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perhaps soon forgotten it. But not on this day. On this day, I felt a deep connection with the poet and his state of mind.
    In the same way that he had delighted in the shallowness of the stream and the firmness of the rocks, I too had begun to appreciate the familiar qualities of everyday objects: the soft absorbency of a towel, the firm supportiveness of a chair, the warmth and comfort of a carpeted floor.
    I had experienced those things every day for almost half a century. Yet I had never really attended to them, and never really appreciated them. I had never realized that everyday life holds such an abundance of simple pleasures.
    I wondered if it would be possible for me to hold onto that realization when JoGLE was over; when towels and chairs and tables and beds became commonplace again.
    It occurred to me that the man or woman who, like Gensei, could hold onto that realization, and could take ever-fresh delight in the simple pleasures of life, would require few possessions to be richer than Croesus.
    These interesting and pleasant thoughts occupied my mind as I walked through the forests on the western shore of Loch Lochy. At other times, when the path emerged from the trees, the view of the loch and the towering mountains in the distance was enough.
    At lunchtime, Wendy and I took advantage of a spell of sunshine and stopped for a picnic on a rocky shore. I can still see her, sitting there, on a rock beneath a bent old tree, in her red wind-shirt and battered sun-hat, with her rucksack at her feet, looking for all the world like the jolly swagman who sat by a billabong under the shade of a coolibah tree.

    Our destination was Gairlochy, which consists of little more than two pretty locks, which connect a section of the Caledonian Canal to the southern end of Loch Lochy.
    We arrived there quite early in the afternoon. However, the nearest campsite was a mile or two off the trail, which meant that we had to finish an otherwise pleasant day with some tedious and unproductive road-walking.
    We had passed no shops that day. Nor on the previous day. So we decided to use our emergency packets of dehydrated potatoes and meatballs for dinner. We’d bought them prior to setting off on JoGLE, and had been carrying them for the best part of two hundred miles.
    They were horrible.

    The following morning, we feasted – in the loosest sense of the word – on cereal bars before retracing our steps to Gairlochy, ready for our final assault on the Great Glen Way.
    We had just twelve miles to cover. And because they were flat, easy miles, and because the sun was shining, and because, after two consecutive days of short walks, our feet were feeling a whole lot better, we felt good.
    First, we walked along a pretty section of towpath that runs between the canal and the River Lochy, arriving around lunchtime at Neptune’s Staircase, a magnificent series of eight individual locks, which joins the Caledonian Canal with the sea loch, Loch Linnhe, sixty-four feet below.
    From there, our route ran alongside Loch Linnhe, with fine views of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain, then through a housing estate in the village of Corpach, and finally into Fort William , the largest town in the West Highlands.

    Our destination was the Glen Nevis Caravan and Camping Park, an enormous campsite catering for the vast numbers of campers, caravanners, hikers, climbers, mountain-bikers, cyclists, and other assorted nature enthusiasts that converge upon Fort William each year.
    To get there, we had to walk through the town centre, past the obelisk that marks the southern end of the Great Glen Way, and then past the signpost that marks the northern end of the West Highland Way. So, in a single day, we got to finish one national walking trail and begin another.
    The campsite was beautifully situated in a deep valley at the foot of the mighty Ben Nevis. The afternoon was young. We had the entire evening ahead of us, and an entire day off to look forward