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So, the deed is done and I'm glad to be at home resting my weary feet. I'll go through some of the pictures I took and try to make it as interesting as an account of ten straight days of walking can be.

The morning after the last post Cash (as in Johnny- a friend's dog who I look after every now and again) and I missed the first train and arrived in Inverness about two hours late, just before midday. Having not had much sleep and being a little anxious about what I'd gotten myself in for, we set off in earnest along the 78 mile Great Glen Way which links Inverness and Fort William. After a nice route through the town the path turned sharply uphill. Noticing I'd only done a mile and struggling with tiredness and my 18 kg rucsack, I stopped and was battling with my confidence halfway up, surely 168 miles was too far and my bag was definitely too heavy. Was this just some silly boy's idea from the comfort of his city bedroom? Do people actually do this and why would they? Bleak and negative as it may seem I'm not just saying it for effect, after all it is a bit embarrassing, but I felt completely under prepared, physically and mentally, and was glad to be alone. So I carried on and turned my thoughts around- it can't all be uphill, and the pack would get lighter as Cash and I ate our food and I could get rid of some weight at the next town. Anyway, as so often, the reward was at the top of the hill, a nice view over Inverness (you can just see it in the background of the next pic) and an afternoon of relatively flat walking ahead made me feel much better. 

Now my mini crisis seems laughably ridiculous but I'm glad I had it. 

Most of the path on the first day followed an ancient drover's road, used to move livestock South to market. It was mostly wooded also which gave some shelter from the rain. Here's Cash in the ruins of an old drover's night stop and then exploring on the road. 

The next day was beautiful as we reached Loch Ness. I caught this large 'S' shape in the sky on my camera, don't know if you can really see it but was really obvious from the ground. Yep, I was a little bored. Around this stage I started to notice how different this type of walking was. I walk nearly everywhere around town and am always considering how long it will take and how I'm progressing, even if I'm not in a hurry. Annoyingly, when walking alongside Loch Ness I was similarly considering how I was doing and would often check the map to find I'd only covered a couple of kilometres or so. So the process of just giving myself a large chunk of time to walk somewhere, usually four or five hours, was quite liberating. I guess sometimes you need a good long walk to release those tiny anxieties of everyday life. 

After another day of walking I (literally) stumbled  onto suitable camping ground, meaning it was flat, dry and very near the path for laziness. So here's how Cash and I were living on night two:

Well, I meant to finish this in one but have posted too much and taken too long with fiddly pictures, so I guess it'll have to be done in instalments.