P in the wild

Kinlochleven to Fort William.

I woke up in a great mood on day 7.

It was bitter-sweet though. I was pleased with my progress so far and excited to see the finishing line by the end of the day.

I was having fun, in the great outdoors, away from computer screens and everyday life.

The people I had met were all fantastic.

The weather was only getting better, from the initial Scottish showers leading up to a warm and sunny final day.

I didn’t want it to end.

But I needed to complete the route.

Just outside of Kinlochleven we stumbled upon neighbour-on-my-first-night, fire-by-Loch-Lomond, had-spoken-to-him-most-days guy. And so our two-some became a three-some.

We had all come away to be by ourselves, to achieve a great personal goal, and yet here we were all walking and talking together.

Reminding each other to look back every once in a while and enjoy the view.

You can do the West Highland Way for whatever reason you want but the biggest takeaway for me was that there are plenty of nice interesting people out there, you just need to find them.

These idiots were into walking long distances with all their possessions on their back.

They were my kind of idiot.

I had brought 2 dehydrated meals with me, one for dinner and one for breakfast, to keep my mind at ease throughout the trip. I felt safe knowing I had enough food to last a while in case of an emergency. Maybe I would need to find and filter some water so I could cook them, but that I could deal with at the time.

What I hadn’t checked was how much gas I had left in my canister. Which turned out to be not enough.

Luckily I now had 2 people who offered to boil some water for me and it only cost me a few crisps.

Our short lunch break turned into a longer one.

I’d spent the rest of the week not understanding why people kept their rain covers on their bags all the time, until orange rain cover guy told me he was using his as extra storage for part of his tent. After which myself and the other third of our three-some also put our rain covers on.

We became the rain cover gang.

I was the green one.

Which might sound silly and childish but that’s the only way I could summarise our walk together.

After a week on the trail this city kid had most of his worries and anxieties taken away from him. The only thing that mattered was the walk. You only needed enough food for the next few hours, and there was always a friendly face along the way.

For one of our breaks I lay down and closed my eyes for a few moments.

Out in the sun, talking with new friends.

I felt like a kid again.

Until we started descending for one last time.

We could see the start of our destination approaching and realised we needed a plan. We would be getting into Fort William way after the last train had left, and the last time we checked the hotels weren’t just very expensive they were all fully booked.

So we decided to head to Glen Nevis campsite where we would set up our tents.

And then complete the route. It was just 5km from there.

First though we had to eat, and since neither of my new walking buddies had tried curry sauce with their chips we stopped at the campfire kitchen.

There’s no photos of that last 5km.

It was tough. It was sad. It was nothing but walking.

We would finish in the time-frame we each had set out to do it in.

And most importantly, we would have completed it.

It didn’t really matter if it was that night or in the morning. I knew that, they knew that, and still we all pushed on.

We made it to the original finishing point where we made a momentary pause before continuing. There may have been a grumble or two at this, and they were justified, but there was a bench with an old man sitting on it at the other end of the high street we had to reach.

And then at 21:50, on the 7th day after starting it, I completed The West Highland Way.

Looking back I wish I’d taken off my shoe so the photo had full effect, but then I’d have needed to sit differently because it was actually my other foot that hurt the most.

And I should have brought my bag with me, to complete the picture.

But none of this goes through your head when you’ve walked that far for the first time.

All you can think about is sitting on that bench forever.

Content in the knowledge that you’ve done it.

And that it went better than you thought it could have.

Kinlochleven to Fort William: 24km