Day 17 – Benderloch to Invegarry

Today was a good day. No rain and no huge hills. Well, lots of huge hills, but we didn’t have to cycle up them, we just looked at them. We also looked at huge lochs and huge pine trees. Like Center Parcs on steroids. Proper Scotland. The Scotland we couldn’t see yesterday because of all the mist.

Our route took us from Benderloch to North Ballachulish along cycle route 78. It runs by the side of, passes over and veers off at tangents to the A828. Then the cycle path ends and we were left to join the rest of the traffic using the busy A82 to Fort William. On busy roads I always cycle close behind Joe. I also cycle just a little bit too far out into the road so cars aren’t tempted to try and squeeze past when they shouldn’t. And just for extra spice I sometimes feign a slight wobble, so drivers worry they are about to overtake an incompetent, erratic idiot. It usually works.

Looking back from the A82 at Onich.

From Fort William we cycled the lovely, quiet B8004. Then took the Great Glen Way to Invegarry along the north shore of Loch Lochy. I’d read that it was a cycleable alternative to using the A82. It was a forest track, stoney and muddy in places, so not great for our road bikes. Slow going, but no traffic. At least we knew that a coach load of pensioners wasn’t going to come speeding around the corner and squash us.

The Great Glen Way to Invegarry – a bumpy, forest road with ups and downs.

62 miles today and we both feel fine. I think our bodies are getting used to cycling day after day after day.

We’re staying at Invergarry Lodge. Clean, friendly and reasonably cheap.

Dinner tonight could have been £27.00 (£13.50 each) for two beanburgers in the local Invegarry Hotel brasserie. I’m sure it would have been delicious, but instead we spent £8.24 in the local garage. That bought us 2 packets of noodles, a tin of baked beans, 2 packets of crisps, a muffin, a flapjack, a Marathon and a Crunchie.