DAY FIVE: TO INVERNESS

Weather: Beeyootiful. Company: First class. Walk: Surprisingly lovely ~ the map really doesn't give you any clues to how gorgeous it will be. 

I set out from Beauly in a better frame of mind than I was in in the restaurant. (If only chefs would cook good ingredients simply, then Scottish food would be immeasurably better!) 

I collected Rolf as I passed Lovat Bridge campsite, which by all accounts is a real dump! We strolled uphill on minor roads between huge beech trees, newly dressed. At night these giants are like ghosts in the moonlight.

It was hot as we laboured up the hill on a new forestry road and then the small path petered out so Rolf and I bog-hopped our way over to the Great Glen Way, That walk looks like an anaesthetised, anodyne sort of effort and within a few minutes we had bumped into Alan & John again, who had a far better plan of walking down to a tea-house at Dochgarroch on the Caledonian Canal. We were soon supping home-made lemonades in their garden in the hot sunshine and having a really tasty lunch. 

Then we all happily strolled along between the canal and the river, into Inverness: What a wonderful little city ~ the parks are full of play spaces, trees are turned into sea monsters and simple ditch bridges are works of art. The place has a sense of purpose; pride. Leeds must have been like this a few hundred years ago.

I have bumped into Nick Roggen again and had dinner with the naked rambler and the Rambling Dutchman. It has been a great day and tomorrow I need to buy more bread, cheese and wine as the weather forecast is good and I am off to Culloden on my cultural tour.