Our Walk Along the Great Glen Way

“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy Making Trail Choices With Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, the Pennine Way, the West Highland Way, and now the Great Glen Way behind us, we found ourselves at a point of decision. We have only a few days remaining before returning south to Southampton to reboard Queen Mary 2 for the voyage back to New York , and then onward to Canada, where we will take a train - the Canadian - back across the country home before returning to our ongoing #Hike4Birds there. We have enough days remaining – left either as contingency should one of the earlier trails take longer than expected, or if the opportunity to continue on presented itself. Yet standing here in Inverness, at the end of the Great Glen Way , the choice was no longer theoretical and was tempered by the fact that we were now very tired – perhaps more than we were allowing ourselves to fully...

“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson An Incomplete Feeling Journey When we arrived into Inverness and completed the Great Glen Way , it did not end as we had expected - reroutes and detours in the busy city centre had complicated what should have been a simple final approach. Even reaching the final trailhead became a challenge owing to castle renovations. Because of all of this, the sense of completion never quite arose. This wasn’t the result of any single moment, but reflected the accumulation of disruptions en route. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t angry, just exhausted, and disappointed – I admit it is possible to walk a route fully and still have it feel unfinished. So we chose to end it differently. Rather than stopping where the route told us to, we continued on - out toward the coast, to finish the walk on our own terms, at the edge of the water. This feeling may also have been the r...

"Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be." Sonia Ricotti The final day of a long walk often carries a hope, if not an expectation of closure – whether it be a summit, a sign, a moment of arrival, and…in the process, a sense of achievement that ties everything together takes place. Personally, I like to have a clear sense of a trail – its character, nature, and what it offers – by the time we reach the final trailhead. On the Great Glen Way, that ending proved elusive…at least for us. Detours, closures, and urban confusion stripped the finish of ceremony, leaving us to decide for ourselves where - and how - this journey would truly end. As a result, perhaps fittingly for us, our time on this trail ultimately concluded not at a closed castle gate but on the shores of the Moray Firth and North Sea as we went in search of birds and marine life. Morning out of Drumnadrochit Morning in Drumnadrochit began as most of ours do on the trail. Making ...