trail – Page 2 – John Potter's Blog

Waikato River Trails

While Felicity is in Mexico, and the autumn weather is still benign, I decided to head south in the van for a few days to explore some new trails. I had to meet a client on Monday morning, so I didn’t leave Albany till mid afternoon, but I was early enough to be ahead of the rush hour traffic and arrived on the outskirts of Hamilton just before 5.00pm.

I grabbed my tablet to check the Campermate App for parking spots, and discovered to my horror that the charging lead was missing. This device is not only my main navigator, but also what I intended to watch movies on at night so this was a minor disaster.
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Cromwell

All the way across the Haast Pass it continued to pour with rain, so although there were numerous interesting-looking places to explore, we didn’t stop. When we arrived in Hawea, we finally had cell-phone reception and internet again so while we ate lunch at the edge of the lake we caught up on emails and blog updating.
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Charming Creek

The Charming Creek Walkway runs from Ngakawau through to the Charming Creek Road at Seddonville, a 19km return trip. We had planned to walk it together today but when I discovered you can ride it on a mountain bike I came up with a cunning plan.
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Kinlochewe

We’ve just returned from a four hour mountain trail in the Beinn Eighe Nature Reserve. At this latitude, for every 300 metres you climb the environment becomes more like that 1000 km north. We’ve just been to 550 metres – the vegetation and temperature equivalent of northern Greenland, far above the Arctic Circle, according to the guide book.
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Inverness

Our 300 Km walk from Glasgow to Inverness is finally over. The last day has been the longest and the least interesting of the trip, except for the last few kilometres through the city.
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Drumnadrochit

As soon as we set off from Invermoriston this morning on the Great Glen Way we climbed steeply up hill through the trees.
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Invermoriston

The Great Glen Way south of Fort Augustus used to run parallel to the highway through the pine forest, but feedback from walkers that it was boring inspired an alternative route through the moorland at the top of the hill, above the trees.

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Fort Augustus

Today’s walk has been very pleasant, first along the shore of Loch Oich, then along the side of the Caledonian Canal.
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South Laggan

After breakfast this morning our host drove us back to Gairlochy where we had left the Great Glen Way yesterday. The hot summer sun has been replaced by cloud and mist, and the temperature seems to have dropped about 10 degrees. It didn’t rain, but we needed our coats on to keep out the cold wind. No swimming in the loch today!
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Spean Bridge

Most of today we have been walking along the towpath of the Caledonian Canal, which allows boats to travel the length of the Great Glen from the east coast of Scotland to the west.
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Fort William

The end of the West Highland Way is marked by a statue of a man with sore feet, and that’s a pretty accurate description of how we are feeling after our 25km walk today.
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Kinlochleven

For the first time this (Scottish) summer, I put sunscreen on my nose today. I’ve also been high enough to touch some snow.
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Kingshouse Glen Coe

Today we crossed Rannoch Moor, reputedly one of Britain’s wildest, largest and most dangerous.
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Bridge of Orchy

As we ate breakfast this morning the sun was streaming through the window, and we could see that our B&B does indeed have a “hillview” as promised by its name. I briefly put my poncho on as we climbed the hill to re-join the West Highland Way, but it turned out to be a false alarm, as it stayed dry throughout our entire journey.
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Crianlarich

Water, water everywhere. And howling winds. We saw a waterfall spilling over the top of Glen Falloch blowing sideways instead of falling down like waterfalls are supposed to.

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Inverarnan

We’ve spent most of today walking along the bonie, bonie banks of Loch Lomond – in the pouring rain. The sun that is supposed to shine bright upon the loch didn’t put in an appearance until we were leaving it.
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Rowardennan

The Way from Drymen climbs up hill through the Garadhban Forest, mostly along forest roads. Some of the trees have been harvested recently, as we could see by the piles of logs beside the track.
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Drymen

When we woke this morning in Milngavie the sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly. The clouds started to roll in as we were eating breakfast, but it hasn’t rained more than a few spits so we have had a great first day of walking. We could have started the day with a “full Scottish breakfast”, but the alternative of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs seemed a much better choice.

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Mokihinui River and Specimen Hut

The next hut from Mokihinui Forks is only an hour or so down the trail, so we had planned an expedition without packs to explore the North Branch of the river.
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Stern Valley to Goat Creek

There are a couple of kilometres of cycleway either side of Stern Valley hut, but it wasn’t long before we were back on a tramping-only route leading straight through the bush.
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