National Cycle Route 78 — the Caledonian Way, Campbeltown to Inverness

National Cycle Route 78 — the Caledonian Way, Campbeltown to Inverness

Overview — coast to coast, the beautiful way

National Cycle Network Route 78, better known as the Caledonian Way, is one of the great long-distance cycle (and part-walking) routes in Britain: roughly 234 miles (about 377 km) from Campbeltown, at the foot of Kintyre, all the way up the west of Scotland and through the Great Glen to Inverness. It stitches together canals, old railways, forest tracks and quiet lanes to carry you the length of the Highlands largely away from the traffic — and it happens to pass through a whole string of the places we love best.

The Crinan Canal basin with hills beyond in Argyll, on National Cycle Route 78.
The Crinan Canal in Argyll — one of the loveliest early stretches of the route.

The route, south to north

From Campbeltown the Way heads up Kintyre through Tarbert and along the beautiful Crinan Canal, then on by Kilmartin Glen and Loch Awe toward the west-coast seafood town of Oban. From there it runs north to Fort William beneath Ben Nevis, joins the towpaths of the Caledonian Canal, and threads the length of the Great Glen — past Laggan Locks and Fort Augustus, along Loch Ness — to finish at Inverness.

Oban bay at golden hour, a stop on the Caledonian Way.
Oban at golden hour — the west-coast turning point of the western legs.
The flat canal towpath at Laggan Locks on the Caledonian Way through the Great Glen.
The canal towpath at Laggan — flat, traffic-free and gorgeous, deep in the Great Glen.
The Caledonian Canal basin at Fort Augustus, on Route 78.
Fort Augustus, where the canal steps down into Loch Ness — the home straight to Inverness.

What it’s like

The joy of the Caledonian Way is how much of it is away from busy roads: the flat, tree-lined towpaths of the Crinan and Caledonian canals, the beds of old Highland railways, quiet single-track lanes and forest roads. It undulates plenty — this is the Highlands, after all — but the scenery is simply relentless: sea lochs, canals, castles, distilleries and mountains the whole way. You can ride it end to end over a week or so, or do it in day-sized bites from the villages along it, which is exactly how we’ve come to know it.

The full route

Here’s the northern half of the Way — the Argyll coast and the Great Glen, from Oban up to Inverness — the stretch that runs through so many of our favourite spots:

Sources

  • Sustrans on National Cycle Route 78 / the Caledonian Way.
  • Route geometry from OpenStreetMap; first-hand notes from our own travels along it.