A Week in Ireland

Soooooo not enough time!! But then, it never is. This trip felt particularly rushed and in a way it was, with a family weekend in the remote countryside of La Creuse this weekend. It's the last weekend everyone will be there and I love everything about this house: its remote location, the memories I have there as a kid, the lack of internet and phone service, the mushroom hunting excursions and runs through beautiful green rolling hills of pastures and cows. So the hard end date for Ireland was today, October 17th. The week in review:

Thursday October 10th: Get to Ireland at 9:30 am and grand reunion with Frank and Azu from my first WWOOF gig at 11:30 am. SO FABULOUS to see them again. After a leisurely lunch and catch up I helped a bit in the garden with harvesting some greens and packing veggies for the market. Food highlight of the day - picking kale from the garden to cook it for dinner that night. LOVE eating food I pick myself. Happiness.

Friday October 11th: a little more harvesting in the garden and helping Azu in the bakery. Love that also! Such good fun and so interesting to help make Japanese breads. Food highlight of the day - I got to try a bread that she makes with Japanese pumpkin. Slightly sweet and scrumptious!

Saturday October 12th: Errand and wandering day in Dublin. I tried my waterlogged camera after a week in rice and it actually turned on! Honestly, I was shocked, not expecting it to work again. Hoping (desperately) but not expecting. "Work" is unfortunately too generous of a term. There were some white bars across the screen, an error code flashing and it wouldn't shut off. :/ (I had to remove the battery speedily after pushing the "off" button that no longer carried out its command. :( So I bought a new camera in Dublin. And as painful as that was for my budget, I must say, I am INCREDIBLY excited about my new camera!! It's the same one, just the next in the series, and it has a 20X zoom (!!!! Instead of 10x) has wifi capabilities that sound really cool once I can sync it with a computer and phone ANNNNNNND it can take black and white pictures!!!! WOOOHOOOOOO!! I'm super excited about that last one and have gotten some great pics with that function. So my bank account is sad but my trigger happy finger is extra happy!! :)

Back to Dublin! I spent most of the day just walking around the city. Went to the Museum of Natural History but realized I wasn't in a museum mood so just walked to and around Phoenix Park (one of my favorite city parks, it has deer!) and to my favorite cafe restaurant there. Food highlight - Meet Frank and Azu at one of my all time favorite vegetarian restaurants (that they originally told me about) for a splendid dinner and lovely live music from a girl with a spectacular voice and acoustic guitar. Dessert was purchased to take home and enjoy with wine and tea. :) An excellent day and night! What was most interesting to me was that I didn't feel this crazy urge to go exploring in Dublin. After my 6 weeks in Dublin last year, I feel like I actually thoroughly got to see everything I wanted to. It was a nice but strange feeling to feel at home and familiar in an Irish city. Lovely!

Sunday October 13th: Get rental car from airport at 7 am. Drive to Cobh for 3 nights of couch surfing (CS) and exploring County Cork (one of the counties I didn't see at all last year). Stop in Waterford on the way down and do the guided visit of the Waterfor Crystal factory. Fascinating!!! Did you know that the millennium ball in Times Square is Waterford Crystal?? And that the crystal has to be at 1300 degrees celsius to be malleable so they keep their furnace at 1400 degrees ALL the time because they function 51 of the 52 weeks/year and it would take over 3 weeks to get it back to the right temp. CRAZY! And extravagant, seems like an extreme waste of energy, but maybe that's just because I'm not a Waterford Crystal consumer??

At the factory I got a great lunch recommendation for fresh seafood in a town called Dunmore East. Food highlight - fresh pollock fished day of. Yum! Conveniently, there was a cliff walk to a lovely bay that left right from town, so I had a splendid walk along the coast before continuing the drive to Cobh. Arrive at my CS host at 7:30 pm and spend a fantastic evening getting to know each other, swapping stories, drinking wine and eating a pizza of their creation with mackerel that they had fished! Excellent!!

