New West Highland Way finish to be officially opened
Gordon Square (Photo: The Write Image)
The 96-mile long distance route from Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow to Fort William ended at the busy roundabout at the entrance to Glen Nevis. The finish features sculptures and a seating area which is already proving popular with walkers, tourists and locals. The works, which include a giant statue of a seated walker on a bench resting his sore feet, complete the ‘Routes West’ Fort William town centre enhancement project.
Gordon Forrester, manager for the West Highland Way told the BBC: “Walkers completing the route felt a great sense of anticlimax after completing what was an inspirational walk.
“There was no great sense of arrival, finishing beside a glorified road sign. The new end has a Caithness stone map of the route, benches to sit on and a sculpture to have your picture taken with. The backdrop is now of Loch Linnhe and Ardnamurchan rather than traffic.”
Sore Feet statue (Photo: The Write Image)
Everyone who has ever walked the West Highland Way is being invited to take part in the walk and a wide range of West Highland Way representatives are also expected to attend, including civic representatives from all the areas the West Highland Way passes through. Everyone is welcome to join in the celebrations and official opening taking place in Gordon Square from 2pm, with people being encouraged to bring their own musical instruments for the ceilidh.
The West Highland Way remains Scotland’s most popular long distance walking route with over 50,000 people tackling the route each year. For detailed descriptions, maps and GPS downloads for the entire route and links to other long distance routes click here.
September 15th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
This is a welcome development, to finish the way in the centre of FW and smack by a pub, but even better would be to divert the last section on to the minor road which leads into Fort William from the South, where it joins the WHW by a large sign. That’s a much nicer walk into FW than the last section of the way, which is absolutely dire, going through a hideous plantation along a dark and root-stridden ‘path’ where you can’t see a thing, then the last 2 miles along the Glen Nevis road is even worse. That was the worst part of the WHW for me and my GF when we did it 3 years back, and spoiled our otherwise fine memories of the walk.