This is a quick post, and will be updated when I have more time and energy.

UPDATE: Updated on June 14, with a ton of photos since it’s now so much easier to post them.

Today was the day I was most worried about. We were told the walk was 14.5 miles and that there were some steep climbs. In addition, my right big toe took a beating and currently looks rather bad: I can see it’s been bleeding underneath the toenail and, having experienced this before, I know I’ll eventually lose that toenail. (Darn! No sandals this summer.)

UPDATE: The nail has NOT fallen off. It’s still looking crummy, but I guess I’m keeping it!

We started off with a nice breakfast at our B&B in Invermoriston. Then we packed up and headed out.

The wrong way.

THIS time it wasn’t my error, but that other guy walking with me. Hah!

Once we turned around we headed to the GGW post and went up – up – up. It really wasn’t bad, going up a road and all. Early in the day a road isn’t as hard on the feet as it is later.

We finally saw the sign for the high route, which is what we opted to take to the next destination.

There were easy bits, there were steep bits. But nothing really was tough when we reached what is called the View Catcher. I was actually rather surprised, as I’d read another walker’s post about how hard it was to get there.

From there we headed up and down and through a dark forest. Every so often we heard a cuckoo. When I pulled out my camera to record it the darn thing stopped! This happened several times, in fact.

Well, we then hit a much harder climb. I think that might have been the one the writer had really been referring to and just got the timing off. (It’s easy to do on a long walk.) It was a tough one, but, to be honest, not nearly as bad as I had anticipated.

When we reached a stone structure (after the one pictured above) with a bench we stopped for lunch.

Oh … one thing I’ve not written about are midges. Those are tiny flies that you can barely see that bite! We were prepared and had put in insect repellent. But we saw things in the air that we assumed might be the critters. They are worse later in the month and for June and July. I’m glad we are here when they aren’t out in abundance. I’ve seen photos of people with bites and it looks quite frightening.

UPDATE: We never did get any bites at all!

Okay … back to the walk: we continued on. There was really nothing terribly strenuous, but it was relentless. When we reached a forest service road it was so muddy and mucky and not fun at all. Plod, plod, plod.

From there we headed out on a road for a bit and then another trail through a bunch of meadows. A long way. And then we finally ended up on a road. It seemed to go on an awfully long way, at one point veering on to the narrowest trail (I guess to avoid the car problem since it was a one lane road).

FINALLY, a cuckoo!

We were then directly to go through a gate and take a trail again. Ah … we felt like the end was in sight.

It wasn’t.

We went on for at least two more miles.

But we DID make it to our B&B (with a beautiful yard!), and we DID get showers.

Sadly no naps though because it turned out yours truly made reservations for a restaurant that was almost a mile away. Argh! More walking?

But walk we did. And eat … well YES we certainly did eat. And had dessert as well, thank you very much.

Now we are back in our room and we are exhausted. Tomorrow we get driven to a place about 11 miles away and walk back to this B&B. The nice thing about that is we don’t have to pack! (The next day we get driven back to the place 11 miles away and walk the other direction, reaching our final goal of Inverness.)

I was terribly worried, as I wrote above, about this day. We survived. We LOVED the views, and we are glad we don’t have another long day like this! Some of our fellow walkers (yes, we meet and get to know other people) are walking all the way to Inverness tomorrow. I’m thankful that we aren’t!

This was what we saw on our walk back to our lodging:

Goodnight!