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morning, on a long ascent through a forest at the edge of Glen Nevis, we saw two young men limping towards us. I mean, really limping – worse, even, than Wendy when she had limped into Dunbeath.
    They hobbled up alongside us, tight-lipped and wincing with pain, and asked, ‘How much further?’
    It turned out that they had walked almost the entire length of the West Highland Way, going from south to north, in just four days, and were about to complete the last few miles after wild-camping nearby on the previous night.
    They were young and strong, and had been confident that they could cope with the punishing schedule they had set for themselves. But they had reckoned without the blisters.
    They all reckon without the blisters.
    Just three weeks previously, Wendy and I had reckoned without the blisters. But now, with 120 miles of road and 70 miles of walking trail behind us, we knew better.
    We assured them that they hadn’t far to go, and that their trials would soon be over. But, in truth, I felt sure that their trashed feet would continue to hurt them for a long time yet.
    After wishing them well, we resumed our journey: out of the forest, along an old military road through an empty glen, and then down a wooded hillside to our campsite in Kinlochleven.

    It was on this day that I began to think of myself, for the first time, as a walker.
    I had now hiked almost two hundred miles, carrying a heavy rucksack up and down hills, through sun and rain, along highways and byways, through towns and villages, and through forests and moors and glens. And I still had a thousand miles to go.
    I had endured fatigue, blisters, aches and pains, sunburn, and boredom. Yet I was still going. And I was going stronger than ever.
    In the early days of JoGLE, I had always found the last few miles of each day to be a dull, painful slog. But now I found them merely dull. The pain wasn’t there any more. Or, if it was, I had become inured to it.
    Also, in the early days, I had found my rucksack to be a cumbersome, wearisome, and thoroughly loathsome object. It had seemed terribly heavy back then. Whenever I stopped for a break, I would put it down with a feeling of exquisite relief. And when the break was over I would have to steel myself to the task of taking it up again.
    But now my rucksack felt like part of me. And, although it still felt heavy at times, at other times I would walk for miles barely conscious of it.
    As a long-distance walker, I had gone from zero to hero, from bumbling novice to seasoned pro, in just a few short weeks.

    On the following day, Wendy and I had planned to walk twenty-one miles from Kinlochleven to the tiny village of Bridge of Orchy. But, with heavy rain forecast, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and opted instead to walk just nine miles to a popular wild-camping site beside the King’s House Hotel .
    This short section of the West Highland Way is a straightforward up-and-down affair: up the Devil’s Staircase, a zigzag track ascending the rocky ridge of Aonach Eagach, and then back down again.
    Wendy, inspired by the dramatic views of the Glencoe Mountains and stimulated by the physical challenge of the Devil’s Staircase, was in tremendous form, and spent the day striding forward with great gusto. I, on the other hand, felt unaccountably lacklustre, and spent the day lagging behind.
    Even heroes and seasoned pros, it seems, have their off days.
    That afternoon, just before the rain began, we pitched our tent, as best we could, amidst a scattering of other tents and a few billion midges on the scrubby moorland at the back of the King’s House Hotel. Then we headed into the hotel’s Climbers’ Bar and stayed there, out of reach of the rain and the midges, until closing time.
    The King’s House Hotel is reputed to be one of Scotland’s oldest licensed inns, and is certainly one of its most remote. It was built in the seventeenth century to cater for travellers crossing nearby