With each step we take, we sacrifice ourselves to Gravity and hope we remain upright at the end
Me, after slipping going downhill for the nth time
Day 07 | Beinn Dronaig Bothy to Kinlochewe | 33.5km | 1,020m Ascent
Not gonna lie, I think I really hacked off Jon and Rachel last night. I tossed and turned all night, and my sleeping bag and sleeping mat aren’t the quietest combination. Sorry Jon, sorry Rachel! However, they’re target for derision changed at 05:10 when both old men seemed to simultaneously get up and clobbered around in the common room, making a complete hullabaloo and having a good old natter. As such, we were basically awake from then on, meaning we started the day in a tired and grumpy mood. Gotta look on the bright side though, our mood could only improve! And, we had now moved onto the northern map section, so we were halfway there! Theoretically.
When we did eventually emerge from our sleeping bags, both old men had disappeared to individually pursue their adventures that had brought them to Beinn Dronaig Bothy, and we were left in peace to make breakfast and pack up. Jon and Rachel bid us adieu first and left ten minutes before we did. They were half a kilometre ahead of us from the beginning of the day.
Now, I have labelled this section “The Crux” since these next couple days were going to be the toughest, mentally. It was at that point where we were physically tired most of the time and it wasn’t quite close enough to the end to get that mood boost from being close to finishing. So it was just tough really. Additionally, from here on out, Scotland got slightly flatter. Only slightly, but it meant that instead of zig-zagging east and west along glens and making slow progress north, we could now get a march on and push on north quite a bit, resulting in more distance covered per day… Which would mean we’d be more tired…
Therefore, we started out from Beinn Dronaig Bothy, Jon’s red jacket just down the track, occasionally getting lost amongst the lumpy hillocks. We passed on the east side of Loch an Laoigh and the track ran directly into a bog and disappeared. Honestly, at this point I was fed up with bogs. We were going to have to walk through it and have wet feet for there rest of the day, and it was only 08:30! Midway through, ankle deep in sludge and mud, I looked up and saw Jon and Rachel having stopped at the bothy Bearnais at the bottom of the upcoming bealach. They were clearly taking a five minute break and I could envision them watching us struggle through the bog, our yellow and red jackets being the only bright points in the otherwise Scottish landscape. The clouds overhead were grey, the landscape was that green – brown colour of the highlands and Loch an Laoigh was dull steel grey colour. So we really were the only points of light.
We had the same five minute break at Bearnais when we emerged from the bog, and then pushed on up to the top of the bealach. This was a tough rocky climb, but the view at the top was worth it. This was a dramatic view. Layers upon layers of mountains stretched out into the horizon. The Countess Dowager once said “The problem with nature is that there is so much of it” but I don’t think that that is a problem in the slightest! This view was showing us how much we had left to explore of this wonderful world!
We descended down some cliffs on a steep path which kept doubling back upon itself before we entered a young, recently planted wood which was leading down to A890. At this point, going down this muddy hill, I came up with the quote at the top since I was sick of slipping and having a good old wobble and I thought we really did sacrifice ourselves to Gravity with every downward step! Honestly, this was not the most thrilling day and on top of that, Cam and I took a single picture of today, as above. So I must apologise for the lack of photos. We did see a train though, a lonely caterpillar making itself across our field of vision, down at the bottom of the valley.
But yes when we emerged out of this young wood into the bottom of this valley, instead of jumping over a fence, crossing both a river and a train track and then walking along the busy road like Jon and Rachel did, Cam and I decided to make a massive detour which added several kilometres onto the day, so that we could cross the river and train track using bridges. This was due east. We then road walked back the direction we came, due west. We basically walked for an hour to progress a full half a kilometre further north. But we did award ourselves with lunch. So that’s something.
A steep wooded uphill and then the most boring track followed. Honestly, I kid you not, today really was not thrilling. It was a lot of track and we both weren’t in the best mood from being physically and mentally tired. This track was hemmed in on both sides by a steep sided glen and the views of the layers of mountains had disappeared. Therefore, to entertain ourselves, we played a very casual game of Who Am I? This was when Cam discovered that I had not read Mortal Engines. I think he was a bit surprised with that. We also both discovered that I am the absolute worst at this game. I kid you not, it would take me ages to figure it all out!
