The East Highland Way

Day 3 – Inverlair to Feagour

The first of our 3 consecutive 20 mile days, started at 9am. Our guesthouse landlord dropped us back to the previous night’s starting point. Well, actually to a car park some quarterof a mile further on passed Dubh Lochan. He gave us a few directions and warned us about the wild boar in the forest, laughed and got back in his car.

We headed off up a Forestry track. We stayed in the forest, or the felled former forest in places, through the morning, reaching Luiblea Cottage at the edge of the trees. We then walked up the side of Amhinn Ghuibinn where, at 12 o’clock, we spied a place for lunch. It took a wee wild walk through bracken to reach rocks which usually form rapids in the river, but which were exposed due to the low water.

As is the pattern we ate lunch while dooking our feet. The plan was that the midges would be no problem, but they seemed to find us pretty instantly. Dave ate lunch in his midge helmet, I put on the Smidge, and Andy just got on with it as the midges had their fill. Lunch was therefore cut fairly short despite the relief provided by the cold water and the beauty of the surroundings.

We continued on into more woodland which was fairly consistent up the entire length of Loch Laggan. Looking at the map there is a route which takes you behind the hills and to lochans north of them. That might be an alternative route for this section. Anyway, the sky was now very black and thunder rolled to right and left of us.

At one point, Andy and Charlie saw some forked lightning hitting the top of one of the hills on the far bank of Loch Laggan. Eventually we were turned away from the lochside by
the boundaries Ardevikie. The remainder of the walk was through thick forest. The rain started and Dave, Charlie and I put on jackets. Andy decided to brave the elements. The rain didn’t last long however and we took another stop to take
them off again.

As we came to a section of felled timber we walked on while a road traffic incident played out before us. First the sirens of police, ambulance and fire brigade, and then the arrival of the air ambulance from Raigmore. The road was closed and we had some concern that we might not be able to get picked up from the end of our walk. Fortunately, the road re-opened when the helicopter left the scene.

Some 30 minutes later we arrived at Gallovie Farm Road to be met by our landlord.

The walk finished at 16.30 and we covered 19.91 miles.

We stayed in the excellent Rumblie Guest House. There are only 3 rooms and we occupied 2 of them. After a shower and change of clothes we walked through to the residents’ bar to enjoy a couple of craft beers. We were then treated to a 3 course home cooked meal which was outstanding.

After dinner it was a couple more drinks. This time it was whisky, from the extensive range stocked by our host. He worked for Diagio and what he doesn’t know about whisky isn’t worth knowing.

There is also extensive memorabilia about Monarch of the Glen and other films which used the “Glenbogle” location.