Monday October 14th: Explore the coast on my way to Kinsale and make two PHENOMENAL random discoveries!! I decided to take a tiny tertiary road and ended up in this magically tranquil place called Robert's Cove. 3 cars drove through the whole time I was there. I also randomly found a little trail that brought me to the end of the cliff for some stunning coastal views. The kicker : it was SUNNYYYYYYYYY and warm! I was in a Tshirt! ! So lucky with weather. Next random discovery was Nohoval Cove. Totally remote! Had to drive 3 km down a single track (really really single track) road with grass growing up in the middle. I love those kinds of roads! It spit me out in one of the most beautiful, hidden coves I've ever seen!! End up having a picnic and journaling on some rocks by the water. Make it to Kinsale at 2 pm, have lunch in a fancy seafood restaurant and had an incredibly delicious salad with a decadent mix of fish and shellfish with a sweet chili sauce. YUM.Hands down the food highlight of the day! Make it as far as Clonakilty before I have to head back to make it for a reasoanble hour to cook dinner for my hosts. Run into waaaaay more traffic than expected and make it back an hour later than planned but still manage to make dinner and have a second lovely laid -back evening with my CS hosts. Discover a new whiskey I actually enjoy!! Hello Kilbeggan! !

Tuesday October 15th : Start the day with a wonderful run around Cobh, including hill repeats up West End along the "Deck of Cards" Victorian houses, then explore "The Great Island" with one of my fabulous CS hosts. Explore a lovely forest, taking a stroll down to the waterfront, then head to Cork City for a 1 pm arrival. She has to work from 1:30 to 5:30 so I explore the city at my own pace. This includes a strolling picnic from the English Market with semi-sundried tomatoes (AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING!!!! I'd never experienced them before, but they are one of the best things I've ever tasted. They by far trump ordinary or fully sun-dried tomatoes), with basil and fresh local mozarella cheese, olives with garlic and thyme and fresh bread full of seeds. I was a very happy girl.

I was not so happy when a little girl kicked me in the shin. =/ Seriously. I spent most of the day walking around the city, (St Finn Barr's Cathedral was my favorite!) and as I approached "The four-faced liar" (a four sided clock tower with a clock reporting a different time on each face), I had two little girls, around 7 or 8 approach me. "Excuse me" they begin. Very polite, very correct. Then one says "We want to kick you." I didn't fully understand, and as I'm asking her to repeat, she comes up and kicks me in the shin. Niiiiiiiiice. Way to go, absent mother who wouldn't even take responsibility for her own kid when I confronted her later. Very nice. Moments like me make feel a desperate sense of despair for the human race. But luckily there are still bountiful beautifully fabulous people who still inspire hope and happiness. My CS hosts are absolutely in the latter category. We met up around 7 pm for this incredible vegetarian feast that my CS host had originally started. Conceived as a fundraiser for Climate Camp, they offer an absolutely scrumptious vegetarian meal for a suggested donation of 5 euros. It's such a fantastic idea and meal! Would never have known about it if I hadn't done CS. One of the dozens of reasons I love CS so much!

Wednesday, October 16th : Last full day in Ireland. So sad. There are so many places left to explore. I must come back. I have this oddly strong confidence that I will be back. This can't be my last trip in Ireland, nor Scotland! =) Despite feeling oddly confident that I will be back, I still had an overpowering sense of urgency to see as much as possible on my last day. Sharp deadline for the day, however : I have to be back in Dublin around 7 pm as I've made plans to go to the Gravedigger's Pub with Frank and Azu. Very excited for my pub date, but also very rushed to accomplish everything before my 5 hour return drive. So I take off around 7 am, to a dark sky and heavy rain. Bummer. Seriously reconsider my plan to head to the coast. I have no planB Indoor Day. Everything I want to do is outside. Since killing my camera in the October 3rd Scottish deluge, I am more hesitant now, to go exploring in the rain, and absolutely WILL NOT bring my camera. No no no. I've learned. =) We had checked the weather the night before and although I have no faith in meteorologists for any prediction greater than 24 hours, I feel like they should have a pretty darn good idea of what's going to happen the next day and they'd predicted decent weather in Southwest Cork. So I decided to chance it. And am I EVER EVER so happy I did!!

