Today we climbed Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK at 1344m. We waited to catch a bus for our hotel into Fort William and then onto Glen Nevis but no bus arrived. A man coming out of his driveway across the road asked if we wanted a lift which we accepted. He is a youth worker in Fort William working with youth suicide. There is a big youth drug problem here due to the easy access for drugs getting in on the Loch. He took us all the way to the start of the Ben Nevis hike which was good. The track up Ben Nevis is very well formed with rocks and gravel. It must have taken a lot of work to build it up to the standard. We met a group of 15 year old school boys with a group as we started out. They were finishing as we started. We met another group about half way up. There were lots of other hikers either walking up or coming down as we made the walk to the top. We stopped for lunch at the half way mark because it was going to get colder as we got to the summit. We walked through some deep snow at one stage. At the summit it was very cold once we stopped. Just time for a brief snack before we headed down. It was so cold my phone turned itself off! Just as we started the descent we met a young man from Norwich who was ill prepared for the climb. He was very cold so we lent him a pair of gloves (Gavin's as he was warmer) until he met up with his friends. Hopefully they lent him so warm clothes then. The ascent took 4 hours and the descent 3 hours. We met three older men from Northumberland who are climbing Ben Nevis every year until they can't do it anymore. One of them had a hiking pole with an antler on the top. He said he had to be careful not to fall and stab himself with it! This is the third year they've climbed it. When we finally made it to the bottom we decided to walk back into Fort William having been told it was 1 3/4 miles. (About 3 kms). Must be Scottish miles! It was a lot further!! We finally got back to Fort William and then caught a taxi back to our accommodation. I was exhausted but glad we did it. That's highest mountain in Australia, Africa and UK. Just for the record, not attempting the highest in Asia!