RAIN is unrelenting through the night, thrashing down hard as if the gods have left a tap running. Had the deluge been during the day, a walker would have looked for shelter beneath trees; sat it out under a swiftly erected tarp or even slipped into an orange survival bag. It is the kind of rain that saps the will power and the kind of downpour into which only the hardiest of backpackers ventures.
Gentle rain drumming on a taught tarpaulin while you are inside warm and snug in a sleeping bag after a long day in the hills is soporific, but the constant hard rain of last night would have been a real tester, more likely to make you want the loo than to want to drift off to sleep. It feels like cheating by staying out of the elements in the hostel. The Troookstar has yet to be put through its paces in the harshest of downpours, although, with its sleek, smooth, acute lines, I have every confidence it will be fine.
The morning unfolds as one of indecision, trying to weigh up what to do next and when to do it, packing and repacking equipment and checking maps. For the first five days, navigation has been by virtue of the homemade booklet of printed-out maps that showed my route and a couple of miles either side and that was it – nothing beyond, no broader picture – a poor man’s recreation of an Ordnance Survey Adventure series of 1:50,000 maps. Today is the first time that I am using a full-size 1:50,000 map and they weigh 100g each, which is roughly a quarter of a pound. Using the print-outs saved the gram-counting side of me roughly half a pound. I wonder was it worth the effort.
This day was scheduled to be a rest day, but that situation changed because of the need to buy new boots in Kingussie and it makes sense to keep plodding on, continue walking, and wear in the new boots on the relatively flat trek from Kingussie into Glen Feshie.
The popped blister on the left foot has been cleaned and protected with plasters, but the left foot, particularly round the toes, is swollen, as is the right foot, but not to the same extent.
Mooching about downstairs, in what are Ali and Adrian’s living quarters, Adrian arrives back from walking the lurchers, while my bill is settled with Ali. Adrian’s coat drips with rainwater. The dogs dry off with a vigorous shake of their bodies that starts at the head and wends its twisty way down to a final flick of their lengthy tails. The dogs are warm-hearted fellahs and love attention, but like all dogs they are off as soon as there is a prospect of food – and it is waiting for them in the kitchen.
It’s due to stop at 10am,” Adrian says, being an optimist. But he calls it right – or was that the BBC weather forecasters – because the rain does ease off minutes before 10am, although it could be a playful god has not turned off the tap, just placed a finger over it and is waiting for unwary people to venture forth before unleashing more water. The clouds look like they have not finished.
The front door of the house opens onto Newtonmore’s main street, from where Dot and Doug are spotted on the other side of the road walking in the direction of Kingussie. Dot in front, striding ahead and both of them making a nonsense of being in their seventies and all the wine they quaffed. If the weather conditions are good enough for Dot and Doug, then they are good enough for me – it is time to get moving; time to call an end to the dilly-dallying.
The break in the rain was brief as it moves from persistent downpour to irritating drizzly rain that deposits a thin misty layer across any exposed hair, skin and spectacles.
Ali says: “Remind me where are you heading today?” It would be easier to say the Glen Feshie bothy rather than tripping myself up by trying to pronounce the proper name again. But it has to be attempted.
“Probably Ruigh Aiteachain [pronounced Rug A-tea-chain] bothy.” I pronounce it differently from how it was pronounced the day before.
“You mean Ruigh Aiteachain.” Ali pronounces it totally different from what she said previously.
“I think that’s it. Is that how you pronounce it?”
We laugh. Rug A-tea-chain it is then.
It was the right decision to stop at the hostel and get a full night’s sleep, because despite the gloom, the drizzle and the sore feet, I feel so much better than I did the day before. The whole body is basking in the comfort of having enjoyed a decent kip – even the feet feel better of a fashion.
The contrast makes me realise how demoralising the day before was. All day and into the evening, labouring under the mantle of sleeplessness, with the spark gone, energy levels low and feeling disgruntled, more anti-social than normal and being ready to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.
The thought of getting new footwear and ditching the trail shoes adds to the feel-good factor. A road sign by the hostel says the distance to Ruthven Barracks is four miles. Fingers crossed, by the time the barracks are reached new boots will have been purchased and the challenge will be back on schedule.
First though the Co-op store in Newtonmore is raided for breakfast. Prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches are rooted out from the back of a shelf, the packets with a sell-by date that is two days later than the sandwiches placed at the front of the shelf. After two days in a fridge, prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches taste like anything but prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches. Bread needs to taste fresh. If it has been kept cool for two days, it has absorbed the moistness from the filling to create a sticky, homogenised, morass of mayonnaise, butter and prawns, and any other assorted moist things. And the bread goes stale quicker. It is not an appetising combination.
The sandwiches along with orange juice and crisps – comfort food – is part of a meal deal, so my purchases are as comforting to my wallet as they are to the stomach. Ibuprofen is added to the shopping basket.
A woman in the queue ahead of me is steering a toddler in a pushchair, a little boy, and she is ninety pence short when the bill for her groceries is totted up. Me, being a noble northern knight that has enjoyed a good night’s sleep, am about to step forward to help by offering her a pound. No strings attached, no problem, don’t want it back, it’s just a way of repaying all the kindness that has been shown to me in Scotland. Think in particular of the woman at Loch Arkaig with the water.
This is where a British north-south divide causes me to pause and the memory of a bad experience kicks in. At a Sainsbury’s store on Southwark High Street in London another woman with a child in a pram was a pound short when her bill was added up.
Straight in there, my few friendly words were: “Here, do you want this quid, love?” An arm stretched out with a pound coin.
In answer to the question, the volley of abuse unleashed from the woman was scorching. She stood squarely in front of me, her hair scrunched back in a tight bob, she wearing a blue vest top, tracksuit bottoms, a couple of shoulder tattoos, and the big dangly ear-rings that could tune into the BBC or shortwave frequencies if she ever wanted to.
Her sentence is unutterable-in-polite-society. Nigel would think I was a pussy cat that morning in Melgarve bothy if he compared what this national treasure in Sainsbury’s said to me and what I said to him.
An abbreviated form of her verbal onslaught went something like: “You fink I can’t f*ckin’ pay? Who the f*ck do you fink you are, you c*nt? Mind your own f*ckin’ business, you f*cking northern wanker.” A few more Fs and Cs completed the picture and it was fair to say that she meant “no thank-you”.
It is odd what you think about in such situations, but it occurred to me that she was sharp enough to work out my northern accent, but obviously not clever enough to work out her own finances. C’est la vie.
She muttered under her breath, “f’in this” and “f’in that” and “f’in the other” until she had settled the bill – the woman swopped her usual twenty Embassy for a packet of ten. I had one eye out for her equally charming-looking boyfriend ready to defend his girlfriend’s honour against some “f’in cheeky northern bastard”, but he was stood in the packing area ogling women walking into the shop, and said nothing.