My first stop was, again, a random and spontaneous decision and I was so utterly thrilled with my decision! I can't remember the name =/ but I found a sign for "cliff walk" and followed it to another fantastic cove. This one with a white sand beach. And NOBODY! ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND GLORIOUS SUNSHINE!! So I had a picnic on the beach. It was absolutely extraordinary. A picnic on the beach in Ireland in October. And THEN I walked barefoot on the beach!! Incredible!! I took a little walk along the cliffs, but the path sort of vanished in the undergrowth, so I decided to head back to the car when the gorse bushes started tearing at my ankles, and continue south, towards Baltimore (yes, there is a Baltimore, Ireland) =). After having a friend recommend Sherkin Island last year, it was already on my radar, but I felt like it would be too rushed that day. However, I end up talking to this very friendly man on the beach, and he as well, raves about Sherkin Island. So I decide to try for it! 11:30 am when I head off, and in my little head (that desperately likes to underestimate how long something will realistically take) I thought it might be doable. But alas, it was not. I missed the last reasonable ferry by 20 minutes, and although I was at first disappointed, it turned out to be juuuuuuuuuust right, because it allowed me to discover.....

LAKE HYNE!!!!!! This absolutely tremendous sea loch that is filled by the rising tide and can even have seals. Sooooooooo cool!! I asked just the right person and she gave me the much-needed and appreciated information that there are walking trails at the lake and even a lovely viewpoint. Off I went! First, picnic by the lake, then hike to the viewpoint, admire and REJOICE in the utter beauty I'm surrounded by, then return quickly to the car for an estimated on-time departure. When I put in my end-point, my GPS estimates it at 7:01 pm - PERFECT!! Athough I ended up in some horrific Dublin rush hour, so I was 30 minutes late, but we still had time for tapas and a Guinness at the Gravedigger's Pub. Excellent!! An absolutely smashing week in Ireland! I couldn't have asked for better!!

Edzell and the Blue Door Walk

Oh.my.goodness. :) I'm on the train right now from Dundee to Edinburgh and the sun is blinding. Blinding!!! So phenomenal!! Today was another extraordinary day!

There is a magical place about a 30 minute drive from Dundee in a town called Edzell. It is along the Blue Door walk along the North Esk River. Fabulous, particularly because I had brilliant sunshine and blue sky the whole time. Another incredibly lucky weather day. :)

So the joys of this walk begin at the blue door (it is aptly named as you literally walk through this small blue door in a red stone wall to begin). It truly feels like the door transports you to this magical place - it's so tranquil on the other side of the door :). You're immersed in sounds of birds chirping, water cascading over small falls and autumn leaves russling in the wind. Glorious! The fall colors were starting to make a strong appearance and the river was carrying along a bunch of yellow leaves both at and below the surface. The water was so clear you could see a good distance into the water and it was mesmerizing to watch. I spent 45 minutes journaling by the river after exploring along the path. Such a peaceful, lovely day. And although the sun was shining, the air was actually the coldest it's been yet so I warmed myself up after with a tea, butter bean and red pepper soup and baked potato with veggie chili. Marvelous!!

Yesterday I went to Glenclova for a hike and ended up hiking two munros!! So exciting!! A munro is the term for a mountain in Scotland that is greater than 3000 feet. There are 282 of them. How cool would it be to do all of them?? They have a special term for hiking munros: "bagging" munros. HA! I'd love to "bag" them all but will have to settle for 3 for now. :) My only one so far had been Ben Nevis last January and yesterday I was super excited to do TWO!!! Everything just lined up perfectly to make it a magnificent day.

