Yesterday I arrived at the Lookout bothy in Skye, end of the Skye Trail. Thereby finishing a 350 mile walk through Scotland – from Glasgow, through the Cairngorms national park, to the northern tip of Skye.
Highest high: Ben Macdui (2nd highest mountain in the UK)
Lowest low: probably checking whether the tube of Pringles sticking out of the bin at Laggan had anything left in it (it didn’t! So who knows what would have happened)
Greatest challenge: turning off my GPS – for spiritual reasons, much like the bit in Star Wars when he turns off his targeting computer (assume the real reason Luke did this was also that he had accidentally broken the little joystick that moves the screen around)
Secret weapon: waterproof socks
Arch-enemy: the girl from Alaska in the US army who crushed me in the lightweight walking challenge by having half my pack weight (though partly achieved by having *no change of clothes*… perhaps there are some competitions it’s better not to win)
I feel like I’ve achieved something but not sure what exactly – perhaps I walked 700 miles last year and now I’ve walked 300 more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at my girlfriend’s door (but being very careful as she’d just repainted it, and then having to let myself in because she was at the gym).
The Rob Roy Way ended at Pitlochry. A day’s walk to Blair Atholl, on the edge of the Cairngorms national park, and then due north up Glen Tilt (pictured here) – into, if not the heart, then at least the bowels of the Cairngorms.
Glen Tilt continues. Looking forward to some wild camping after an abundance of Co-ops on the Rob Roy Way.
Nice place to camp. Didn’t see another person all day.
A turn west on to Glen Feshie. I met a man here who had lost his dog and was retracing his steps, while his wife walked from the other direction. I went up ahead, but didn’t find the dog. Or his wife, come to think of it.
Postscript, January 2021: I googled this a few months later to see if there was a good news story in a local paper about a man finding his dog, but there wasn’t one. On the other hand, there also wasn’t a story about a man losing his wife while looking for his dog, so that’s something.
From Glen Feshie to Kingussie. I got the train from here to Aviemore to spend a couple of days going up the Munros in the Cairngorms.
I spent quite a while practicing saying ‘Kingussie’ to buy the train ticket back, but still got it wrong. Just couldn’t get into my head where the ‘g’ goes. I just know it’s not ‘King Juicy’.
Walking up from the Cairn Gorm car park. Tim attempts an escape.
Postscript, January 2021: on this path in April 2018 I came across a train of models heading up to do a Rab photoshoot. Odd sight – seemed like normal walkers at first, but all in brand new waterproofs, and covered in make-up. Like when Instagram influencers go on walks.
Cairn Toul (4,235 ft)
We were sort of lucky with the weather while in the Cairngorms, in that we got some amazing views from the tops, and only got rained on on the way up and down.
At the top of Braeriach (4,252 ft), you could see miles into the distance and pick out the different groups of Munros, including Ben Nevis. (Well, there was a guy up there pointing at things and confidently saying ‘ah, that’s Ben Nevis’ etc – we didn’t have a clue and seemed like a nice thing to believe.)
A little bit of Ben Macdui on the left and a little bit of Cairn Toul on the right. Photography comes naturally to me.
After the break in the Cairngorms, I went back to Kingussie to continue my walk. Here I’m on my way to Fort Augustus via the Corrieyairack Pass, an old military road.
I enjoyed the Corrieyairack Pass – it felt quite wild. However, it is quite long and straight and probably better done by mountain bike.
Loch Ness.
Walking from Fort Augustus to Drumnadrochit on the Great Glen Way. The first day out of Fort Augustus on the high route is amazing.
Glen Affric
The Affric Kintail Way starts from Drumnadrochit and heads broadly west towards Loch Alsh.
There is an 8 mile road stretch to Cannich that I would not put high on my list of things to ever do again. I think that, and the fact it is generally (all except the very last bit?) on 4×4 tracks, makes the Affric Kintail Way much more convincing as a bike route.
