A small lighthouse stands where the Caledonian Canal opens into the south-west end of Loch Lochy, and the Great Glen Way begins here, following the loch. Walkers know it as the Pepperpot. It marks the junction where the canal meets the loch, beside the lock basin where boats pass through the gates, and it is about the closest thing Gairlochy has to a landmark you could arrange to meet someone beneath.
There is no village centre in the usual sense. Houses sit scattered among woods and water; lock gates, a road swing bridge and the slow business of boats moving through the basin take the place of a high street. On a clear day Ben Nevis and the Grey Corries stand off to the south. What you are looking at is a working piece of engineering that people happen to live beside.
You should arrive with your car boot already stocked. There is no coffee shop or restaurant in Gairlochy, and a nearby meal option is at Spean Bridge, reached by the B8004 down to the A82. The Old Station Restaurant there sits beside the railway, and trains pass close enough to the windows to become part of the evening. The kitchen leans Scottish: Chicken Balmoral with local haggis, the Station steak pie, haggis, neeps and tatties, breaded haddock from the local fishmonger, and a venison burger topped with black pudding. There is also a spicy Cajun chicken pasta for anyone who has had enough of the theme, and Orkney fudge cheesecake with Scottish tablet ice cream to finish. A garden serves locally sourced beers and malts.
The reason to stay here is the walking. The Great Glen Way runs the length of Loch Lochy from Gairlochy to South Laggan, 12.8 miles along minor roads, lochside paths and forest tracks. It passes near Achnacarry, ducks into the woods at Clunes, and ends at Laggan Locks. Above the village, Gairlochy Forest borders private woodland on three sides, which makes it feel larger than it is. It is popular with cyclists as well as walkers.
The canal that shaped all of this was built between 1803 and 1822 to Thomas Telford's design, paid for directly by the government, and its locks were larger than anything of the kind before them, at the time. Telford House, the bowed five-bay building near the locks, went up around 1811-13 as quarters for the men and horses working the water, and later became the lock keeper's house. Telford is thought to have stayed there; the bowed first-floor room is still called Telford's Room.
Older history sits a little back from the water. A small walled burial ground holds 18th- and 19th-century tombs on what was probably the site of the early Kilmonivaig church, before the River Lochy was diverted to make room for the canal. The present Kilmonivaig church, built about 1812, keeps a medieval grave slab carved with a Highland galley, two lions and vine scrolls, carried up from the old riverside ground. Four miles off at Achnacarry, the Clan Cameron Museum tells the story of the estate and of the 25,000 Allied volunteers who trained here as Commandos during the war; the Tarzan Course and Toggle Bridge are gone, but you can walk the ground by the River Arkaig where they stood. The Commando Memorial stands on the road near Spean Bridge.
Getting here is straightforward by car and awkward by anything else. Spean Bridge station is the nearest railhead, with a handful of parking spaces and no waiting room. The route 43 bus runs on school days only, so check before you count on it. Fort William, nine miles off, is where you go for a real choice of shops.
In the evening, what traffic there is through Gairlochy tends to be on the water: a boat waiting at the gates, the bridge swinging back, and then quiet again.