In the parking lot before starting I met a lovely gentleman who informed me that there were two munros very close to each other on this hike. I was only aware of one and didn't have a map so resigned myself to the fact that although there was a second one nearby, I'd just have to live without it. BUT at the summit of the first one (Driesh), for which a park ranger had given me great directions, I met a couple with a map who described a loop trail possibility and pointed out the second munro (Mayar), riiiiiight nearby. :) It was a race against impending, malicious-looking clouds, because at the top of Driesh I had brilliant views but could also see some darkly ominous clouds approaching quickly with the heavy winds. Unfortunately I did not make it to the summit of Mayar before the clouds, but I did make it to the summit (the essential) and met a couple, who turned out to be fellow WWOOFers in the process!! Fabulous! So fun and random! We chatted for about 20 minutes and they also had a map and helped me make sure I was heading the right direction for my loop trail. It was wonderful!! I got to hike down through Corrie Fee National Nature Reserve and along a waterfall for a lovely picnic. Another magnificent day! Oh how I love Scotland!

Tomorrow, though, off to Dublin!! Seeing my favorite family I WWOOFed with last year and to explore Cork and the southeast of Ireland. Tonight, one last hoorah in Edinburgh with dinner at my favorite vegetarian restaurant, David Bann, and live traditional folk music at my favorite pub, the Sandy Bells. SOOOOOO EXCITED!!!

The Tremendous Northwest Coast of Scotland

I'm in love. :) The NW of Scotland is so spectacularly stunning!! I had a rental car the last few days, and although it was absurdly expensive, with gas at $9.28 a gallon and the rental itself over $65/day (yowzers) it was also absolutely priceless. It allowed me to make it down to Oban for my 3 island tour of Mull, Iona, and Staffa, then make it to Gairloch about 6 hours north in 1 day (with LOTS of picture stops and exploring at my own pace) and then have a glorious adventure on a peninsula still further north on my last day. Here are the highlights....

On Saturday October 5th I spent 12.5 hours driving to Gairloch with countless picture stops of phenomenal scenery, and a 2.5 hour exploration of Applecross. I arrived in Applecross via the Pass of the Cattle which is this steep single track mountain road with hairpin turns and a sign at the start warning people against this route if they are novice drivers! It was absolutely marvelous!!! And super fun to drive on actually, because there were plenty of passing places, so no anxiety when coming across other drivers. Their single track roads are really well designed and I absolutely LOVE driving on them! It's such a remote, exhilarating experience. I feel like I've gotten the best of both worlds by walking about 150 miles over 10 days and then driving over 500 miles in 3 days. Two completely different ways to see and experience the country and I adore them both!!

I digress! Back to Applecross!! Arriving from the Pass of the Cattle meant that I got to see a birds eye view of the bay. It was low tide when I arrived and I had the stunning pleasure of seeing an expansive bay of RED sand!! It was exquisite!! Walking around the area on their many walking trails, I saw a deer who stopped for about a minute and we just looked at each other from only 20 or so feet away. :) Splendid!! I also desperately tried to see an otter but no luck. :/ I really want to see one eating a fish, lying on its back in the water. Is that asking too much??!! :) I stayed about 5 minutes at a place labeled "fish trap" in the bay but no luck. Realizing how slim the chances were of that happening, I decided to move on. :)

My goal was to make it to Gairloch before sunset but I failed. ARG silly days getting shorter. :/ Dusk set in around 6:45 and it was pitch dark by 7:30 pm, when I arrived at my B&B. It is about 5 miles outside the main town on a single track road with no lights, which I hadn't researched first, and I was very grateful for my GPS companion. :) The owners of the B&B are absolutely delightful and we chatted for over two hours my first night. I was their only guest and it actually felt a bit like couch surfing, minus the money!

