Wagon Wheel - a photo on Flickriver

Wagon Wheel

Photography was always going to take second place to the main event this time. So were Ali and I in fact. We were just the support act, helping our friends from across the pond to make it to the line each day as they hiked the Great Glen Way from Fort William to Inverness. We weren’t even able to join them until the end of day two, by which time they’d already walked the first twenty-two of seventy-nine miles, but when we did, it was a reunion that had been nine years in the making. Back in the summer of 2015, My brother Dave, my son Tom and I walked the West Highland Way over seven days to Fort William, making new friends along the way. It’s not something I usually do on holiday, but when you’re bumping into the same people each day and comparing stories of your adventures on the trail, you inevitably start to make friends. Shared values and all of that.

Alder and Anna had come all the way from North Carolina, and by the time we marched over Rannoch Moor towards the Buachaille and Glencoe, the two groups had merged into one. Two days later, we crossed the finishing line at Fort William in a rainstorm together, celebrated in the pub, and were rescued by another party from Clydebank, who smuggled us into their hotel rooms when all the inns were full and the camping ground had been reduced to a quagmire in a matter of hours. The next morning, I waved the Americans off at the bus stop, before those of us left in Fort William raced for the early Glasgow train. In truth, it seemed unlikely I’d ever see them again, but we stayed in touch. Just the odd message now and again to see how we all were, as we moved on with our lives. Until late last year when they told me they were coming back to Scotland for another big adventure. At the end of our 800 hundred mile drive to join them, I opened the door of the restaurant where they were dining. Anna bounced out of her chair and ran at me with a massive hug. Any fears that we might have changed in the intervening years were gone in an instant.

Each day, Ali and I would drive to wherever they were planning to finish a stage, before walking back towards them and turning around when we finally bumped into each other. We didn’t manage seventy-nine miles, but in four days, the pair of us covered almost fifty. Time flew by, the weather hurling everything it could muster at us one day after the next as we shared stories of where life had taken us since that memorable adventure in the wilderness. A lot happens in nine years. By the time we marched down from the hills, towards the boarded up castle walls of Inverness, outside which the slightly underwhelming finishing post marker stood, it was almost as if we’d never been apart. Alder, an accomplished artist, presented me with a beautiful pastel of Loch Ness that she’d sketched one evening at Fort Augustus while the rest of us scanned the dark waters for a sign of Nessie. Anna had made me a friendship bracelet, carefully explaining the different sections and what they represented. She’d also brought her journal from the 2015 trip, reading sections aloud over dinner. In return I recited my own paragraphs from “Trains, Planes, Automobiles and a Bloody Long Walk,” the working title of my unpublished saga of the episode.

They’d been practising a song they were going to perform for us too. In return, Ali and I croaked our way through “Cornwall My Home” on the slopes above a housing estate at the edge of Inverness, against the discordant background wail of a distant ice cream van. Alder and Anna were our intended audience, but as we warbled the final chorus, a panic stricken mountain biker appeared at our backs, evidently wondering whether to turn tail from the sermon on the mount and head for home. Our friends were much braver though - the following evening in the Black Isle Bar in Inverness, sweetly and softly they sang “Wagon Wheel,” whisking us all in an instant to their North Carolina home and drawing a ripple of applause from the locals as they did so. It was a perfect way to say our farewells, as we made plans for more adventures together in the future. In three days our friends would be back in North Carolina, by which time Ali and I would be moving down towards our last base at Loch Lomond.

Just now and again, I managed to take a photo or two. Mostly, it came in the form of an opportunistic point and hope as we marched along the trail, but occasionally, such as here at Invermoriston, I managed to devote as much as an entire twenty minutes to the landscape from behind the camera. But then, this trip was always going to be about the people we spent time with and the memories rather than photos. There are times at which even for a loner like me, people become more important than pictures.

youtu.be/hvKyBcCDOB4

Taken in: UK / Scotland / Invermoriston (show map)

Taken on: June 30, 2024

Tags:

Scotland

Invermoriston

highlands

Scottish Highlands

Caledonia

Water

water_shots

water_captures

long exposure

Great Britain

Britain

Waterfall

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landscape

landscape photography

Great Glen Way

Invermoriston Falls

Wagon Wheel

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Loch Ness « less

Sets appears in: • Scotland 2024 • Scotland more » • Waterfalls « less

Groups appears in: • Scotland • Amateurs more » • Water (and things) • Photography Week • The Intimate Landscape • Amateur Photographer Magazine • WONDERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN GENERAL NO IA NO SECON LIVE.MARAVILLAS « less

Camera: Canon EOS 200D, f/13.0, 2 sec, 13mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 200D
Lens:	Tokina AT-X 116 PRO DX II 11-16mm F2.8
Aperture:	f/13.0
Exposure Time:	2
Focal Length:	13mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-2 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 13.4 (Windows)
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