Saturday 19 October 2024--Breakfast this morning is at Hector's Bothy in Kyle of Lochalsh. Like many cafés and pubs, Hector's is festooned with Halloween decorations in late October. There's a werewolf eyeing my sausage and eggs over my shoulder. I hear complaints sometimes about American holiday customs spreading in the UK and Europe, but virtually everything in the North American practice of Halloween has roots in medieval European Christian observance of All Hallows Eve, and before that the pagan Gaelic festival of Samhain. Guising (later called trick-or-treating) was brought to Canada by Scottish immigrants. The word "Hallowe'en" itself is Scots.

Off we go, up Glen Shiel, down Glen Garry, and along to Fort William, where we stop for a break. At the Highland Bookshop, I pick up the new Rebus novel, as well as a copy of The Derk Isle, a Scots-language edition of the Tintin adventure The Black Island (L'Île Noire in the original French).

Up Glen Coe now, where we find the car park at the Three Sisters viewpoint has been paved and striped. It's an improvement, I guess, and it's still free for now; but it's a bit jarring somehow, another reminder of the explosion of tourism hereabouts and the pressures it brings.

It's another hour to Killin, our home for the next two nights. I'd wanted to stay at the Falls of Dochart Inn, but couldn't match up dates; it was a bit pricey for us, too. The Killin Hotel is at the other end of the half-mile main street (named, oddly enough, Main Street). It's more reasonably priced, but I didn't have a good feeling about it. I found a B&B halfway between. Our hosts are in residence, but once again, we're the only party in. We walk up to the Inn, stopping on the bridge to view the Falls of Dochart themselves, the River Dochart tumbling down toward Loch Tay. It's no surprise that there have been mills here for centuries. The Old Mill, originally St Fillan's Mill, dates to about 1840, and now houses an artisans' market.

The Falls of Dochart Inn is a converted smithy, built in the late 19th century. It's charmingly rustic, and provides us with a very satisfactory dinner and pints.