Trip report: Loch Ness and the Great Glen Way
Lochside Hostel is the closest most get to off the grid and everyone was still connected. At night the staff watched Netflix on their laptops in the lounge and the walkers were on their phones.
The hostel is one of the only buildings on the Loch’s banks directly. Only forest behind it, only lake ahead. The nearest village is 8 miles in one direction and the nearest hamlet 5 miles in the other. So bring food or go hungry. Guests swam the week before I arrived but I didn’t fancy it at 8 degs. Inside was warm, which was good, and partly down to the log burner, which felt very authentic. I took a coffee and a cigarette to vibe with on the outdoor terrace every morning, taking in the lake and forest with my headphones on. We off the grid grid grid grid grid, this for my kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids’ kids. My 19-year-old brother’s favourite song off Donda (great choice), but he still hasn’t listened to the second half of the album. I texted him saying he had to listen to Jesus Lord+ as they’re some of the best tracks on the record. He replied “Okay” and we haven’t spoken since.
You have to enjoy your own company to spend 6 hours a day walking alone, and truly I do, but some shockers still come up when climbing mountains. Presence is an irregular moment entwined with forest and mountain as another step along the path. But I spent more time tired and hungry, thinking about the hot meal on the other side or how much my home life would improve with more discipline. The hustle never stops; you’re not free until you’re free.
I met an old man on the first day’s walk to Drumnadrochit on the high road. He sprung out of the landscape upright in waterproofs with his two sticks. I guess he’d walked the high road forever. He was as much an ancient tree as a man. First, he overtook me, and then I overtook him, but it was all good.
We talked about walking. I correctly guessed he was from Birmingham from his hello, and he guessed I was from Lancashire by mine. He started to walk 8 days ago, in Glasgow. He began with the West Highland Way to Fort William and there picked up the Great Glen Way to Inverness. “Wow, you must love walking”, I said, which he didn’t acknowledge. Instead, he explained why he preferred walking to cycling, which takes you through the landscape “too quickly”. He knew this from experience, as he cycled Lands’ End to John O’Groats when younger. His plan wasn’t to camp that night, but to walk through the night to Inverness. He probably had a torch, not just an iPhone. It was cold and raining. I thought his wrinkled skin and body must be so thin underneath his waterproofs; the effect of all that cardio for centuries. I wondered how much food he had in that small backpack, with his tent, and his shovel, and the rest.
He already completed this Glasgow to Inverness walk last December. “Wow,” I said, “You must really love walking.” I’ll push until I hear what I want.
“Or I’m a glutton for punishment.” And I realised, of course. Only children make choices to maximise pleasure. Children or hedonists, who bloat and decay. We parted somewhere. I’d planned to walk to Urquhart Castle and tourist, but instead I went to the Coop in Drumnadrochit and bought snacks. My legs hurt.
I didn’t see a green orb by the Loch under the Aries full moon when I burnt a letter with everything I planned to leave behind inside. I only saw the orb the next morning when I looked back at a video I made of the silver light on the water. A woman I know always captures green orbs in photos when she’s in trouble. Becs believes those orbs are her nan, looking out for her. Becs showed me a photo she took on a dog walk, and when she zoomed in on the green orb in the grass, I saw an old lady’s head with a short perm and glasses inside it. I zoomed in on mine too but it was just brilliant green light, like the heart chakra.
Repeat these affirmations: I love myself and others, I am an expression of love, I am worthy of love, I forgive myself and others, I follow my heart’s voice.
On the second day, I hiked from the hostel to Invermoriston on the high road. The walk was more consistently beautiful than the day before. The Drumnadrochit walk crossed agricultural villages that smelt like blood and shit and were boring, but this was mountain forests and moorland valleys for the entire trek. I took a selfie on top of a mountain with mountains below me, and the Loch below them. I glowed stupid and happy in waterproofs and glasses, but the landscape looked great. I only sent it to my Mum, who said that she thought I looked well.
I crossed a valley with two Neolithic standing stones in it. They might have been part of a stone circle that the landscape swallowed. I thought about those people like me who built them, 5,000 years away. But when I ran my hand across the mellowest stone’s surface, I didn’t open my eyes to Pagan Celts gathered for the dawn ceremony. Maybe one day.
