We cast our lines early at Corpach Basin to begin our transit of the Caledonian Canal from Scotland’s Atlantic coast in the west to the North Sea in the east. The Caledonian Canal follows a natural slip-fault that runs north-west to south-east across the Scottish Highlands and it was the great Scottish engineer Thomas Telford who won the government contract to build a canal through the Great Glen, a task he undertook between 1806 and 1823.
This was at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the canal was devised to enable British naval vessels to move quickly from one side of the country to the other without having to negotiate the treacherous seas off the north coast of Scotland. Not only were the wars over by the time the canal was finished but the age of steam had replaced the age of sail producing vessels that were too large for the canal to accommodate. Thus outmoded, the canal never became commercially viable but has survived into the 21st century as a premium leisure facility, this ancient route-way now being followed by numerous leisure craft as well as hikers along the Great Glen Way, one of Scotland’s major long distance footpaths.
There are some 35 miles of canal linking a series of beautiful natural lochs, starting for us today with Loch Lochy, which we accessed via a remarkable sequence of eight locks known collectively as Neptune’s Staircase that raise the vessel some 64 feet. Loch Oich followed, the highest point of the canal, by which time, by midday, we had gained some 106 feel in elevation. After lunch, guests had the opportunity to disembark at Kytra Lock and walk the towpath to Fort Augustus, our mooring for the remainder of the day. At Fort Augustus we were able to enjoy an evening’s kayaking, or for those wanting more walking, a hike to the older settlement of Kilchuimin. Others enjoyed the sights and sounds of Fort Augustus, originally a military settlement in the wake of the Battle of Culloden but one that developed in the first half of the 19th century to service the Caledonian Canal and its flight of locks, here descending towards the shores of Loch Ness. Many of us enjoyed the informative Canal Museum located here and all returned in good time for the whisky tasting session put on before dinner.
