Adventures around Fort William

Today we went in separate direction. Indi and Dad spent some time with a posse of Dad’s old climbing/sailing/tramping mates from the fifties – while I immersed myself in mountain biking. First up for me was a trip into Fort Bill to sort a hire bike for the afternoon. That done, I headed to the accreditation center, only to see a tonne of team riders milling around waiting for photos. I was expecting to be there for some time, but having been at last year’s event and this year having forwarded the UCI all the details and a photo, my pass was ready to go – I was there for a total of about two minutes.



Up to the main village with my newly minted accreditation, and I was the only one wearing it – and not even checked. Meh. Pretty much the first people I see are Aussies. Jr hopefuls Paul Van der Plog and Canberra lad Nathan Haas were practicing starts and quick laps under the gaze of coach Garren Buckland. Paul in particular should do well in his race on Thursday. I left them to it and headed back to “Off-Beat Bikes” in town to pick up a Specialized Hardrock (after getting them to whack on my egg beater pedals). Cost? Ten pounds. Not bad at all, but it had had a ten pound tune… so I gave it a 50p tweak (pulled the derailleur straight) and things improved considerably. Actually, with the big fat 2.5 tyres it was quite the beast (never mind the rack).

The plan was to ride up to Nevis Range and explore the Witch’s Trail system of tracks – at least those that weren’t tied up for the World Champs – but it didn’t quite work that way. I chuffed off up a decent climb, then along a gradually climbing fireroad towards what I’d heard was a cool line of singletrack along an old tram cutting. With memories of Montazuma’s Falls in Tasmania’s Wildside, I was all cock-a-hoop – but just 100m from where the good stuff was set to start loggers were doing their thing and the way was barred! I was quite bummed! One of the few marked trails “open” – but it’s not – and I had to ride 10km of up to find out about it!! Back at the event center I’d calmed down a bit, and decided to try and find a track I’d heard the locals had recently used for a ten-hour race. JOY, there it was. I dived in and was rewarded with a km of beautiful tight twisty singletrack, spitting me out into a sensational descending track down towards the railway. Along a fireroad for 4-5 km, then back up towards the event village. And Ho! More singletrack. One section was aimed straight at Ben Nevis, so I tossed the bike to the ground and lined up a photo – prone to get both the ST and the Ben in frame. Next thing I heard was, “Are you OK?” A local rider had come around the corner to see me flat on my stomach, bike and pack akimbo – not moving! I assured him I was fine and we had a good old chat. I finished off the ride delighted with the effort, before dropping off the bike and heading home – pooped.



Grandpa Dave says…

Monday 3 September Indi & I walked abt. 1km to Spean Bridge mini-market and returned heavily laden with breakfast cereal, instant pizza and Australian chardonnay, then I hurled out the clothes left all night in the one unattended washing machines (a hanging offence in Australian mining camps) and put the wash through without soap – as the office was deserted at 10am.

David M and Henry picked us up on schedule at 11.30 and we drove to the commando memorial to meet Hugh and Jean Stevenson. During WW2 the whole of Scotland north of the Caledonian Canal was a restricted area reserved ffor military training and exercise for eg: the invasion of Europe, the destruction of the Norwegian Heavy Water plant and other covert operations. The memorial commemorates the large number of commandos who trained there between 1940 and 1944. There are tributes there dating to as recently as August 2007, due to the ongoing war in Iraq.

To get out of the wind we drove down to Neptune’s staircase a set of seven lochs on the Caledonian canal which lifts small ships up from sea level to the level of Loch Lochy – one of several Lochs, including Loch Ness linked, by the canal.

Jean left briefly to visit a friend and relation, daughter of the renowned engineering Professor Alexander (Sandy = Sasha) Thom who demonstrated convincingly that the pre-Iron Age standing stone circles such as Callanish (Outer Hebrides), Stennnes (Orkneys) and Stonehenge were highly sophisticated calendars linked to the astronomical positions of the sun, moon and possibly other heavenly bodies, to enable Neolithic farming communities to determine the passing of midsummer, midwinter solstices, Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. This enabled them to regulate planting, harvest, and the getting-legless-on-fermented-mead festivals that highlighted the passing of the Neolithic year. Sandy did this by chartering Tindal family yachts such as Cerigo and Aline to carry himself and trusty survey crew to key locations in the Western Isles during the summer holidays, and various young Tindals and Thoms served in these crews.

We retired to a wine bar on the canal for lunch and drinkies, which took a loooong time but was very sociable, and then headed for the upper River Nevis valley and gorge where David M. was determined to test us in spite of the clock running towards 4.30 p.m.

We cared little for the gruesome notices warning of frequent fatal accidents on this increasingly technical foot track through the rocks of the Steall Gorge (Indi just shrugged them off) and after a hard pull through very rough country we popped out at the delightful grassy flat at the abandoned Steall outstation in the upper valley. (The house is now cared for by the Scottish Mountaineering Club, and provides members with access to the peaks of the remote Mamore Range). The track was thick with Central European tourists, (some with very young children), but I leapt at and successfully traversed the dreaded three-wire bridge across the deep and cold river (very like the vine bridges of West New Guinea). Indi insisted on trying herself and got half way across, returning successfully backwards after a Central Europe gent and I insisted it was impossible to turn round on such a bridge without calamity.

We all got back to the car park in one piece and said our farewells to the Stevensons before David M. and Henry delivered us back to Burnbank just a few minutes after Jim returned from biking in the same neck of the woods. We dined at “at home” on pizza and macaroni/cheese, and I managed to crack the secret of the dreaded spin-dryer (2 by 1 Pound coins in the slot required in addition to reading the instructions).