Sunday, October 6th I drove up to the Assynt Peninsula and had the incredible luck of having sunshine. And I don't just mean a wee bit of sunshine. I mean SUNSHIIIIIIIIINE!!! Glorious, magnificent, warm you in a tee shirt in October kind of sunshine. :) The day also included countless picture stops, and other more significant stops at the Falls of Measach (walked a lovely little 1 km trail to explore the slot gorge and crossed the suspension bridge - designed by the same engineer as that of the Forth Rail Bridge!), hiked to the top of Stac Pollaidh and ran to the top of Knockan Crag with stops for pictures and reading some signs. I wasn't able to be thorough with my sign reading because I had a dinner reservation at 8pm at a restaurant in Gairloch that my hosts had recommended (and even made for me!!) and I was running a bit late. But I took pics of a lot of signs to be able to read them later. :)

I made my dinner reservation and had exquisite scallops that were hand-dived nearby and a halibut from the North Sea with a bunch of fresh veggies (really truly fresh! The baby spinach was raw and asparagus and broccoli barely steamed! Perfect!) Topped with a tomato-balsamic sauce it was amazing!

This morning I had to depart at 7 am to make my 11 am bus to Dundee (which I'm currently sitting in. :) Times like these I love technology! And I thank Nora, again for showing me how to use my cell phone as a tethering hotspot!) My noteworthy comment about today is just how incredible my hosts were: They got up to make me breakfast for 6:30 am!! So incredibly generous and unexpected! It was a lovely surprise and a fabulous waybto start my day, a scrumptious full Scottish breakfast and lively company. I am so happy!! Departure from Scotland imminent :( Going to see how much more I can experience before my flight on Thursday. :)

Mull, Iona, and Staffa - Another Magical Day!! Annnnd A Glimpse at October 3rd Too.

I SAW DOLPHINS TODAY!!! About 20 of them!!! Little babies and full-sized ones, frolicking in the wake of our boat. It was innnnnnnnnnnnnncredible! So amazing, exciting and exhilirating! I've never seen dolphins, but have always searched like crazy whenever I'm in an environment that has the opportunity. Today was like a triple jackpot!! I am still extra ecstatic about that!

Annnnnd this should be a new paragraph!! So exciting also!! =) Huge thanks to Aaron for making this magic happen. So today's update....

I couldn't sleep at all last night, I think mostly due to worrying about my camera!! I tried going to bed around 1 am with a 7 am alarm to explore Oban a bit in the morning, but at 2 am I re-set the alarm for 8 am and at 4:30 am I got out of bed, took a shower, wrote some emails and skyped some friends!! It's times like these I love having a significant time difference! So I headed out to explore Oban a bit at 7 am, although I was feeling hesitant and not terribly adventurous as it was still raining. =/ I'm so resentful to rain right now. And after my utter saturation yesterday, I really don't want to get saturated again.

I'm suddenly realizing I didn't blog about yesterday, so in a nutshell: Thursday, October 3rd: got a rental car, drove to Torlundy to park in the North Face parking lot and do the North Face Hike to see Ben Nevis. It rained steadily the WHOLE time, with a few 2-3 minute pauses, which I zealously used to my advantage to snap some pictures. Since it was raining so much, I simply left my phone and most water sensitive things in the carm but I had a plastic bag for my camera and I definitely wanted to take some pictures of this hike! After the first few pictures, I realized that the plastic bag was not only a pain in the ass, but it also kept the little bit of rain drops trapped in the bag, so I decided the better option was in my waterproof jacket pocket. I checked the status of my pocket often, and all was good to go. At the top, I got some phenomenal pictures, though I never got to see the top as it stayed in the clouds. What I did get to see of the cliff faces was still tremendously impressive. I stopped at this hut/weather station house because the river was raging and the only way I could see to cross it was this little 2x4ish plank that was nearly in the water itself. It didn't inspire confidence. To really deter me though, there was a mountain rescue helicopter above me. It came twice. Such a disturbing sight and sound. Apparently some climbers had had problems and needed to be air lifted out. The second time the helicopter came by, it circled over me 4 times, and unsure what the hand signal is for "I'm good to go!" I just did a little wave hello and they flew over to the cliff for the second guy. I felt like their little hover over me was there way to say: "Don't even think about crossing that river. We are not coming back to recover you from the raging river because you used poor judgement and crossed a plank of wood you shouldn't have."