This is Scotland, though. Highlands. Not Euston station or south London. Man or mouse; bright lights of London or Newtonmore neon; this lady has simply miscalculated, she’s no chancer, no foul-mouthed fish wife. Brave heart it is.
I am too late, she has solved the problem without an F-word or a C-word just a calm, simple “oh, deery me” spoken with a smile and in a calm, relaxed manner.
So much for my procrastination. People such as me really have lived in the south of England too long.
The lady at the check-out. says: “Hello, do you have a Co-op membership card?”
“Oh, erm, no, not today, no, but I do, but it’s just that I … it’s a long story, which I won’t bore you with.”
“Well if you keep the receipt then you can always add it to your account later,” she says
The membership card was a victim of the gram cull when roughly 329 grams were saved by removing every unused loyalty card from my accordion-like wallet. Why a Blockbuster video card was in there when the company went out of business years ago, heaven knows. The real weight saving though was because of the lack of money – coins or notes – in the wallet.
Leaning against the inside of the bus shelter outside the Co-op all the bodyweight and the heft of the rucksack are pressed into the ends of my toes. The early optimism about the feet feeling better after a good sleep evaporates. The right foot is sore, but serviceable, the left is struggling. They were very uncomfortable the night before in the pub, but bearable in a grimaced-face kind of way. This morning the left foot feels all wrong.
The realisation is beginning to dawn on me that my left foot could become a problem. Worse than that, I am starting to think that I might not make it across to the other coast. Another day’s walking and I will be into the fringes of the Cairngorms and roughly at the halfway mark, when psychologically it is all downhill, but lodged in my mind are the words that Heather had said at Corryhully about the first crossing being the most difficult. If I do not make it then there will not be a first crossing, which sounds like a confused logic because it is. But too many years have been spent regretting not walking this walk as a spotty youth and not being able to take part since then, for it to be abandoned. This is not fun anymore; my sun-kissed euphoria of the first two days has long since evaporated, and with it the good weather.
All the while that I am thinking about new boots, not being able to make it across and feeling sorry for myself, the sandwiches, crisps and orange juice are being wolfed down. They are fuel for the day, I have to keep going.
The plan is to get the boots. Then more supplies. Newtonmore Co-op staff had told me that there was branch of the store in Kingussie. “But it’s no as big as oors,” a lady said with a smile. But it pointless carrying excess weight from Newtonmore.
The bus stop, while a great shelter from the wind and rain, is also a window on the world. On the opposite side of the road are two chaps from the evening before in the hostel: the tea-drinking, cake-tasting and perfumed-schnapps-sampling social: the tall bald-headed Scottish chap and his less tall chum. No apparent ill-effects from the schnapps and the beers. They are going for it. Making good progress along the road to Kingussie, wearing boots too not trail shoes and kilts that sway in time with their steps. Confident steps that don’t betray a hangover – if there is one. They have been for a fry up at a cafe near the campsite, I hear later.
After five minutes of sighing and psyching myself up it is time to leave the bus shelter and get moving.
I know the sports shop in Kingussie will be open because after meeting Carol the Postie I had contacted the shop. The man on the other end of the phone said, before I had chance to speak: “Yes, we’re open tomorrow.”
His name was Mike, the owner of Highland Sports Service.
“Ha, ha, you mystic Meg?” I had said.
It had been a couple of hours since meeting Carol and since she made her phone call to the shop. I could have been anybody, but Mike said it was simply intuition. Whatever it was, it was good for a laugh and put a smile across my face.
Now on the way to Mike’s shop, rain, cloud and me sighing to myself in Newtonmore give way to rain, cloud and me sighing to myself in Kingussie. The walk on the bike trail – part of the National Cycle Network set up by the charity Sustran – by the side of the A86 is easy enough, with plenty of cyclists using the route and all of them, but for one or two, in urgent need of a bell. One cyclist shouts “ding, ding” as he approaches from behind and would receive top marks for innovation and improvisation if this was an episode of Strictly Come Cycling. Even so the warning and the humour is much appreciated. It is only right to face him and say thank-you as the guy rides by, he is grinning from ear to ear; but seeing my grimacing face he wobbles and almost falls off.
The cups of tea that morning and the carton of orange juice are starting to pile the pressure on the bladder and what goes in has to come out – but the problem is that the cycle track and the A86, although not very busy, are exposed with nowhere to dip behind a bush and be discreet – and I don’t best want to be exposed.
At this point, only the cups of tea have been expunged, there is still a litre of orange to unload and the expression “go with the flow” has never been more apt. A heard of stampeding buffalo will not distract me; nothing can stop the torrent. A distraction is required to divert the attention of travellers away from me and the bright orange rucksack cover, because if they do spot me it is pretty obvious what is going on. My head is raised, pretending to look at something in the sky, using my left hand as a sun shield – which looks stupid, because there is no sun as the day is not just dull but more like dusk, with nothing to see except unending cloud and my orange rucksack cover. Talk about drawing attention to yourself. Fortunately the panic is over before any of the vehicles or cyclists get too close to cause embarrassment; the weeing stops and the mystery object in the sky suddenly disappears.
The lorry driver stares at me as he trundles by. He must know why I was pointing into the hedge. I wave. He waves. The family of four zip past and smile. Relief all round.
The route to Kingussie is pleasant in a Scottish drizzle kind of way as long as the traffic is ignored. The backdrop to the openness of the views along the flood plains of the Spey are the moody cloud-covered sky across the Cairngorms, where my route will take me. The mist, the darkness and the wet add to its appeal. Fingers crossed I will be walking in the folds of the Cairngorms within hours.
At Kingussie a sign at the junction of the Ruthven Barracks road says it is three miles back to Newtonmore. A stroll down the high street reveals the Tipsy Laird pub. It is not discernible whether it is open or not, but I am not going in, this was just a visit to be nosey. With the day grey and the street grey, my mood is grey.
Opening the door to the sports shop, Mike says: “You must be…”
“I am.”
We smile.
Cups of tea are made and the shop’s dog is introduced and various makes and models of boot are brought out and the feeling of a social occasion is ushered in. The shop is usually closed on Wednesdays, of course, but a sign on the door says it welcomes people taking part in the challenge.
It is almost an hour before me and my new boots leave Mike’s shop. It’s not so much retail therapy as a relaxation room. This is not high-pressure, sales technique. This is “if you want them, there they are. If not, nae bother. Make your own mind up. But we shut at five o’clock.” It is a Kingussie kill-you-with-kindness sales technique.
“Another cup of tea?”
“Yes please.”