Postscript, January 2021: a new path is being built at this very moment that removes this road section. Hurray.
I stayed at the Youth Hostel at Allt Beithe – I’ve sometimes seen it referred to as the most remote youth hostel in the UK – it can only be reached my foot/mountain bike, and is off grid, its electricity from solar panels and a wind turbine and its water treated by UV.
It was here I met an American from Alaska, who was proper ultralight – she had just walked the whole length of the Trotternish ridge on Skye in a single day (27 miles? but brutal ones). She said how relaxing it was hiking in Scotland because you could eat a cookie in your tent without worrying that a grizzly bear might tear into your tent in the night, and she wasn’t bothered by midges because she said Alaska has both midges and mosquitos.
There was also someone here who had suffered from long term Lyme disease – it was a pretty terrifying story and makes me think I should take tick bites more seriously.
Postscript, January 2021: I did take my next tick bite more seriously, on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019. The side effects from the medication were quite unpleasant and I vowed to take my next tick bite less seriously.
On to the Skye Trail! I think the ‘official’ route is to go North to South, but I’m going the other way.
And this trail has some actual thru-hikers on it! Great to find some trail spirit, which doesn’t really exist in the earlier sections.
Camasunary Bay – an amazing bothy with a big window looking out to sea. There’s been a severe weather warning and the clouds are looking menacing.
I meet a load of people – including three other thru-hikers, a Dutch pair and a French guy.
I hang my food bag up. In the night I hear the tell-tale rustling of a mouse chewing through stuff. I turn over and go back to sleep. Not that a mouse couldn’t find a way to climb up to my bag, but I know everyone else left their bags on the floor, and mice, unlike thru-hikers, aren’t stupid. I wake up to a scene of food apocalypse feeling slightly guilty but well rested.
There was some debate last night about when the storm would hit – most people decide to sleep in and wait for it to pass. I tell everyone that the rain always comes later than they forecast and I’m going to get going.
The heavy rain starts about 10 minutes after I leave. It is pretty bad. I get to a river in spate I don’t think I can cross. I walk up and down looking for a better place, but in the end decide to put my tent up and wait it out (something I’ve never done before, but something they say you should do in books). As I take my pack off, the French thru-hiker appears. It’s too embarrassing to stop now, so we both walk down the river looking for a crossing. In the end, we choose a place, it’s not great, and we should have crossed as a pair, but neither of us wanting to show hesitation, we both launch out independently. He makes it across first. My claim is that I was also going to make it, but I accept I was slowing down, and at the last minute he makes a dramatic leap to grab me and pull me in the last bit.
We make it to Sligachan, pretty soggy. Sligachan is a place name, but as a place, only seems to contain a pub.
It’s the French guy’s birthday, so I take him to the pub to buy him lunch and a beer.
He is studying something like political philosophy, and we have a surprisingly reasonable conversation about philosophy (I mean, how many English people know the word ‘epistemology’?), but otherwise his English isn’t great (and my French non-existent).
‘What is haggis?’ I explain this, but it is quite hard as he doesn’t know all the words, and I feel slightly anxious attempting this surrounded by Scottish people.
‘Is it good?’ Hmmm. I’m even more anxious about explaining this one. I try to diplomatically say that it is a unique flavour – an acquired taste perhaps. But he doesn’t know those words. The best I can manage is describing it as ‘original’, which he seems to accept as meaningful.
He decides to have it. It arrives and he spends some time contemplating it. Eventually he finishes and I ask him whether he liked it, would he have it again?
‘No… it is too original for me’
Looking back at the Cuillins
The Old Man of Storr
Camping up on the Trotternish ridge. I’m actually camped up here with the Dutch thru-hikers, but don’t realise it – there are three other tents, but it’s dark, cold and raining so I just stay in my tent eating peanut butter.
They catch up to me at the youth hostel on the final night, and so does the French guy – we have a few beers, a nice end to the trip.
Lookout bothy on the northern tip of Skye.
The end.