Great Glen Way 2013 Day 6

Day 6 Sunday 5^th August 2013

At 1:45 a.m. the television in my room suddenly turned itself on, loud.  Maybe it had a timer/alarm and a previous guest had thought it funny to set it for the early hours.  With breakfast I had my first taste of haggis and, to be honest, was a little disappointed.  It tasted of herbs and spices but very little else.  After limping to the bus stop and waiting over an hour for the bus, I ended up chatting with a retired English guy about his travelling about on a free bus pass – apparently you can either have one for England OR one for Scotland when you retire, but not both.

Looking back at this day now, I find it interesting that I was able to catch a bus on a Sunday, and it has been my more recent experience that buses do not run on Sundays in the U.K.

Arriving at Fort William, and being dropped off just outside the hospital, I went in to the Accident and Emergency.  The diagnosis was a “stressed tendon” where it passes through a tunnel in the shin and had swollen and seized in that tunnel.  The doctor recommended purchasing ibuprofen for the swelling and paracetamol for the pain, taking those regularly while sitting with my leg raised for the next week.  Didn’t he understand that I had walking to do?  He gave me an extremely large pink ibuprofen to get me started and sent me on my way.  I limped to the local Morrison’s to purchase the medicine and some food.  With nothing else to do, I decided to see the end of the Great Glen Way, somehow missed it, but ended up on the trail, and found my shin was less painful now (the ibuprofen having kicked in), so I walked from Fort William up to Inverlochy Castle where I sat and ate lunch.

Along the way there were views of Ben Nevis off to my right (and again to my left when returning).

A glimpse of Ben Nevis

Beyond Inverlochy Castle was the Soldiers Bridge.

Inverlochy Castle

Soldier's Bridge

I returned to Fort William the way I had come.

Once back in Fort William I found the end of the Great Glen Way (finally).

The end (or start) of the Great Glen Way

My shin began playing up again, so I located my B&B and iced the shin while reading for the rest of the afternoon.  Dinner was street paella from a local market (along with some other things for tomorrow’s lunch), and I wondered what effect this tendonitis would have on my ability to walk the distances I needed to walk, considering I was only 6 days in to a 4-week holiday.

Find out what happens in the subsequent Ayrshire Coastal Path walk, and then on to the Ridgeway.