Mike is a scout master. Good on him. Working with children is a torture: my experience is as a football coach – FA trained, CRB checked but patience stretched. We laugh about the antics of parents who think that their children are the bees’ knees and can do no wrong – when as coaches we all know, it is our children that are the bees’ knees and the other parents’ children that are the troublesome ones.
Trezeta Nevises are the boots chosen to protect my gammy feet – £99 after a generous discount and excellent customer service. They feel good, and offer a firmer support than the walking shoes. They are heavier than the trail shoes of course, but have a solidity to them. The boots are Italian, as were my first pair of dedicated walking boots, made by Zamberlan. The Zamberlans are like old brogues – still in service for watching football matches at the local park – and will be exhibited as a family heirloom on an antiques show one day.
In the shop, with both feet bare and lined up next to each other, it is obvious that they are not in proportion. While trying out the boots by walking round the shop it brings home the fact that my left foot is not gammy and puffed because of blisters, but I am guessing because of gout.
It is a heart-sinking moment. Frustrating. Maddening because it should have seeped into my stupid consciousness sooner than at this point that gout was knocking at the door. It is so long since my last attack that any thoughts it could be gout were dismissed.
Gout is a form of arthritis caused by the blood stream containing too much uric acid, which is a by-product of the body’s digestive process when breaking down purines in food. Me and gout have history but the gout is supposed to be under control, suppressed by the anti-gout tablets that have been part of my regime for years.
It has struck twice in the ball joint of the right foot, making it impossible to put weight on the area and at its worse left me unable to move the leg. When it has been “not too bad” I have been able to hobble and put weight on the heel of the foot. With gout the joint and the area round it swell up and become unbelievably painful. If a full-on gout attack kicks in, the crossing will become a hobble not a walk, that is if it is possible to move the leg at all. Gout does affect other joints, but more often than not it strikes in a foot – being furthest away from the heart – and makes it a struggle to get boots on; assuming boots can be pulled off a foot in the first place.
Look up images of gout on the internet, via a search for the artist William Hogarth, and you will see chubby gentlemen in white wigs with their feet bandaged up and blaming their affliction on what people refer to as rich living. When you tell people you have gout they trot out the same old lines: “Too much port?” “Too much cheese?” “Too much beer?” It is as if the word gout is a trigger for taking the piss; poking fun; as if the sufferer is to blame and he or she deserves to be ridiculed.
For the record, while so-called rich living can be the cause of higher than normal uric acid levels in the blood it’s not the only cause. But whatever the cause, when the concentration of uric acid is high the blood starts to thicken and the acid crystallises as the blood vessels become tighter and thinner and the flow of blood harder for the heart to maintain to areas such as the feet. The crystals in the blood vessels betray themselves by creating a swelling in the skin that in turn leads to a redness and a severe soreness that looks to be lumps under the surface. And boy those crystals are painful, swelling up and stabbing into the tissue of the body in an excruciating, probing, mind-twisting torture.
The pain from anything touching the affected area is searing and has the effect of creating an exclusion zone where even the thought of anything or anyone – such as humans, socks or somebody’s breath – touching or brushing against the enflamed area produces a terror and a panic that is disproportionate to somebody having a pain in the foot. It is the kind of suffering that makes the discomfort of a sleepless night in a bothy melt into insignificance.
Wives, girlfriends and partners will tell you that childbirth is the most painful experience of life. Rubbish. That honour goes to an attack of gout.
The question is: what do I do?
At the first sign of gout the medical gurus advise sufferers to raise the affected area – the leg – in the air so that it is takes the pressure off the point of the attack and they also advise sufferers to take lots of non-alcoholic liquids and to rest. Liquids are not a problem, but rest? There’s a fat chance of that if I am going to complete this walk, it will have to be a case of keep taking the pills. In my case ibuprofen, which works as an anti-inflammatory, topped up with paracetamol, which nulls the pain, and both washed through with plenty of lime and soda.
The thought of being incapacitated by gout is humbling. The contrast between having an attack and when an attack has retreated is hell and heaven; bitter and sweet; thorn in your side and no thorn in your side. When an attack ends and the pain slips from being debilitating agony to something akin to normality it brings unbounded relief and happiness – even just thinking about it. And the change when it comes can be as sudden as the click of the fingers; the fact that the torment is over is as joyous as the most joyous thing in the land of happiness. That moment moving from incapacity to mobility in a matter of moments is heaven to earth, south to north, smelly earthy goat’s cheese to creamy mature Lancashire.
Sat in Mike’s shop, I am lost in my own thoughts of self-pity.
How could I have been so stupid as to miss the signs. Blame the cuckoos; and the ticks; and the bogs and the sleeplessness – anything and anybody but myself. All my previous attacks of gout have been in the right foot. Never the left foot. The left foot has always been clear. The good cop to the right foot’s bad cop.
And now it all becomes clear. Gout explains the sluggish and leaden legs during previous days. The crystals building up, slowing down the blood stream. My heart sinks. How blind have I been? I start humming a song called I’m not working by the Manic Street Preachers. How and why that comes into my head, I do not know, but it is pure self-pity.
Leaving the shop the despondency is overwhelming, in contrast to the kindness and friendliness of Mike. He does not understand the dejection that has come over me.
The old trail shoes are deposited in a rubbish bin outside the shop, minus the shoe laces and insoles – bits of string might come in handy and the insoles already fit my feet, so it makes sense to place them in the boots.
The search for a chemist results in a walk down the high street and back to the sports shop – where Boots is situated right next door, as Carol the Postie had written on her note. The realisation that I have gout has knocked me and my thinking for six.
Zinc oxide tape, width 2.5cms, they have no 5cm-wide tape, two sterile lint bandages, antiseptic spray and more Campeed plasters – for blisters – are bought and soda water, pot noodles, sandwiches and chocolate purchased from the Co-op and off me and the new boots set.
Outside the Co-op is an American challenger, name of Brad, Brad Williamson from Ashburn, Virginia. In his right hand he has a clean, new, five-foot broom handle that he has just purchased, as if he is preparing for a game of quidditch and just needs birch twigs on the end, so that he can fly more smoothly.
Brad is lively and chatty, with a bit of spark about him which makes the conversation easy and it is quickly established that he has stayed in Kingussie for the night.
“You didn’t happen to bump into a guy called Thom, did you? He’s an American guy from Minneapolis? We walked together yesterday, he was struggling with his back.”
“Yeah, sure, Thom, I had breakfast with him this morning.”
“Oh right, is he okay, is he …”
“… Yeah, sure he is doing mighty fine.”
“Say hi from me if you see him will you?”
“Sure, but he is already on the trail … are you John?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Arrgh,” he makes a frantic motion with his arms like he has invisible walking poles.
“You’re the one that walks fast, huh?”
We smile. Brad is right – Thursday’s child has far to go, but the fuel for the fast walking is pain not a desire to get anywhere in a particular hurry.
