Our briefing last night included a wet weather warning and a detailed explanation that, as well as dealing with a copious amount of water, we would be undertaking three stiff climbs on the West Highland Way. Fortunately, a couple of us had made use of the Glencoe Hotel’s pool, sauna and jacuzzi, a welcome relief…
We woke in different places. Half the group (all couples) had a wonderful stay at the comfortable Inch Hotel just outside Fort Augustus. The three remaining walkers enjoyed Morag’s Lodge, a youth hostel. That was an experience. Bunk rooms, tourists and an interesting breakfast whilst the other half lived it up in relative luxury. We…
Hector. Enough said. Warnings arrived overnight from friends and family. On BBC Breakfast telly the second top news story was how Storm Hector was going to rip through the UK; airports and bridges were already closing. We awoke to an almost perfect rainbow; an arc of colour in the sky neatly crossing the valley our…
Day 5, one sixth of the way. After a night in surprisingly good rooms at Wetherspoons King’s Highway hotel in Inverness we decided to breakfast at a café in Inverness. For some reason cafes serving breakfast don’t open until 8 am. The first café, highly recommended online, told us at 7:58 that they were not…
We left the Novar Arms hotel after another fantastic Scottish breakfast. The team was looking forward to a change from the previous two day’s, walking on roads and set off in good spirits having said goodbye to two walkers (Eric and Patrick) and welcomed a new one (Angela)*. We were walking from just north of…
This might seem strange. At the end of Day 2, we drove about 25 miles south to stay at the lovely Lairg Highland Hotel. This morning we got up and drove 20 miles back up from where we had come to start Day 3. Crazy? Well this is the Bryson Line. A general theme…
Today we left our base camp, the Smoo Cave Hotel in Durness. This had become a second home for many of us having spent 3 nights there. We were royally looked after by Frances and her team. We can wholeheartedly recommend that you visit Smoo Cave Hotel (and indeed the caves at Smoo Cave) when…
Bill Bryson today returned to Cape Wrath for the first time since he visited to research his book “The Road to Little Dribbling”. As this was the first day of our 30 day walk from Cape Wrath to Bognor Regis we were understandably nervous that the weather was good enough for the ferry to operate…
Van Man My fellow Bryson Line through-walker, Alex Eichhorn keeps bugging me to write a blog post with my story. He’s right, stories are good, but sometimes I like to forget about “lung cancer survivor walks for charity”. At least the lung cancer part. Instead, I’d like to write about Van Man, AKA Jeff Hedges,…
David Costello One bright morning in mid December in 2012, while shaving I noticed I had a bump on the left side of my neck. At the time I had been feeling under the weather and assumed it was simply swollen gland related to a cold. I am a bit of a momma’s…