The track descended and we saw our destination ahead of us, Kinlochewe. But to get there, we had to pass through (you guessed it) yet another bog. We knew we had to follow a river, but the bog being near the river meant it was extra wet. A full hour later after clambering through trees and bushes and heather and gorse we emerged into Kinlochewe, scratched, fed up, wet and just generally done. We passed the corrugated iron church and found a cute wild camp spot by the Kinlochewe River. It really was cute. There were small trees with song birds all around us, the slow moving river was close by and the sun had finally come out. The grass was that well-tended colour of green and there were daffodils around us. It was just a very pleasant spot. A reward maybe, after a horrible day. We tried to head into Kinlochewe to find a restaurant and a hot meal, but everywhere was shut, so we dejectedly settled for our dehydrated meals in the tent and went straight to sleep as soon as possible. I also discovered my socks I had put on that morning had holes in them. It was just one of those days…
Day 08 | Kinlochewe to Corriehallie | 31.0km | 850m Ascent
The road leading into Kinlochewe was slightly noisy all night. It was interesting, I was so used to falling asleep to the wind and rain on our tent and maybe the call of a cuckoo (Hi Totorro), that I struggled to sleep with the cars and lorries zipping past all night. It was faint, but still there.
Anyhow, we got up, feeling much better for a full ten hours sleep and packed up. I put on some new socks – one of the best feelings ever. Cam was incredulous that I kept putting on wet socks for the past couple of days. He said that putting on wet socks was one of his absolute worst nightmares, but I was used to it, having done that every day that I was in the Peruvian Amazon (oop, name drop).
We jumped up (metaphorically) and left camp slightly later than we may have wanted, 08:15. The shock, the horror, fifteen minutes late. Clearly running on Ishbel time. Jon and Rachel had (sensibly) stayed at the paid campsite in Kinlochewe the previous night and they were also picking up a food parcel, and so we knew that they would be starting after us, and later than us. We had the jump on them!… Not that it’s a competition.
The glen leading out of Kinlochewe, Gleann na Muice, was the most uninspiring glen ever. Some scattered trees and rocks and a chuckling river at the bottom. But trust me, uninspiring. However, a cuckoo made itself known. I think there has been a cuckoo in every single glen we have walked down so far. A calming sound, although the cuckoo itself is an absolute devil. The weather was a patchy sun and rain combination and so for the eighth day in a row Cam and I had full waterproofs on. The track along this glen eventually started climbing and when we emerged out to the top, we uncovered amazing views once again.
The track turned into a path which made it’s winding way through some this amazing terrain, lochs on our left and a ring of mountains all around. When we made it to the bottom of Lochan Fada, we made an abrupt turn right and started heading due north-east, heading for a gap between two mountains. Incidentally, we also had our elevenses here. No Ragrets, not even a single letter.
Making our way between this gap between these two mountains took longer than we expected however. It was “just over there” but between “here” and “there” were several rivers and a shallow valley we briefly had to drop down and climb back out of… As well as it being a peat bog. But we got there. We passed over Bealach nan Croise and started our way down the next glen. We stopped halfway down and ravenously devoured our lunch. I’m making us sound like beasts, but I was basically inhaling food at this point of the trip. After lunch we found ourselves in a particularly good mood despite the rain starting up. We chatted about Nirvana and the whole emo music scene, something that I am not the most familiar with. And then I made a mistake, I revealed to Cam that I had never seen Queer Eye and he briefly saw red before instructing me to watch when I get home. It’s the most wholesome and heart-warming show ever apparently. I’ll get round to it, I promise Cam, I just have a bunch of other TV shows I need to finish first!
The next glen was truly amazing. To our left (west) there was a mountain ridge and the flanks of these mountains (some of which were Munros) were pure rock slabs. It was amazing, we were sure that our sister Flora would have geeked out about the rocks. You know, geologist and all. We passed along this glen, and past Loch an Nid. We were walking at a steady pace when from up behind us appeared a wild Jon! And Rachel soon followed. Apparently they had spied us and had been charging to try and catch up with us before they had their lunch. It was so nice to see them again, we had really last spoke at Beinn Dronaig Bothy, although they had been in view for most the previous day. But having said that, as soon as they caught us then they stopped for lunch whilst we carried on. We agreed to stop at Corriehallie and so we hoped to see them there. And so we left them to their squeezy cheese, crackers and wraps.
We pushed on. The sky was that amazing dramatic view, dark clouds with the God rays bursting through at intervals and veils of rain sweeping across the landscape. We were lucky not to get caught in a downpour! To our left, a Munro emerged called Sgurr Fiona, and so we waved hello to our mother. We crossed this plateau, the path fairly flat for most of the way. The dramatic sky stayed for most of the afternoon and we didn’t see Jon and Rachel catching up with us. At the cairn before we started down into Corriehallie, we stopped for our mid afternoon snack. Our feet were really quite sore and so the sit down was well needed.