Now comes the awkward bit. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but fortune favours the brave so when an American chap is walking through a town in the Scottish Highlands sporting a broom handle, it cannot go unchallenged:
“So erm, gotta ask, Brad: what’s with the broom handle?” My eyes and head motion towards his purchase.
“You mean my walking stick?” he says with mock indignation.
“Oh right, of course!”
He does not like walking poles and prefers something meaty to walk with, he says, something more substantial than a Karrimor pole that withers after being suckered in by a bog. Fair enough. He would certainly feel safer with a hefty broom stick than a carbon, zinc-oxide repaired walking pole when faced with a horned beast on the road to Laggan.
Thom is okay. That is good. Some people have an inner energy and other people worry too much about people they barely know. Canadian couples, walkers from Minneapolis, you understand the picture.
On Station Road cars whip up spray as they zip by in the rain opposite the Duke of Gordon hotel, the route to Kingussie railway station, then into the mountains. The cups of tea consumed in the shop are making their way through the body like an express mail train from Edinburgh to London, not the stopping service from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh. I need the loo again.
At the station, a long and ornate covered outside waiting area with benches makes an ideal place to stop, but the loos are on the inside and the door to get to them is controlled by a woman in an office, who ignores my attempts to attract her attention.
“Is it okay to use the lavvy?” I tap on the office window. She must hear or see me, surely.
“Is it okay to use the lavvy?” is half-shouted with over-exaggerated mouth movements. She ignores me. The health and safety executive have got to her. Anybody that knocks on the office window is trouble. Ignore them and they will go away. Get back to your iPhone. For me, I’ll just have to tie a knot in it.
My worry is the security conscious internet-mad era that we live in, you can’t have a discreet wee against a quiet back wall because while cameras might not spot you some idiot with a mobile phone will and you’ll have your own Facebook page created as the Kingussie wall waterer within 30 minutes, and die of shame after an appearance at the local courts. But needs must, it’s time to risk Facebook censure.
That is a wee and a half against a wall – hopefully untouched by cameras. Back on the platform, with not a soul about, is an ideal time to have a sit down, chew the cud and give myself a serious talking to. The day’s second round of prawn and mayonnaise sandwiches are laid out along with an opened can of tuna with crisps, humous and orange juice in a picnic-for-one style across the slats of the station bench. Food for thought – and thank goodness that my appetite has returned.
Sat there, undercover, the boots off, the feet feel better for exposure to the air. Being alone, the compulsion to re-attach footwear while I eat is dismissed. But if Dot and Doug were to appear, there would bpt be a moments hesitation to lace the boots up.
The cold breeze barely dances above freezing, inspired by the wind funnelling through the station. You can taste and feel the dampness on the air and I have to don the waterproofs to fend off the chill.
My stomach full again, the plasters and dressings on the feet are slowly and methodically changed; old ones peeled off after being cut through by the satisfying sharpness of the scissors on the penknife. The newly-exposed areas are cleaned with alcohol strips and the white skin left open to the air so that it can briefly regain its pinky flesh colour.
An antiseptic spray, bought at the chemist in Kingussie, is applied to the blister followed by sterile lint bandages. My worry, apart from the gout, is that the popped blister has become infected but it looks good, clean with no red soreness round the edges. The foot has not been swallowed up in grubby brown bog water and the blister has been protected from dirt. But it is sore. Bloody hell it is sore.
Buying new boots part way through a walk is a gamble that had to be done, and they feel stiff on the few hundred yards of the walk to the station, but while the uppers of the boots are chaffing above the ankle the firmness of the sole feels reassuring, being so solid, the soles will protect the blister. The stiffness of the leather will give way the more the miles are clocked up and while the boots do need wearing in, they make me more confident about completing the walk.
Despite the new boots, I am heavy-hearted because of the gout. I am way down in the dumps, really hacked off and not happy. For the first time I am wondering why am I doing this? What is the point? Meaning of life kind of stuff that is difficult to offload without a walking buddy.
The urge to shout out in anger and frustration is overwhelming. The gout has caught me on the hop. I feel stupid; slow and bloody-minded for not registering it sooner. In my heart of hearts I know if it kicks in at its worst, then that is it, curtains to the walk; end of chapter and that is the real cause of my gloom, the thought of not continuing with the crossing. It makes me angry and yet feel sick at the same time.
Out of the rain on the bench, with the rucksack being leant on by the left side of my face, in front of me lies an escape route. The 12.35pm train to Inverness. Get in; off you go; one hour later book into a lovely comfortable hotel in Inverness with the left foot raised in the air, fighting the attack of gout. Room service, a tasty beer and a bit of rubbish television.
It is a moment of weakness. Stupid, soft, defeatist thinking. Not completing the walk is not an option after all the effort that has gone into these two weeks. Plus the years of wait, the expectation, the planning, not to mention the expense. The whole project is too much to be cast aside for the sake of sore feet, a bit of gout and plenty of feeling sorry for myself.
It is less about the expense or the planning, it is more about personal pride. The challenge is not a competition with other walkers, it is a competition with yourself. That is the challenge bit. My bones have not walked this far continuously for 30 years. They are decrepit old bones but were looking forward to this trek.
There is no financial reward from this journey, there’s no big pay day. It is just being in the wild, camping, sleeping wherever. Wondering, and wandering, trekking through villages, places of interest, meeting people, saying “hello, you TGO” and being responsible for yourself come hell or high water with a tent, a sleeping bag, a cooker, a map and just walking in hills, valleys and weather.
But doubts creep in. Niggling away at the back of my mind is the thought that the walk really is being fuelled by “memories of youthful exuberance, reckless self-belief and opaque recollections of past glories”.
I am thinking about 1980, and Practical Camper, the article about the walk and the excitement at the prospect of taking part – and the subsequent disappointment at knowing that it could not and would not happen that year. It will be the same disappointment multiplied by thirty-six years if I throw the towel in now. People are proud to say they walked the walk, completed the challenge – one or two people have walked it 20 times or more. I want to be able to say: “I walked coast to coast across Scotland.” Thirty-six years late, but I did it.
It is not about Munro bagging: Ben Nevis, been there done that, Glen Coe, Bideam nam Bian and plenty of other bits and pieces around the west coast and so on, but not this challenge thing; being a challenge bagger is what this is about. Paraphrasing what is going through my head I am asking myself: “Do you want this?” The answer is an unmistakable yes from my mind, but the body abstains from the vote.
I begin to shame myself by thinking about the consequences if the walk is abandoned. At a time in the future when escapades and episodes in your life are reflected upon and talked about, it would not be the sore feet that would be remembered about the challenge; it would not be the gout that would be remembered; all that would be remembered would be the fact that it was not finished, dumped, kicked into kingdom come in Kingussie. What an example is that to set your kids, your friends, yourself?
