L2L Day 78 Bridge of Orchy to Dalmally - 13.5 miles

A glorious start to the day at the Bridge of Orchy. 





To get to Oban, where the West Highland Way turned right, we turned left and headed into the forest following the Orchy westwards.


A day of enjoying the wonderful colours in nature






This is the land of forestry.




We realised that these trees had been planted about the time that Sally and I first met !!



With all this logging, this is definitely the place for big boys' toys





When dropped, the chunks of stone made an almost metallic sound.

And even in the biggest piles of stone, there are little pieces of magic.


Perfect timing for the first heavy shower of the day - so we took shelter under a bridge to enjoy our sandwich lunch.




The River Orchy has lots of power at this point - where whirlpools have carved into the rock.



We'd met one fellow traveller all day - a French guy from Brittany who was cycling the Badger Divide, an off-road bikepacking route from Glasgow to Inverness. He'd enjoyed it so much he was cycling his way back to Glasgow having already covered 700Km in 7 days. 






I suprised a pine marten on the road about 20m ahead of me but unfortunately didn't manage to get the camera focused in time to get a pic.


The Old Military Road bridge at Inverlochy.

Faced with the last 2 miles of walking along the busy A85 we decided to hitch. As Sally stuck out her thumb, the third car that came along stopped to give us a lift. A farmer from the island of Lismore on his way home with his German girlfriend. They were towing a cattle trailer with three cows they'd bought at  market at Stirling.


The church at Dalmally - the site on which St.Conan arrived from Iona.


The bridge over the Orchy at Dalmally.

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