We got up early, had a quick porridge pot in our room, before getting a taxi to the start of the Ben Nevis mountain route.

Even at a lower level the views were impressive. The initial part of the climb was pretty tough on the legs as it was walking up natural steps.

We crossed over a bridge and saw the odd couple of sheep on the mountain side.

As we continued climbing the path got a little easier, with a gentler gradient, and the views over the Loch and mountain range were beautiful.

We crossed the Red Burn stream, which is around the halfway point, and not long after that it became really cloudy and windy. The path also became more difficult as you had to climb over boulders and scree.

As we got closer to the summit we followed the cairns which appeared out of the fog and guided our way.

It became really windy, at times if felt we were going to be blown away. It was raining too. At one point you had to wall through some snow.

And the North face of the mountain also still had snow on it.

After 3.5 hours of climbing we eventually we made it to the summit.

At the summit there are the remains of the old observatory.

Basically there were unfortunately no good views from the top, so after a couple of minutes wandering around at the top we headed back down.

The way down was also quite difficult as you had to be careful not to lose your footing. Saying that, we did see people running both up and down the mountain! As we passed the halfway point the cloud began to clear and we got some more fantastic views.

There were a couple more sheep on the way down.

At the bottom we had a well deseved quick half pint at the Ben Nevis Inn.

It took us 6 hours to get up and down the mountain, with the summit at 1,345m and around 16km in distance.

After getting back to town we showered and then headed out fir dinner. We stopped at the Black Isle pub to try some of the beers. We sat outside in the sunshine and had a lovely view over Loch Linnhe, one of Scotland’s largest sea lochs.

We had booked a table at Crannog as we had heard the food was really good.

The food was really delicious and really well presented.

The restaurant itself had some interesting artwork, one was a set of paintings depicting the various stages of depression.

We finished off with a ‘Scottish’ coffee.

And then headed out for a little wander along the Loch.

After a stop at another couple of pubs, this time to sample some Scottish gin, we headed back to our bed for the night.