13: Praise of Beinn Dorain (Tyndrum to Inveroran)

Today’s walk is going to be a long one in comparison to the rest of our itinerary.  At nineteen miles with nearly two thousand feet of elevation gain it takes the prize for the most demanding day. Despite this I am excited because we will be staying overnight in the spectacular and historical setting of Glencoe.  

To give us the best possible start we arrived at breakfast just as they are laying out the buffet items and we are left to our own devices to collect our food and push slices of bread through the crazy rolling toaster that never actually manages to toast two sides evenly or at all. The restaurant itself could sit hundreds of people and had long draped tables down each side, all set out as if for a massive banquet.  

About half an hour into our breakfast, the hordes from the coach parties descended. The queue increased exponentially and soon it rivalled ‘The Queue’, as it had become known, in London for the lying-in-state of the Queen. Queuing is often regarded as a peculiarly British trait but our continental neighbours were demonstrating an extreme version of polite queuing, where they even patiently waited for each person to achieve toasting nirvana before they moved on to the next station. We finished our breakfast and walked out alongside the queue. At the present rate of movement it would probably have been another hour or so before the stragglers joining at the end were toasting their bread. 

We brought our luggage to reception and said a regretful goodbye to the Muthu Ben Doran hotel. This was the most comfortable night of the journey so far with a level of facilities that was unlikely to be matched by this evening’s accommodation, the Glencoe mountain resort.  

Outside, a group of coach drivers, with tight white shirts stretched to bursting over their large bellies, were basking in the sunshine, while they smoked and exchanged stories beside their luxury coaches. Along the main street we made our way back to the Green Welly Stop where I bought a new buckle for my day pack to replace the one broken in Balmaha. Jerome meanwhile purchased some Savlon for his tic bite. It seems that he picked this up between Rowardennan and the Drovers Inn and accidentally knocked the tic off while showering that evening.  Unfortunately, due to not dealing with the bite correctly, there was now some inflammation.  

The path out of Tyndrum headed north and followed the railway for next five miles to the Bridge of Orchy. The tiny village of Tyndrum has two railway station, lower and upper and confusingly they are not on the same line. The trains from Glasgow branch at Crianlarich a few miles down the line and the railways run parallel for a few short miles along either side of the river valley. Trains that stop at Lower Tyndrum terminate at Oban, whereas trains on the Upper route are heading to Fort William and eventually Mallaig, where the ferry can carry passengers on to Skye.  

The train journey from Glasgow to Mallaig is 99 miles as the crow flies and 147 miles on the ground. It is timetabled at a backside numbing five hours and twenty minutes. However the spectacular scenery is a terrific compensation for the slow journey.  Not that any trains would have been travelling today, as where the path first met and crossed the railway there were significant works on the line.  Normally the railway crossed a small river at this point but the line was broken and a new concrete bridge was about to be craned into place. 

Railway works in he shadow of Beinn Dorain

When we'd been making arrangements for the walk, we'd decided to catch the train back from Fort William to Glasgow and, as it can be a busy line, we booked tickets. As the date came nearer, a strike was called by railway workers for the day that we were travelling back. We therefore needed an alternative, which would either be the bus or a taxi. We plumped for the bus and booked tickets once more. Then the Queen died and out of respect for the mourning period the railway strike was called off, meaning that we now had two choices. 

Watching the extensive work in progress, it didn’t look like they would be finished in a few days, so our guess was that meant that a bus replacement service would be operation for part of the rail trip, which would increase the overall journey time. Unusually the bus service from Fort William was already an hour quicker than the train and it had for us the added advantage of stopping at the airport on the way. 

There was a small pang of disappointment because the West Highland line is famous as one of the most spectacular train journeys in Britain and we had been looking forward to travelling along it.

Heading to Beinn Dorain

Our hotel was named after Beinn Dorain (which is the Gaelic name), a steep sided munro which overlooks the Bridge of Orchy. It features in one of the most important long form poetry texts of Gaelic literature, ‘Moladh Beinn Dóbhrain’ which translates as ‘Praise of Beinn Dorain’ by Duncan Ban MacIntyre. Duncan Ban (Fair Duncan) worked as a deer forester on the slopes of Beinn Dorain and during his time the mountain and valley was filled with trees. The Highland clearances and subsequent sheep farming felled the forests, which he railed against in his song of the foxes:

"My blessing with the Foxes dwell
For that they hunt the sheep so well.
Ill fa' the sheep, a greyfaced nation
That swept our hills with desolation."

You can read a snippet of ‘Praise of Beinn Dorain’ in Gaelic and English Here.

Beside this magnificent mountain we turned west to re-cross the railway and walk through the station before reaching the main road and the Bridge of Orchy hotel, which was open, serving coffees and also had very good facilities. We sat outside and nursed our coffees as a bus for Fort William stopped and deposited some passengers. 

Crossing the river Orchy

Leaving the hotel we crossed the Bridge after which the hotel was named. This was built by the British Army as an important part of the military roads that were instrumental in ‘pacifying the Highlands’, which was the political term for the aftermath of the unsuccessful Jacobite revolutions. It crosses the river Orchy which tumbles out of Loch Tulla and is renowned as a ‘white water’ river with sections called names like ‘chicken chute’, ‘black falls’ and most alarmingly ‘the end of civilisation’. It’s not for novice kayakers, I am told.

Our path in comparison could not be more straight-forward, These military roads are broad and the inclines are gentle. The only drawback is that the ground is quite stony which can be hard on the feet. We are walking up through yet more forest when we arrived at a stand that was in the process of being felled.   

This is where your toilet rolls come from

The trees look like match sticks and a huge machine was picking up bunches of them and then tapping them against the ground to flatten the ends, as easily as if I was handling loose dried spaghetti, before depositing the load on the back of a lorry.  

The Rowan tree in Gaelic mythology is supposed to ward off evil spirts

The path climbs slowly up through the Plantation Forest until finally we can see ahead and the full extent of Loch Tulla is revealed.  There is a lone Rowan tree with red berries. What resilience it must have to grow so beautifully in defiance of the fierce prevailing weather. It was a place to stop and admire the view, while also respecting the sturdiness of this remarkable tree.

Snug in the valley below is the Inveroran hotel with a shop, a bar and yet more facilities. There were definitely advantages to being on a popular hike.