After that boost of energy, we made our way down and emerged out into a group of houses which apparently was called Corriehallie. There were some really cute ones too which Cam took pictures of, you know, as inspiration for his own house hunting that he was doing with Tati. We were looking for a wild camp spot somewhere close by. Therefore, making our way across the Dundonnell River, we found a perfect spot close to some trees and the river. It was slightly off the path and so we left an arrangement of wooden sticks pointing the way and we hoped that Jon and Rachel would see it and come and camp close to us. They did not and so we spent that evening eating food and gorking out on the 4G we had access to.
Day 09 | Corriehallie to Knockdamph Bothy | 30.5km | 1,130m Ascent
I’m aware that whenever I sit down to write, I end up repeating a lot of what I have already said. Like, we get up, we walked, weather update, we slept. Rinse and repeat. It’s kinda hard to keep the mix up! But I am trying.
But yes, today, I once again arose (thankfully) after a night of unrest and rain. We packed up camp after our breakfast and I swear that the midges must have figured out where we were because the camp was swarmed with them for the first time this trip. Cam’s a hard West Coast guy who didn’t need no midge net, but I am a soft Eastie and so I needed my midge net.
We set out and climbed up and out of the valley that Corriehallie was situated in. And at the top of this hill we ran into Jon and Rachel! They had missed our sign and had camped just 50m away from us, and we were both completely oblivious to each other! That cheered us up as some light rain had just come on. And so we chuntered along but as ever, Jon and Rachel are Lightning McQueen in the morning so they zoomed off before long, Jon’s red jacket once again lighting the way ahead.
The first part of today was quite uninspiring, a long slow way up a hill which lead towards Inverlael, along a path and through some peat bogs. You know, typical West of Scotland terrain. But we had evidently climbed all morning at this slow rate since we suddenly came upon a view where we were standing over this collection of farms scattered beneath us and it looked oh so picturesque. The sheep were but dots of white on a clean green sheet and farm buildings looked like toys. Sounds cliched, doesn’t it? But I can assure you that it really did seem like that! Promise!
We dropped down this steep hill into the valley and amongst these farms. I think these collection of farms was what was called Inverlael. Having disturbed an innumerable number of sheep, we finally hit the A835, the main road into Ullapool. We had to walk along this which is always terrifying for me. But we made it, don’t fret.
We turned off this main road after the local school assembly hall and walked up and into a wooded section on the side of the valley. The logging track double backed many times up this hill, and so the steep climb was actually very gentle, just long! Cam noted to me that he hated walking through woods and I can understand where he comes from! There is nothing to see, after a while all the trees look the same and as a result, you can’t tell how far you have walked. We eventually came out of this wood and Lo and Behold, there were Jon and Rachel, clearly feeling like Lightning McQueen but now saddled up with Bertha… That is to say, they weren’t going at their phenomenal bright early morning pace anymore! We all stopped for lunch at the top of this big climb, before we had to start walking around the mountain summit of Meall Dubh. We had a nice lunch. Dotted around us were some very bright coloured diggers, yellow and cyan coloured, so some development was obviously going on. Clearly to do with the sheep farming in this area and not building houses up here! That would have been funny to see a house so out of place at the top of this hill.
Cam and I finished lunch first and subsequently started off before Jon and Rachel (for once) and we made our slow way around Meall Dubh. The path disappeared after a river crossing and we emerged into a peat bog. Walking across yet another bog started to get on my nerves today and after the fifteen millionth time of my ankle being at a funny angle (Oh no, my ankle angles!) I kinda got in a bad mood I must confess. On top of that, the rain had started up again and the visibility was getting worse.
Therefore, Cam and I started dropping down from the side of Meall Dubh to come out of the cloud and see where we were going and that helped quite a bit and we saw the river in the glen below which we were aiming for. We picked our way towards it. Jon and Rachel suddenly emerged above us from the cloud. We did the classic hillwalker thing of pointing and waving with our walking poles at each other. (Oooh, hiking fwends).
We made our way altogether down to River Douchary, crossed over it, and then made our way down Glen Douchary. This was honestly a beautiful glen. The rain added a grey film across it, but that didn’t dampen the bright colours of the alabastrine and crimson rocks, the beautiful rich turquoise river which burbled away to our left and the young trees all around us with their white trunks and shimmering, dancing leaves. It really was tremendous. And on top of that, there was a cuckoo! I wasn’t really in the mood of enjoying it, but retrospectively, I wish I had taken some time and appreciated this place then and there instead of releasing later how splendid it was.
We reached the end of Glen Douchary and we had to make our way around the deer fence, across the bottom of Loch an Daimh and then along the track to our resting place for the night, Knockdamph Bothy. However, when we were walking along the deer fence, Rachel fell whilst going down a steep hill! She hit her head, but thankfully there was no lasting damage or any major repercussions, she seemed completely fine. I think one of her earrings was slightly knocked, but it was all fine. She insisted on that. We were quite close to Knockdamph too, so we could get there and out of the rain before doing a serious check-up. Jon’s reaction to her fall though was to ask if she was alright, and then five seconds later, take a picture of her. I laughed at that so much.