Imagine the conversation in the pub. “You’re back, how was the trip?”
“I had to pack it in, cos I cocked up with my feet.”
“Oh well … I see beer’s gone up 10p.”
End of conversation. Au revoir. Gute nacht. Last orders.
Somehow, with wittering to myself, the mind is made up. A decision is arrived at – after more than the usual 55 minutes thinking time. It has to be done, by whatever means. The walk has to be finished. It has to be completed – if for no other reason than personal pride.
With one decision made I can move on, literally and metaphorically. After the self-pity and introspection, the focus is now on making the crossing, not about making the crossing and enjoying it necessarily – but more about making the crossing and enduring it; walking through the pain and having the satisfaction of knowing that it has been done. Telling my kids, I did it. Then is the time to enjoy it, when you know it has been accomplished and time has smoothed off the rough edges. Just like all those other people over the years, people who have clawed their way across, marched their way across or tumbled their way across. All can say they did it. The how is not important, the why is not important, the “I did it” is important.
It is a battle with myself. It has to be done.
My annoyance over choosing the wrong footwear is still eating away inside me despite having addressed the problem. That one bad decision has cast a blight over the whole crossing because my thinking is that had I worn boots not trail shoes from the start then the gout would not have been triggered. And yet, even with the left foot feeling more full inside the boot than the right foot, it is still hard to accept that gout is the problem.
Two packets of ibuprofen at the chemist in Kingussie were all the shop assistant would give me because she said: “We can’t sell anymore, it’s the law.”
As I told her: “For paracetamol maybe, but not ibuprofen. Take too much paracetamol and that is going to mess up your liver, but not ibuprofen, that is just going to thin the blood and make you go to the toilet more than you want to.” (That and the risk of stomach bleeds and ulcers).
Either way she would not sell me any more packets – fortunately the Co-op sells ibuprofen, so I got what I wanted, which makes a mockery of the law, and besides two packs were bought in Newtonmore Co-op.
The blood needs to stay thin. Think of early science experiments when salt is dissolved in hot water and crystals start to form on a piece of cotton left dangling in the solution as it cools down. The idea is that the ibuprofen will stop the crystals of uric acid forming by thinning the blood and drinking plenty of fluids will help flush the uric acid from the system.
Having decided to get across at all costs, thoughts turn again to the Deeside Way, the route from Ballater to Aberdeen that Dot and Doug are taking. It is virtually flat and undemanding compared with other routes and offers a possible escape route, an alternative to climbing, rough tracks and bog trots.
The next problem is making sure the gout does not become worse.
The large amount of ham, cheese and mushroom – as delicious as it was – consumed in the sandwich at Laggan Stores would not have helped. High fat content in food and a lack of hydration is part of the cause of gout, and – according to people who know better about these things say – the consumption of too much sugar in the form of my staple diet of shortbread biscuits, Marathons (Snickers) and chocolate.
Another factor might have been the rapid weight loss in the two weeks before the start of the challenge. In the no-beer, no-cheese and no-chocolate regime, about seven pounds were shed, which is good going, but the fasting might also have triggered an attack of gout because when a person fasts the body metabolises fat, which can start an attack of gout. And so it goes on.
What is done is done. The priority is to get across to the east coast as quickly as possible. To walk, hobble, or crawl. All other considerations are secondary, which sounds melodramatic, but if a full-on attack of gout kicks in, then even crawling will not be an option.
So that is settled, a plan is established: first goal is to get to Braemar, spend a day resting the foot to see if that helps it recover and then make a decision on the route to take from there – over the hills or the flat route. In the meantime take copious amounts of ibuprofen and loads of liquids in the hope that doing so will keep the gout at bay. Fingers crossed, and legs crossed, because I will need to keep taking plenty of fluids to flush out the system.
From Kingussie to Braemar is about 38 miles, with 14 miles of that being the distance from the station to the Rug-a-tea-chain bothy. From Braemar to Ballater is approximately 20 miles and from Ballater the distance is about 43 miles to Aberdeen on the Deeside Way. From Braemar that leaves seven days to walk, or hobble, to the coast. Nine miles a day, and reach challenge control and sign out by 5pm on Friday for my crossing to be completed in the allotted time.
The worst case scenario is a hobble at a mile an hour if lucky. Doable and the equivalent to taking fairy steps all the way. The sticking point is my plans to meet two old pals on the Thursday in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee. It has been years since we met up and it is something that I have been looking forward to, a goal. Cancelling the meet is not on – but then if the get-together has to be postponed in order to finish the crossing then it will have to be done. Decisions, decisions, they can’t all take 55 minutes.
Going through all possible scenarios it dawns on me just how much completing this walk means to me. If anybody, apart from the lady in the station office, was about they would hear me muttering to myself, telling myself I have to complete the walk. Pumping myself up; making myself angry at the thought of not making it across; like the chance to complete the walk across Scotland is being denied me as it was all those years ago and old emotions and angers are rekindled. This is no longer about talking the talk and walking the walk this is an obsession.
For once planning for all eventualities – that is flattering myself – after leaving Kingussie is good. There is an expression, the P equation, that says “piss poor planning equals piss poor performance” and that has been me. Hopefully the poor decision making has been thrown away when the old shoes were slung in the bin.
Another train pulls into the station and is away to Inverness. Is that the 13:25? Who cares? Not the woman in the railway station ticket office, who has not moved for the past hour – well only to see if anybody has had a wee on a wall.
Feet wrapped up with plasters and zinc oxide tape, the sandwiches eaten, ibuprofen swallowed, and my determination at a high, the time has come to make progress. In the blink of an eye 2pm has arrived. Beyond the glass canopy of the station the rain still falls, and while the tempo of the rain has eased off, the sky remains overcast. Down the road heading for Ruthven barracks, having a plan, an escape route along the Deeside Way, brings on better spirits, a feeling that the crossing will be done, the east coast will be reached. My temporary brightness puts the weather into shade.
The boots are getting worn in quickly, even if they are stiff and chaffing at the bottom of the shin on the left leg. The two litres of water consumed at the railway station to wash down the ibuprofen demand a return to earth. Fortunately this is not the cycle track again and a small wood just before the bridges over the river Spey and the A9 is the perfect location to bleed the bladder – there is no CCTV and there have been no cars along the road for ages, so, of course, it is sod’s law again that one comes along just at the most inappropriate moment.
Two more ibuprofen are popped into the mouth on the approach to Ruthven Barracks (NN765995) on the B970. The view back up against the flow of the Spey is dominated by the Monadliath Mountains and the cloud. The barracks are a hefty pile of old buildings and stand out across the flat land surrounding the river – as was the idea so that the English soldiers could spy on the Scots, the rebels, the Jacobites. The barracks were built in response to the rising of 1715, but look as strong 300 hundred years down the line as they more than likely did when they were first constructed in 1719.
