By the sixth night I was starting to get the hang of camping and had slept well. The view in the morning was good too. There were actually two deer on the little island on the left (you can’t really make them out in the photo).

On this day the weather was good and led across a very nice high glen with abandoned farm buildings (2nd best part of the WHW after St. Fillan’s). Here we see the path stretching off into the distance.

The later part of the day was less good as it was through a large area that was labelled as forest on the map but had actually been chopped down some time ago leaving miles of dried out tree stumps. This is the view I had for lunch. it wasn’t too bad but you can see some of the tree stumps in the foreground.

On the way down into Glen Nevis I bumped into a former student L (they crop up everywhere). After establishing what her name was (as opposed to what I thought her name was; I’m useless with names) we discussed what we were both up to in life. She is doing rather well for herself back in Germany (which was good to hear). At Glen Nevis I diverted from the WHW to my camp site. It had a rather good view of Ben Nevis.

After pitching my tent I walked the last few miles of the way without my heavy pack (as opposed to dragging it both into and out of Fort William). I felt the end of the West Highland Way was somewhat underwhelming. The original ending stopped at a roundabout just outside of Fort William which, admittedly, isn’t the best place to stop. That said it does have the advantage of not going all of the way into the town. The new ending is at the end of the high street. Walking along the high street after 96 miles of Scottish countryside was a bit of a let down. This was particularly so as the monument/bench at the end of the WHW is right outside a Wetherspoons. I guess nothing says the Highlands more than sitting on a bench outside of ‘Spoons. The sculpture on the bench was nice, mind.

The next day I got the train back to the North West of England (the West Highland Railway Line is a wonderful line). I can’t say I was particularly motived to climb Ben Nevis because a) I had just walked 96 miles, b) it would have added an extra day to my trip and c) the weather on the previous few days had been changeable suggesting that even if I did set a day aside for the climb I might not have been able to complete it. I will have to revisit the Glen Nevis camp site at some point in the future (it was a pretty good site) and do some walking in the area (including Ben Nevis).