So feeling quite satisfied with where I was, I headed back down. I think this is when I compromised the water-proof-ness of my pocket. =/ I clipped the waist strap on my backpack because I ran some of the way down, and I am suspicious that it was during this time that water leaked in and created a lovely little puddle for my camera to bathe in. When I got back to my car (kicking myself HARD for not checking my pocket at all on the way down!!) I pulled my camera out and it was on....what??! Some random image was on my screen and there was line across it, which I soon realized was the level of water in my camera. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I removed the battery and SD card, shook my camera like crazy, drove to the nearest town to get rice and all parts of my camera are now sitting in bags of rice. I'm so so worried that 1.) I've lost ALL of my Scotland pictures - because I didn't have a chance to save any of them onto a USB key yet and 2.) my camera is dead.

Why do I murder technology in rain storms??!! WHY WHY WHY??!! I feel like the cruel joke of it is that I even had a plastic bag for my electronic device this time, and I chose not to use it. Ugh. Feeling frustrated with myself.

But back to October 4th, because that is much more fun!! The big bummer is that I didn't have my camera for the day. That was a bit heart-breaking. I did the best I could with my phone camera, but they are mediocre at best. Yet better than nothing, right? They'll at least spur memories, and that's my main goal, so I'll stop complaining now.

My morning exploration of Oban turned out to be fantastic!! The rain stopped within the first 15 minutes of my being outside, and I even got some sunshine and pockets of blue sky with wispy clouds. I went to grocery store and got lots of fruit and oat cakes (mmmmm, love oat cakes!! OH!! And randomly, but before I forget, I found that my absolute favorite baby food flavor on the WHW was a "spinach, pear, mango" WOW!! Amazing!!)

Back to today. I took a picnic breakfast up at McCraig's Tower and had a splendid little view - it was so nice!! Then I went to booked myself a boat tour to the islands of Mull, Iona and Staffa. GLORIOUS!!

We took a ferry over to Mull, had a guided bus ride across Mull to the West Coast, and our guide was very informative and amusing. From the West Coast, we took a small boat out to Staffa, and THAT is when we saw the dolphins. They chased us for about 10 minutes. I was in awe. I still am in awe thinking back on it. They are such beautiful, graceful creatures!! They were leaping out of the waves and one even did a little rotation mid-leap - it felt like a coordinated show. There was one pair of dolphins that was adorable in that it was a little baby with an adult (mom, dad?? who can say?) =) They were together the whole time, leaping at the same time, it was adorable. I felt like the baby was training! =)

Once we arrived at Staffa, we had 30 minutes to explore, which was quick, but not absurdly so. Staffa was my favorite. It is the "other end" (if you will) of Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, so this was a fantastic way to bring my trip around full circle. I even found Staffa more impressive than Giant's Causeway. It is a whole island of nothing but these hexagonal columns (from the same lavaflow as Giant's Causeway). It is tremendous. Some are even curvy, but still hexagonal. It is truly unreal. The kicker?? There is a cave called Fingal's Cave, famous for Scotland's mythical giant, yes, but you may also have heard of it as Mendelssohn's inspiration for his Hebridean Overture. I am unfamilar with it, but am very much looking forward to listening to it now that I've gotten to stand in Fingal's Cave. The best part of the cave is that I somehow managed to time my visit in a gap of people and I had the cave all to myself for nearly 5 minutes. It was awesome. Truly awesome.

After Staffa, we got about 75 minutes on Iona, which was far too brief, but I'll just have to come back some other time and spend a week on the island. They're meant to have a lovely hostel! =) So this island was the destination of St Columba from Ireland in the 6th century. He founded a monastery and there is still a (renovated) abbey there today. It is gorgeous. My whole time on the island was basically exploring the Abbey, seeing St Columba's shrine where he was originally buried (but no longer is) and taking close to 300 pictures with my phone. Yowzers. It was a brilliant day and I'm so happy I was able to capture it in pictures, even if only via camera-phone.