They have something going for them, because the Jacobites torched the site in 1746, but the remaining structure still stands solid. It’s the sort of place that a double glazing company would love to get a contract to fit windows in. Jacobite double glazing would have amounted to a kilt across the window pain.
After promising to brighten up, the weather is closing in, bringing low cloud and dark skies. The feet go numb after the first 30 minutes of walking and the pain almost turns in on itself so does not register with the brain. The firmer boots have helped alleviate the discomfort, but might add to the discomfort because they are restricting the flow of blood round the foot, which will not help the gout.
My mood is whinge, whinge, whinge, when all that is required is to get a move on.
The Badenoch Way, just before Torcroy, looks an option to avoid the road walk to Tromie Bridge, but there are dozens of people milling about the car park and on the path. People in trainers and anoraks with fluffy rims round the hood, tippy-toeing down the walk lest they get their white footwear daubed in dark brown dirt. I about turn and head for the road where it is quieter with only three cars and no glam-walkers encountered. At Tromie Bridge are the unmistakeable holes in the ground made by walking poles and what look like the tread marks of Innov-8 Roclites. At a guess challengers were here … I sound like a hunter.
By the side of a track an old barn, possibly a former milking parlour, with a concrete floor would make an ideal place to stay for a brew and a bite to eat sheltered from the elements, but it is too soon to halt again after the lengthy sojourn at the station.
There are more Roclite prints in the dirt as the route briefly joins The Badenoch Way, before turning east to head over to Glen Feshie. In the fields on the right of the path (NN794994) just after the turning in the road a woman and her grandson, who had driven past me in a battered old Vauxhall Astra, are throwing lumps of a white substance into a field of horses, which are milling about, roused, excited, agitated. The lumps must be a foot cubed and land with an resonating thump on the wet earth on the other side of a wall.
“You on the ultimate challenge?” says the woman.
“Yes, the Great Outdoors Challenge, that’s right. Do I have that look?”
The lady smiles, and says she knew Derek Emsley [a veteran of crossing Scotland], and relates tales of challenge reunions in Newtonmore – at the Highlander hotel, which me and the old shoes passed on the road to Kingussie. Derek was an Englishman who upped sticks and moved from Bristol to Kingussie, made fourteen crossing of Scotland when the event was called the Ultimate Challenge and, judging from what the lady says, was a stalwart of the community in Kingussie and Newtonmore.
The lady is from Yorkshire, but has lived in the Highlands for nigh on 40 years and while she has not lost her Yorkshire accent, Scotland is her home.
The blocks are garlic salt licks that are intended to stop ticks attaching themselves to the horses, which adore the garlic salt; in fact they love it so much that it changes the social dynamics of the horses as well making great holes in the sodden earth. The hierarchy of the horses changes, with the eldest male, the head of the group, the stallion, demoted to No.2 in the pecking order by the top female horse, the mare. She harries him and the other horses, forcing them to keep away from the garlic salt. She turns and prepares to kick the stallion with a flick from her hind legs.
“Stop it Beauty!” [The name has been changed to protect the horse’s identity], the lady from Yorkshire shouts, tells her to back off, which the horse does. But the mare is forceful enough in other ways to get what she wants – first dibs at the garlic salt, while the other horses circle, looking for an opportunity to get a lick of one of the blocks.
They jostle, push and vie for access to the blocks; their hooves stomping, the earth transmitting the thuds beneath our feet. Great hunks of horse meat darting round in a feeding frenzy. They are big impressive animals and all the more impressive and fearsome when they are motivated. But the Yorkshire woman is the ultimate boss; when she tells them off and they listen.
The boy is her grandson, off school because he is unwell with a stomach complaint. She says there has been no quibble from the school, which fearing an epidemic of illness in the era of health and safety madness has told the young boy to stay away from lessons for a couple of days. From what his grandmother says the lad is top of his class, so a few days off, away from lessons, enjoying the outdoors and the countryside with his granny, will add to his wellbeing and help the other pupils catch up.
We exchange farewells and in the dullness I make for an open landscape into the forest heading for Baileguish [NN812979], which to a Gaelic pronunciation expert such as me sounds like Ballachulish (Ballacoolish) – a place near Glencoe that holds fond memories of youthful enjoyment that are light years away.
Five hundred yards along the track, through a gate and the path enters a forest and another world. The horses make me think that a garlic salt lick for humans is what is needed to ward off the ticks, preferably with less salt and more garlic. Chewing garlic might make a person socially unacceptable, but to avoid the tick traumas of the first couple of days munching a few cloves sounds a reasonable trade off.
With the wind picking up speed the trees shelter me, but unlike the Great Glen Way along Loch Lochy and above Laggan locks, this forest has less dense trees, there is undergrowth, open areas, wider tracks and something to see other than tree trunks and suffocated vegetation. A sharp turn and descent takes me out of the woods and down to the river at Baileguish. The weather turns gloomier and darker.
Sat on a large boulder – so as to avoid any possible suggestion of contact with ticks – on the other side of a bridge, the boots are whipped off and fresh air infiltrates the skin, the socks and the plasters before they are dipped in the cold water, while two Marathons (Snickers) are scoffed.
There is nobody to be seen on the ground, in the air or on the river. Only the wittering of the water and the bidding of the breeze barge into my solitude. In the distance to the east, the Cairngorms are caked in threatening, deep, dark clouds, coagulating over snowy corries. The gloom they exude is both frightening and beguiling. The left foot with its swelling and the blister is irritating me. That walking buddy is needed to make a decision. Walk on or camp. There are two abandoned buildings before the next section of forest walk and they would offer a place to pitch as the vegetation round where they stand will be short and the ground, relative to the surrounding earth, soft, not soaking wet.
Being open to the elements, the prospective pitches are windswept but that’s not a problem, it is so tempting to pitch up, make a brew and get an early night. But the trouble with feeling sorry for yourself is that if you are not busy you dwell on your worries and the time is not yet four o’clock which would mean too long to dwell on the sore feet. The spirit of “we are going to finish this walk come what may” has dissipated. But I have to keep moving.
Across a boggy track to Baileguish bridge floods have rendered the crossing useless. (NN826982). It is a bridge too far, or a bank too far. One end of the bridge is on what was formerly the east bank of the river, the other is on a pile of stones on the new east bank of the channel that has been carved out by water in spate. It looks a strong bridge, but enfeebled by its new incarnation as a river ornament.
Upstream is a ford. A track leads from that point into a short stretch of forest, past the second of the two buildings, an abandoned homestead at Corarnstilmore, before the path emerges from the forest near the River Feshie, up a track from Achleum, where a single track tarmac road draws to a close.
