Wandering around Fort William and Glencoe

It's been a lovely day today. It was taken at a gentle pace and we didn't go too far from home.

Today's journey

 We started by going to Neptune's Staircase which is the start of the Caledonian Canal, which is a series of locks which connect the Lochs of Scotland
As Wikipedia describes it...

The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.

 Neptune's Staircase is just outside Fort William and again Wikipedia describes what it does..

Neptune’s Staircase at Banavie, near Fort William just north of Loch Linnhe, is kept by Scottish Canals. It is the longest staircase lock in Britain, lifting boats 64 feet (20 m).^[1] It consists of eight locks, each 180 feet (55 m) by 40 feet (12 m), and it takes boats about 90 minutes to pass through the system

 It was really busy today, because it's a long weekend over here... It's a Bank holiday tomorrow, and the beautiful weather has brought everybody outdoors.

A few pics might show what happens..

Empty Lock

Boats come in

Water level rises

Boat comes through to new level

 And then repeat, repeat, repeat... etc.....

There were quite a few pleasure craft taking advantage of it too, including some Aussie girls, who were chanting their Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi Oi Oi etc... They weren't too good on the navigation however and had to do the manoeuvres  a few times to get it right!

Aussie girls top right, but they had to move up further...

They even close the road, to let the boats through.

Green bit is the road. It swings around

Boats going through

 It was a very interesting experience. As one of the tour members said... "Beats the hell out of castles!!!"

Next we went into Fort William itself and were given some time there to look around. I had already been there for 2 nights last time I came and stayed with the Josephite Sisters. So I wasn't too worried about sight seeing. But on the way into town, I spotted the Catholic Church, and lo and behold it's Sunday!!! 

St  Mary's Catholic Church Fort William

And Mass just happened to be on.... and it was up to Communion... and I stayed for the rest of Mass. I'm getting good at these cut down versions of Sunday Mass..... Better than nothing, I suspect!

Anyway, still had time for a few more sights... and for lunch.

This statue is called "Sore Feet" and it depicts the end of the West Highland Way  (next walk for you Janice and Phil!) During our journey today in the bus and the day before on the train, we cris-crossed  across the path a few times and always saw plenty of walkers.

Sore feet!

Fort William and Lochaber had a strong connection with the Commando Forces in WW2 and many were trained in the district. I remember seeing a program on TV about that.... the army thought this area was ideal for the training that was required.

Link between Fort William and Lochaber and the British Commandos

After lunch, our next excursion was a boat trip on Loch Linhe. After reading this blog, I think many of the readers might know that I don't have a great relationship with boats. But I wasn't too worried about this on, because the Loch is normally very calm. The captain was telling us though that this morning there were Force 7 winds on the Loch, caused by the hot weather in relationship to the water etc... Luckily by our trip, it had calmed down a bit, but he warned us about hats and sunglasses potentially being blown off.... 😮

Boat trip on Loch Linhe

It actually was a lovely ride. Loch Linhe is a salt water loch that empties into the North Atlantic Sea and has a tide rise and fall of 4 metres.

Leaving Fort William with Ben Nevis in the background

Went past a salmon farm

Salmon Farm

The commentary  told us about the Highland Clearances, where the crofters were removed from the land, so the the Lairds could make more money from pastoral farming....

Highland Clearances, the forced eviction of inhabitants of the Highlands and western islands of Scotland, beginning in the mid-to-late 18th century and continuing intermittently into the mid-19th century. The removals cleared the land of people primarily to allow for the introduction of sheep pastoralism. The Highland Clearances resulted in the destruction of the traditional clan society and began a pattern of rural depopulation and emigration from Scotland.

One unforeseen consequence from this was that the sheep and cattle cleared most of the land of natural foliage. So now any native Caledonian Pine Trees are protected and preserved.

Caledonian Pine Trees

Also saw some seals...

Seals on Loch Linhe

Then back to Fort William and another good view of Ben Nevis...

Fort William and Ben Nevis

After all that excitement, our next target was to drive to Glencoe, which is just past where we are staying. We drove up to the ski chairlift and back. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day.

And I know this will sound funny, but to me, it was the wrong sort of day to  view Glencoe. It needs to be gloomy and perhaps raining to get that brooding feeling. But, hey, me no complain!

I referred to the Massacre of Glencoe is an earlier post, but in case you missed it, this website gives a good synopsis of it.
Basically the MacDonalds offered hospitality to the Campbells at Glencoe, but when they were all asleep the Campbells murdered all the MacDonalds.

The story is told beautifully in song The Massacre of Glencoe sung by John McDermott

I'll just add the pics - the scenery is truly beautiful and speaks for itself... It's one of my favourite places on earth!

Map of the area

Glencoe

Glencoe

Glencoe

Our bus and driver. Brian

Glencoe

Glencoe

Glencoe

Glencoe

Glencoe

So, that was our very interesting and entertaining day. I just love the Scottish scenery. There's something very majestic about the mountains and the lochs.

I am truly blessed to be able to experience such beauty.