachulish was not going ahead this year, and our only other option was Glenfinnan, which would send us on our way to Mull a day earlier than planned. We had to get lunch, shopping, fuel, and a birthday card for Big Phil, so split up met back at the car for 5.15pm to make sure we got a parking spot at Glenfinnan.
Sadly it was already dark so we didn’t see the viaduct where they filmed the flying car scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but we’d already been a couple of years ago (of course). We had a little potter (haha) around the National Trust shop and then went across the road to the field by the monument (which honours those who died fighting for the Jacobite cause). There was a humungous bonfire and a pretty impressive firework display. Well done to the locals who organised it!
Further down the road we found a place to park up for the night by Loch Eilt, another filming location for Harry Potter, this time the final resting place of Dumbledore and the place where Hagrid uttered the line “Buckbeak’s been sentenced to death!”. Classic cinema.
As we bedded down for the night we saw a train pass across the loch and I realised that the Hogwarts Express (otherwise known as the Jacobite steam train) must be passing by in the morning! All the years we’ve been coming to the highlands and I’ve never managed to get on the train or even see it! I went to sleep like a child on Christmas eve, and set my alarm so that I could be awake to see it. Come morning, I staked out the window eagerly awaiting the puff of smoke that would signal its arrival. As the minutest ticked on I ran calculations in my head as to where it could be and why it might have been delayed. Eventually Tom asked whether I’d checked it was definitely running. I quickly googled it and discovered that the trains stop running for the winter in October Pooh.
Anyway, the loch was pretty enough in itself, and we had a good drive up and around the headland to Kilchoan to catch the ferry to Mull. Most people come to Mull through the Oban ferry which lands at Craignure, but Tobermory, another ferry terminal on Mull, is one of the most picturesque villages in the whole of the UK – you may recognise the colourful shop fronts from the kids’ TV programme Balamory. So I thought “why not drive the long way round to get the ferry directly into Tobermory?! Then we could see it from the see! And it’ll be sunset too! Wow, what a treat!”
The drive round to Kilchoan was gorgeous, filled with little fishing villages, big estates with stately homes, and selection of artistically derelict old buildings. I loved it. Around one corner we saw an impressive vista of the Sound of Mull, and the information boards told us there were a number of Bronze age settlements and an extinct volcano. We wondered why nobody really comes this way!
We reached Kilchoan ferry terminal about two and a half hours before the ferry was due to sail since we didn’t want a repeat of Barragate. The blanket of cloud was pierced with rays of sunshine and the sea was a millpond. We brewed up a cup of tea and had beans and chorizo on toast, repaired some tears in Diggy’s seats, did a bit of knitting and had a quick jam on the uke/tin whistle while we were waiting. Outside the van the blanket of cloud turned darker, the wind picked up, the sea got choppier, and the sun started to set with very little glamour. By the time the ferry arrived the sea was starting to get aggressive and the light had gone.
Nevertheless we drove on to the ferry and paid up. As we were the first in the queue we were right at the front with the door/ramp of the boat directly in front and over the top of us. The ferry set off and we prepared to leave the van, only to notice that everyone else was sitting in their cars. After a few seconds we realised why: the sea comes in across the ferry floor and was splashing over the top. So our entry into Mull was not quite the sunlit multicoloured spectacle that we envisaged. Instead we saw nothing but the inside of the ferry until we disembarked into a pitch black rainy Tobermory.
Although it was only 5.20pm most of the shops were shut and we had no mobile signal, so we were on our own when it came to finding a place to stay. After a failed exploration of Dervaig, which had one very much closed pub/hotel, we settled on a quiet woodland car park as our camp spot. We drowned our sorrows in halloumi wraps and I forced Tom to watch the first half of the first film of the extended version of Lord of the Rings, in retaliation for him making me watch all of the Rocky films earlier in the trip.
This morning we got up and had a quick cup of tea, then came back to Tobermory to see the colours in the daylight. It was indeed much more attractive than the rain-sodden dismalness of the previous night, and we were pleased to discover that the harbour building has showers and a laundry. Up on the top of the hill we found the most incredible arts centre and cafe, An Tobar. Tom had a vegan curry that he described as “gorgeous” and I had some soup and a cheese scone, also gorgeous. We were in there for quite a while writing this post, so long in fact that they closed around us. There was just enough time for Tom to buy a Roddy Woomble CD before we braved the rain and the devilishly steep hill back down into the town for a shower. We’re now in Macgochan’s by the harbour, finishing this post and thinking what to do for dindins…
Sorry for another War and Peace of a post!
Troughton out / pause from Hawes
Troughton & Hawes in the Great Outdoors 
Wow!! Thats a marathon of a blog and thanks for all the detail, I was agog to find out what was going to happen next….
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You’re looking absolutely radiant! Sounds like you’re having such a lovely time. Glad you finished the pfer corrections. Miñ Xxxx
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Writing just gets better. Any snow yet? Fancy buying one of those old castles then?😁Dad xx
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You ain’t kidding about War and Peace. It’s like Dick Barton, waiting for the next cliff hanger.. I was quite relieved to see your photo, I thought you’d be size 32, with all that scrummy food.
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Looking forward to hearing new adventures from our Indignants……
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