Heading south on the west bank of the river a house called Stronetroper is shuttered, closed off to the outside world. The shutters look like they are a security measure, but they give the house the feel of country residence from mainland Europe. This is no abandoned croft but a holiday home, and looking even closer at it, the style is certainly less Highlands and more Europe. What a fine, luxury bothy it would make. Opposite and below on the other side of the river is a building, marked on the map as Achlean. Perhaps that was once a holiday home too. Its dour stone is more in keeping with the Highlands.
Roughly east, a path veers off from the delicate smoothness of the tarmac road, left and down to cross the River Feshie and into the cloud that still guards the glen like an avenging deatheater from the Harry Potter films. As at Baileguish, the devastation here caused by the floods six months before is all too clear. Great bites have been taken out of one bank of the river revealing the fragile stony, gritty underneath that supports the heather on top. The footpath has been swept away and the gap is clawing into chunks of the land beyond, the undersoil exposed and vulnerable, banked up over centuries upon centuries now being undone by the will of nature.
A stream and crossing (NN851953) that had been spanned by a 16-foot bridge is now eighty-foot wide – gorged out by the torrents triggered by the storms. The glen feels crumbly, tender and weak as if the reign of the ancient Caledonian forest is close to its end – the power of the water sweeping the landscape of the Highlands down to the sea.
My head down and following a flimsy path, the shape of a deer straight ahead startles me. But it is a metal deer. Target practice for hunters. No shots have hit the metal. A lure perhaps. Either way it looks out of place stuck in the middle of the trees in a thick forest, where the path is at one moment lost then reappears the next and the underbelly of the forest is a coat of green. Weed, algae or pioneer plant, it is green and creepy. It is blaeberry. All enveloping, consuming and suffocating. One path through the blaeberry goes up by the side of the river the another goes down. Down is the wrong choice, but is my choice. Up ahead, on the western bank, there is a building called Carnachuin (pronounced: ichcannaesayit), which to my reckoning is marked on the map as Glen Feshie lodge but which in turn means that the Glen Feshie bothy is not where it ought to be according to my map reading – ie on the opposite side to Glen Feshie lodge. How could I have missed it.
With the weather damp, cool and overcast the eight o’clock rule is brought forward by an hour and a half. The hunt for a pitch starts now, on the assumption that Ruigh Aitchean bothy (Glen Feshie bothy, pronounced: fghgpast fggfcaring) has been overlooked and missed. There is no walking back.
And here we have a perfect area to find a pitch. Flat and far enough away from the river to not get flooded, but near enough to get water. Then the truth dawns in a blinding realisation that there has been a map-reading cock-upas the bothy rolls into view.
It has the sound and feel of a holiday camp. The area is swamped by teenagers, screaming and shouting and being … well-being teenagers. A reccy is required.
The latch on the bothy door is lifted and the door gently shoved open, accompanied by my soft “hello?”. There is little point in saying anything else, because the place is overrun with a huge knowledge of challengers and the noise from their chatter drowns out everything, including my feeble greeting.
“Any space anywhere?” A bunch of chaps in what, for want of a better term we shall refer to as the ante-room, say “yes there is room”. Against one wall is a three by three battery-hen arrangement of bunk-bed compartments: think Japanese sleeping pods without the privacy. There are two spaces free, one on the first floor and one on the second floor. The thought of altitude sickness from the top bunks and memories of Melgarve bothy, make my mind up, I will spend the night in the Troookstar. It’s early being before 7pm – but the gloom makes it feel later. I want somewhere to kip for the night.
A convenient pitch opposite the door to the bothy is chosen and with the Troookstar erected I have a quiet bolt hole to retire to as and when I please and will not be kept awake by bothy noises and smells.
After erecting the Troookstar, the customary step back to admire a good pitch is followed with a look across to under a tree, fifty yards away, where a chap in a Mountain Laurel Designs duomid is sat crossed legged at the entrance to his tent, eating.
An arm half raised my shout of “hi” is greeted with silence. No acknowledgement. Not a dickie bird. He doesn’t see me. Not to worry. Best not to interrupt his digestion.
A chap called Ian Sinclair comes out to look at the Troookstar. He has a Trailstar – a Troookstar minus the Oookworks inner – but is non-too enamoured of it, from what he says, and does not like the set-up. We talk tents and hoops versus straight poles as supports.
Inside the bothy are two groups of people. The fire-room posse and the bunk-bed boys – ie those in the ante-room, where the entrance is. Part of the fire-room posse sat by the stove is Thom. He kindly offers me whisky again, but I politely decline again. He is looking okay. Tired but in good form. Ava and Kenny, met in Newtonmore, are also in the room, and they, like Thom, are aiming to sleep in the fire room on the raised platforms that are benches in everyday life.
In the ante room, the bunk-bed posse includes Philip Glannan, from Oswaldtwistle, which is just up the road from Blackburn, which is itself just up the road from the fair city of Preston. For the benefit of this paragraph, he is a Lancashire lad, like so many people on this trip. Is there no escape?
Two other walkers that were drinking tea in the Newtonmore hostel the night before are John Garner and Tom Brereton, but the name of the chattier of the two chaps – John – has lodged in my brain as being Simon. He has a smiley face and friendly outlook, but he is not called Simon. The only Simon on the challenge is Simon “Marcher” Conrad, the chap who broke bread with me at the Crofters in Fort William a week before.
The names of John (Simon) and Tom are temporarily forgotten because an overload of introductions has disabled my feeble brain and the noise of the youngsters outside has distracted me. It is not an insult, just cerebral incapacity caused by pain in the left foot.
The last person to be formally introduced is Ian, but of course we had already met. His name is remembered because it gets repeated often enough through the evening.
The hunt is on for the bothy axe with which to chop some fuel for the fire, which is struggling at best to overcome soggy and large logs. The consensus is that the axe has been stolen, but the why, how, what for and by whom remain unanswered. But there is two-man saw, with wooden handles, hefty deep teeth and plenty of rust, that looks like a throwback to a long-gone age of American pioneers.
John and Tom and some of the other bunk-bed boys from the ante-room scoot off to cut fuel from a pile of firewood fifty feet from the bothy.
The Troookstar entrance is kept low and my stuff laid out inside. It makes sense to cook inside the fire room, which is easy to spot as darkness gathers because Thom’s walking poles are outside the door to the bothy, and stand out because of reflected torch light. I have a convenient pitch because the water is supplied from a stone basin that corrals a burn into its trap from where it is easily scooped up.
In the fire room, most of the night is spent in a constant struggle to extract a healthy amount of heat from the wood. With much huffing and puffing, a blaze of sorts is finally established; enough to warm the room, which houses the knowledge of challengers and provides a convivial environment when the helpers from the school trip and their outward bound instructors join the social.
