To Glencoe - from the Sea to the Mountains

Day 11 - Aryhoulan to Red Squirrel (13 miles)

The stags sound through the night and into the morning - a cross between a grunt, howl, roar, and a lorry careering round the corner. In the morning David sounds the bull horn to wake us for an early start for the walk ahead.

We walk 4 miles on the almost-carless single track tarmac to the Corran ferry. That stretch is wonderfully rain-free, but as soon as we cross on the tiny Corran ferry (as the only foot passengers) we enter a totally rain soaked day, walking on the pavement along the unbelievably busy A82 that runs from Fort William down to Glasgow. 

Our flags and banners receive a huge amount of supportive honking of horns on a wet wind-lashed walk to Ballachulish and on to the Red Squirrel campsite at the start of Glencoe. 

Before we reach the ferry, we can’t help but stop at Ardour Ales for tea and coffee and bacon butties and much much more. It is Wapit’s 30th birthday and we help him celebrate with a bacon, egg and black pudding role. As we finally walk on towards the ferry we pass the industrial salmon farm with the washing sound of fed being pumped out from the shore, apparently accompanied by the release of a host of microplastics.

Although the road this side ofd the ferry is totally quiet, it is strange to be walking on hard ungiving tarmac. Manu kindly offered to drive the blue van this stretch. After that - given the rain and her recent illness - Eva joins the van support group.

As the ferry lands we are greeted by a new group of walkers and a bearded Ben playing the pipes and leading us in a Gaelic prayer. 

After the Corran ferry we walk in pouring rain on the pavement, with vehicles honking their support (and only one doing a v sign against us). Suddenly 2 cars pull in and Lorraine jumps out of one with a jacket for Gabs (Lorraine is on her way to Ireland) and Mike (who later sorts the gas cooker in the evening, and extends the gazebo side so we can have a bonfire despite the pouring rain). One of the new women we walk with has a wee baby, Nadia, strapped to her front, and talks of the need for community ownership rather than private or state ownership of land.

We dally for sandwich lunch after Ballachulish bridge, then dally even more in the Ballahilish cafe, before heading through Glencoe, and the woods up to Red Squirrel campsite at the foot of the Glen. The pouring rain continues.

Later a blacksmith, called Cheep, who works at Red Squirrel, gathers up a dozen or more of our soaking wet boots and takes them to his cramped caravan which he turns into a drying room - with the boots returned dry and toasty the next morning despite the all night pouring rain.

Day 12 - Red Squirrel to Kings House (10 miles?)

We leave unbelievably late (at midday, as opposed to our usual 9am) after the soaking night following a soaking day. 

Strange to be in a campsite with people and their fancy vans and huge tents. Funny also that they too have been experiencing the same pouring rain throughout the last 48 hours.

We make a video for the Kurdish who are walking to Ankara from the Kurdish part of Turkey. They are walking for peace, justice and freedom, and have asked for a video of solidarity from us. We are walking for the same, and are really happy to oblige.

Sheep (the blacksmith who works at Red Squirrel, and his dog Lyra) walk with us, and tells me of how the woman who owns the land at Red Squirrel, and much of the land nearby, how she came by her land. Apparently her husband (or was it her father) simply claimed land was his, and when the landowner objected he insisted on them providing written proof. If they code’t then he’d say he’d see them in court. 

True or not, the story reminds me of how those who have always cared for their lands never have proof of ownership because they have always been there - in a sense they have always been owners by the land rather than owned it. Pieces of paper and proof only come in when you are taking land from others and claiming the right of exclusive ownership. In a sense that piece of paper isn proof that you don’t have a living relationship with the land. 

As we walk up Glencoe towards the high pass we are very visible from the road and there is a huge amount of honking support from the endless stream of traffic. It is such a busy noisy road for what would otherwise be a ‘wild’ place. To be walking off road today, yet have as much traffic noise as we had walking the pavement for 8 miles yesterday, is bizarre after all the days before that were free of such howling.

Ben - our route master - takes us down to a wee bridge over the rushing waters, then we navigate the pass - the point I’ve been most concerned about for the whole walk.

For a while we have to be right beside the road where cars tear round corners, then we cross and head up by the burnt out graffitied white building which the utterly disgraced Jimmy Saville owned. Clearly a weird guy who did awful things, but the key point being he was allowed to get away with it by the twisted colonial establishment who continue to be shaped by their own trauma and visit it on others.

Eventually we see - in the far distance - the big building that is Kingshouse with its stack of tall trees on either side. Strange to be able to so clearly see where we are walking to, yet it be so far off. 

Arriving we find those who have gone on with the vans (Manu driving Mike’s car) have set up the gazebo and David (driver) has made amazing food. The pub beside the hotel is warm and welcoming, and no loo tent needs to be put up or shit pit dug.

The night is starry, and freezing freezing icy cold.