I’d planned for a 3-hour hike to Invermoriston but it took 4. I ran out of snacks with an hour and a half to spare. On the descent, I imagined Invermoriston was a quaint but busy hamlet with a pub, a cheesemonger, a bookshop, a charity shop, and another pub. There was only a café, but at least it sold hot food. I had a portion of fish and chips with two long blacks, which felt particularly English, in a glamorous way. I really only ate the fish and had a cigarette with my second long black, which again, felt quite romantic. There I stood, waifish and glamorous, framed by forests in the valley.
I had a choice to make in that café: wait an hour and forty-five minutes for the bus or walk back during that time. I walked back, even though my legs hurt.
The low road back through the forest was beautiful but I was indifferent and tired. Someone else’s favourite song impacted my mind as an asteroid, left a crater on the ocean floor, created a tsunami. You have better things to do at work than think of me, and I was minding my own business before. I’m not crying, it’s raining here, that’s rain running down my face.
Even in my boldest fantasies, some things remain broken. When it can’t come to life, it can’t. When an angel lives in the 5D, it won’t be wrestled onto this plane. Jacob learnt through striving that angels will leave before they accept an earthly name.
I bumped into Samia on her way up the low road as I went down. I was cold and wanted a Cup-a-Soup, but we had talked a little the day before and so talked again now in the rain. She said she felt like she’s met me before. She said I reminded her of the Mancunian boy she loves (who doesn’t love her back) because of my humour. All Mancunians joke like this, I told her, even my Dutch friend realised I’m not special after visiting me. She didn’t say that she’s afraid that she needs men, and I didn’t whisper back need me then. Although we both do.
Samia quit her job as a psychiatric assistant to work at the Loch, because she realised that when she chose her profession 7 years ago it was for immoral reasons. The malformed people she was there to treat only existed so that she’d feel better by comparison. Another soul who lied to itself for aeons, until its authenticity snapped. Samia said, “Maybe there’s no meaning to any of this, and God just hates us.”
I asked her how many times she’d been through anything like this, and she told me perhaps once before. As it’s my third time at the rodeo, I have a little wisdom going spare: “Do you know Leonard Cohen?”
“No.” I thought, God – I have a much better chance of making it out of this thing alive, because at least I know who Leonard Cohen is. You’ve got to know something about people who know something about this to scrabble out of this thing, whatever it is.
“Well, he’s an old songwriter from the ‘60s. He wrote in his song Suzanne:
Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.
His point is that there’s a purpose to suffering. We must believe that. These trials exist to bring us closer to God, truth, the universe, the life force, whatever you call it. We’re pushed toward faith because the alternative is much worse. A wise man once said to me, ‘Either everything is connected, or nothing is. One’s a paranoic worldview, and the other’s much worse.’ You don’t come to faith because you want to, but because you must trust that it’s all for something. Belief is survival. The alternative is to deny God and the process, which only leads to despair and death.”
From the barstool in my mind, a tearful Ivan Karamazov raved about the suffering of little children as an insufficient price to pay for truth.
“Fucking hell, you’ve given me a lot to think about.” And I don’t think Samia meant that in a good or bad way. It’s just the way things are. We parted and then I didn’t see her in the lounge that night. If I had, I’d have given her my number. But maybe she was avoiding me.
When I got in, I had a bath and a tomato Cup-a-Soup, which has the highest real vegetable content of any Cup-a-Soup (at 52% tomato). I walked a deranged 13.8 miles that day, which is 30,565 steps. I know I once danced 32,000 steps in Berghain on a Saturday, but this was harder because it was up a mountain, and I wasn’t on speed.
**BONUS CONTENT**
Loch Bless playlist tracklist:
Off the Grid — Kanye West
Suzanne — Nina Simone (version from Sugar in my Bowl)
Pool — Samia
Lacrimae — Sufjan Stevens
Latter Days — Big Red Machine ft. Anaïs Mitchell
[song redacted]
A Mermaid in Lisbon — Patrik Watson
Silk Chiffon — Muna ft. Phoebe Bridgers
Jesus Lord — Kanye West
Easy to Sabotage — Big Red Machine