Fires are like barbecues where everybody is an expert on starting a blaze, and in the bothy, everybody wants to poke the bloody burner. Sod’s law – again – states that the fire will finally get into its stride just as everybody is away to their beds.
But not before people down the liquid fuel for the social evening provided by Lyndsay Bryce, who maintains the bothy. Lyndsay offers everybody whisky, which I decline, and then port, which I also decline. The kindness of Scots again.
“De ye no like port?” he says to me.
Like it? Love it, more like. Bottle of 1963 vintage at home, but as clichéd as the phrase is, drinking port and suffering from gout do not mix and, besides, as is explained to Lyndsay, this is an alcohol-free crossing for me.
Lyndsay worked in the oil industry, in Alaska. He describes himself as the estate maintenance officer for the bothy, but there is more going on in his world because he has, by his own admission, been around the world and has numerous tales to tell. Many of which are heard during the evening.
He tells his audience about the devastation caused by the floods and explains how the stream that I and few other people crossed, had been, before the floods, eight-foot wide with four feet of a bridge resting on either bank. The chasm created by the floodwaters is ten times that width.
Lyndsay is staying overnight to prepare the bothy, which belongs to the Glen Feshie estate, for a large party of walkers arriving the next day. Thom and me sit by the spluttering fire for most of the time. I explain how the reflective silver cooking pot cosy works to somebody before diving into a Pot Noodle followed by shortbread and tea, and more tea. The atmosphere is warm, more by way of the company than the fire, which struggles on.
Ian comes into the room from the gathering in the ante-room of the bunk-bed boys in their down jackets to see if anybody can help with his Garmin satnav that has gone walkabout and is unresponsive to his attempts to repair it.
The instructors – who tell us they and the teenagers are from Edinburgh – offer their best advice, which boils down to turn the machine off and turn it on again ‑ standard information technology advice. But, they stress, leave plenty of time between the “off” and the “on” part of the exercise. Advice that finally bears fruit for an exasperated Ian who has tried everything else.
He had turned the power off but not left enough time before switching the device back on for it to reset but is finally overjoyed when the Garmin sparks back to life, shortly after the fire looks to be giving up the ghost, as if there has been a transfer of energy.
My feet are feeling okay. The pain in the left foot has subsided and the ibuprofen pills swallowed after the food should ensure that remains the case.
At some point late in the evening the metal latch to the bothy door breaks, which means the entrance has to be jammed shut with a big stone that the bunk-bed boys have recruited from outside the bothy. They could not have found a bigger piece of granite. More water for tea is needed from the stream but as I try to wriggle the huge stone away from the door to get outside, there is somebody on the other side trying to push the door open. And they are insistent.
“Hold your horses! The bloody door is blocked.” My grumpiness startles me, but the shouted order works a treat.
With the boulder finally wrestled to one side, the darkness and the late evening air waft in and there at the doorway stands a walker who is soaking wet with a long grey beard that gives him the look of Gandalf from the Harry Potter books. He smiles, but says nothing. I walk out, he walks in. He sits in the fire room, garnering what heat he can from the fire. He says nothing, just smiles and stares at the source of the paltry heat. He is no wizard though, because the flames do not get any higher. At some point he disappears out of the building. That was Don, from Bristol, somebody says, as if everybody knows who Don is.
Lyndsay keeps the craic going, and among his stories he tells the folks assembled in the fire room about the impact of the high numbers of deer on the estate and how over the past two years 5,000 of them were culled, which is a lot of venison burgers. The owner of the glen is Anders Holch Povlsen, a publicity-shy Danish rag-trade billionaire with a love of Scotland and the wealth to buy up large tracts of its land. He plans, so it has been reported, to return the numerous estates that he has bought over the past ten years to their natural state. Hence the deer culls to encourage plant growth. Next up, if he is granted permission, will be the wolves to cull the deer.
Feshie bothy is to be refurbished, Lyndsay tells us, with a stone-built porch and a flight of stairs leading to sleeping accommodation on the upper floor. For downstairs there will be a new door – and presumably a new latch – with built-in bunks and wood-burning stoves.
While the fire coughs and splutters, the party is in full swing. It’s more a natter party as opposed to a drinks party. Lyndsay has his head up through a hatch in the ceiling of the fire room and pulls down a twin-burner gas cooker while balanced on a stool – as you do after a few whiskies and ports – in preparation for the walking party.
A chap fell out of the trapdoor in the ceiling, he says, in the days when the area above the room was used for sleeping. The poor unfortunate was sleep walking and looking for the loo at a guess.
It is after 10pm, most of the bunk-bed boys, John, Tom and Phil from Lancashire, are making for their cocoons. Ian, his GPS repaired, joins them. The instructors and helpers from the school party have departed for their tents – just as the fire starts to pick up the pace. There has been not a peep from the children or the chap in the duomid.
Ava is bedding down in a four-season sleeping bag, so will be plenty hot enough.
“I’m a cold sleeper,” she says in her warm Aberdonian accent. Thom is sleeping on the floor. The bench that Kenny intends to snooze on looks too narrow to hold him in place, but his bench is close to Eva’s. It occurs to me that Thom will be playing gooseberry.
Lyndsay retires to one of the nests with the bunk-bed boys.
Ava suggests I leave my cooking stuff in the bothy as “you’ll need it in the morning”. Good idea. My brain is not working so it must be time for bed.
John puts the boulder up against the door after my departure. In the Troookstar, the initial chill of the sleeping bag is usurped once the warmth from my body is captured inside, the heat trapped by the draw chord round my face. Comfort sets in.
A breeze sifts through the insect net of the inner and gently tip-toes across my exposed face. Lovely. Outside is cold but inside the sleeping bag I am cooking.
I soak up a silence that is broken by only the breeze and the plop of rain drops falling on the tarp. Outside darkness rules the night and my inner tranquillity is a contradictory backdrop to the wind, whose dance through the night becomes wilder.
Warmth and silence; no cuckoos; no snoring; no prowlers, and no nail clippings – being in the middle of nowhere is so comforting abd calming.
itsgoodtowalk 
Hi John, just wondering if I am missing some links from your blog as I cannot find any stages of your 2016 TGO Challenge walk after part 6. I am really enjoying your blog. I am doing the TGOC in 2020 as a first timer, and got directed to your blog when I was asking about getting over deer fences heading out of Laggan Locks.
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Hi David
The other parts are written
I’ll post them this week
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That’s great. Thanks John. I had thought that as it was the 2016 TGOC that it was old blog posts that I had been directed to.
It has been very interesting to read as my planning has followed a very similar route to yours without having previously read your blog. But from where pt6 finishes I think we may be about to go different ways.
Are you in the TGOC again this year?
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