We made it to the track and started walking north east along the shore of Loch an Daimh. On the opposite side we did see some poor chap trying to mountain bike across a peat bog (good luck). We busted along this track and I fell in beside Jon where we chatted all the way about books! We have read a tonne of the same material, mainly within the sci-fi and fantasy genres so it was fun to discuss those books with him. Additionally, Cam, Rachel and Jon all decided to gang up on me to try and get me to buy myself a Kindle, especially with my European travels coming up soon. I bowed to the pressure as soon as I got home.
We finally arrived at Knockdamph. Let’s just say, I was not impressed. There was mould and it was cold. Cam and I slept in a room with one corner covered in this horrible green mould and I was a little sceptical that I would still be healthy by the time I woke up! But I had confidence in my strong immune system (I consider it the strongest part of my body, the weakest being my forever dripping nose!). We had a nice dinner altogether (I even made a cup of tea) before heading to sleep. The rain kept falling outside, and the sheep looked ever so miserable.
Day 10 | Knockdamph Bothy to Benmore Estate | 30.5km | 450m Ascent
I can sum this day up in one word: rain. It rained all day. It was as if the Rain God was with us with his truck. My immune system did it’s job and I awoke happily. I was craving a music fix though and so I had set my alarm slightly earlier than everyone else’s so that I could sit in bed and listen to some bangin’ tunes for fifteen minutes before the day got going. After packing up, we stepped out of the door to feel the rain upon us. It was going to be a dreich day, that was for sure.
From the beginning of today until the end, the rain did not let up. But it wasn’t a taxing day, so perhaps this was the best time for this quantity of rain to fall. The plan for today was to follow this track into Oykell Bridge and back out of it. Yep, that’s it, following one track for the entire day. There even wasn’t that much elevation to haul ourselves up!
Since this was a track, it was quite easy to keep pace with Jon and Rachel and so we walked as a group for today. Cam and Rachel spent a lot of this time chatting whilst I listened and Jon ran around us like an excited puppy. At the entrance to Glen Einig we came upon the other bothy along this track, The Schoolhouse (there are some without Gaelic names! Thunderstruck). We had a poke around and My Goodness was this bothy in so much better shape than Knockdamph! It was quite funny to see how two bothies separated by 8km could be so different! We ate some sweets at this point and then continued on, through a young forested section and into Oykell Bridge.
Today was Monday 23rd May (we had started on Saturday 14th) which meant that the day before, the Spanish GP had happened. I finally got some signal so I checked who had won. No surprises there however, Max once again. Wouldn’t be surprised if Championship #2 was on it’s way to him before long. Jon and I also had a nice discussion about chess on our way out of Oykell Bridge. That was fun.
The track continued and stretched itself out before us like a carpet. It was so easy to walk on compared to peat bogs! To our left was now Oykell River which apparently was a very famous Salmon Fishing River (… But we weren’t in Yemen…)! As a result, there were a bunch of picnic benches and fishing huts along the river. When lunchtime came around, we broke into one of these fishing huts (it was left open to be fair) to get out of the rain and we ate our lunch in a nice cosy hut. That’s a nice memory. By the way, I knew that you could get squeezy cheese, but did you know you can get squeezy cheese and ham??
We continued along this track and entered Glen Oykell and a very large forest. Cam’s thoughts about walking through forests rang in my ears as it seemed that we had been walking through this forest for the large majority of the afternoon! But we emerged from it in the end. Cam and Rachel had chatted for quite a while. I think Cam had missed having someone to constantly talk to. We knew each other so well that we didn’t actually have that much to talk about anymore, in a strange way. Not for every hour of every day at least!
We emerged on the banks of Loch Ailish on the Benmore Estate. My feet were hurting me at this point but we just had to round this loch and our day was at an end. Towards the end of the loch was Benmore Lodge with a bunch of houses gathered around it, like how people gather around the most distinguished person in the room. We made our way uneasily through these houses, some yappy dogs barking at us as we did and emerged on the other side of Benmore Estate where we could now try and find a wild camp spot. We soon found one. It had been raining for the last couple days so the streams all seemed close to bursting, but we soon found a campsite which seemed not as perilous as everywhere else. We pitched camp and climbed into our tents. Cam texted Tati and I messaged my friends whilst Jon and Rachel occasionally shouted crossword clues at us from their tent. Cam is really good at crosswords too. He got so many of them! It was actually a really nice evening.