Tonight I had some fish and chips that everyone raved about and it was actually pretty decent (considering I'm typically completely against deep-frying fish). But I enjoyed it! And added some brussel sprouts =) Now I am off to pack and bed because my all-nighter is catching up to me! Onwards to explore the Northwest Coast tomorrow - Applecross and Gairloch on the list! Woohooooooooooooooo!!

WHW ENTIRELY COMPLETE!

I am the luckiest girl in the world! :) And I'm also very behind schedule on my updates so here we go : DAY 6 (September 28): KINGSHOUSE TO KINLOCHLEVEN. An absolutely tremendous day for so many reasons...1.) SUNSHIIIIIIINE 2.) NO RAIN, NO MIDGES, NO MOSQUITOES, NO BLISTERS, NO CHAFING, AND PERFECT TEMPERATURE!! 3.) The clouds lifted enough to get to see the peaks of mountains! :) I'd made a barter with Mother Nature the day before that if I could get the clouds to lift enough to see mountain tops and some sunshine, I would take rain on my last day.... I realized I was being ridiculously picky in asking for clouds that would keep the temps to a perfect chilly but high enough to see peaks of mountains, but Mother Nature was generous and it was so fantastic!! 4.) Only 8 miles!! My shortest day yet and it was glorious!! Late start, no rush, picnic from the top of Devil's Staircase, and SUNBATHING in bare feet!! :) 5.) Before I started my day, sat in the hotel at the window drinking tea and watching the clouds go by. Marvelous! 6.) Met a great guy that inspired me to sunbathe barefoot. He was doing so in a river on a rock and it just looked phenomenal, and I thought, why am I not doing that? So I found a spot about a mile further on, and did my own sun-ray-soaking. He ended up walking by me and we ended up chatting up a storm, all the way to Kinlochleven, where....7.) We found 2 fine folks I'd met 2 nights before who I also hit it off with really well. We ended up getting a beer outside together to enjoy the sunset on Loch Leven and eating dinner together. It boosted my spirits off the chart!!! DAY 7: (October 1) : Kinlochleven to Fort William. 15 miles. Annnnnnd NO RAIN!! Mother Nature didn't hold me to the barter - unreal!! Everything is so much prettier in the sun! The main valley we walked through had these insanely strong winds but they were at our back so it was glorious!! The blue sky against the hills was amazing and knowing it was the last leg was very motivating as well. The miles flew by! I also had company as the guy I'd met on Day 6 joined me. It was grand! Only downside - there were some miles that were quite depressing through forest that had been annihilated. Walking through stumps of former trees and piles of timber was incredibly ugly, sad, and a rude awakening back to reality. We ended up modifying the last few miles of the Way because my companion had done it already and knew it was all on road and quite bland. So we modified :) stayed on trail and walked to the peak of Cow Hill for some incredible views and sunset colors in the sky. Maaaaarvelous!! We joined up with the actual WHW trail for the last mile or so and I felt good enough to run the last couple hundred yards!! Running the end was unexpected but was spurred by my walking companion's "Race you!" and will leave a lasting memory! Epically fun!!! But what about September 29 and 30, you ask?? Well :) I'd decided to spend 3 nights in Kinlochleven when I was planning all of my lodging and it was the BEST random decision ever!! I spent those 2 days hiking around and getting some of the absolute most magnificent views of my life!! I will attempt to post some of my favorites when I get to a computer. Overall, utterly stupendous!! And today I hiked to Steall Falls from Fort William, another roughly 15 mile day. It's so stupendous!! My body feels great and I've become addicted to walking for hours! Oh, if I could make a job out of long-distance walking ... the wheels in the brain are turning! :)