PLANS to dash across to the Glen Feshie bothy toilet, an open-air lavatory, are thrown into the pending basket by the rain lashing down just after 2am. Normally in the wilds of the UK a chap or chappess will step from their tented accommodation, wearing their boots barefoot, take a leak in the darkness and slip back inside a sleeping bag to continue their slumber.
But being in the vicinity of the bothy, even on the side that the Troookstar is pitched where there are no windows and only the entrance door, the area has the sense of being inhabited and besides there are other folks, the schoolchildren in particular, camping on the other side, so the correct course of action is to go to the Feshie bothy lavatory.
To hell with that. The rain is so heavy it makes more sense to use a cut-off two-litre plastic bottle under the cover of the Troookstar’s copious lobby. Blimey, talk about breaking the silence. The sound of weeing against the plastic is loud and distinctive in the middle of nowhere, even when pitted against the sound of the rain thundering down on the tarp. The piss pot saves a lot of messing about getting into and out of a tent.
Nobody sees or hears me, I hope, so nobody will ask, and the bottle is rinsed and ready to be taken onwards the next day. In normal circumstances the pot contains delicate items inside the rucksack. Soft food bags, condiments or bandages, anything that could get hurt in the rough and tumble of a rucksack on a day’s walking.
The feeling of slipping back into the warmth of the bag, bladder empty, is fabulous and to follow that by pulling the hood up round my head and drift off to sleep again to the brush of a breeze across my exposed face; the serenity and a lack of snoring. I was going to stick an ear to the door of the bothy to listen for snoring and check the level of Nigelons – my measure of the ratio of loudness of snoring to the amount of disturbance caused divided by the power of units of alcohol consumed. After the whisky galore supped inside the bothy, not to mention the port the place should be rocking.
The cloud stays low all night, but as this is Scotland during the latter part of May, it has never quite become pitch black, so dawn is a concept not an event and whenever dawn arrives it is dull, still dusk almost. In fact little has changed from the evening before. Dull, grey, low cloud and with more to follow – and after that a downpour that will check in until the early evening.
Lyndsay gives the impression that Ruigh Aiteachain’s loo is simply a cesspit with a hole on top. For cesspit read septic tank – both phrases that kill the appetite for breakfast. Regardless, the Feshie bothy lavvy, loo, bog, crapper, whatever you want to call it, is one of the bothy’s claims to fame and while the loo is basic, it is very welcome.
I am up again at 6.30am for a visit during a pause in the rain. Everybody in the bothy is asleep, or so it appears – Thom’s Black Diamond walking poles are still stuck in the earth outside the entrance, they haven’t been stolen by prowlers, and the school children from Edinburgh and their helpers have not roused.
Walking to the loo, the air is just as beautifully tranquil as it was at 2am in the lee of the Troookstar. I shut my eyes to listen to the silence. This is the middle of nowhere; peace, tranquility and space are the currency. There is not the ring of mobile phone; the yap of a dog or the call of a cuckoo to be heard – it is a similar feeling to the morning at Loch Arkaig, just without the intense sunlight.
It strikes me as strange that I can find a breeze, a touch of damp on the air and peace and quiet so satisfying. It is counter intuitive that peace and quiet can make such a big noise and such a big impression on consciousness. It has to be cherished before the foam of the cloudy night is cracked by the sound of human voices piercing the atmosphere.
The Feshie bothy loo is a hole in a concrete floor at the end of a wide stone-walled room that is roughly fifteen foot long and three-foot wide. The hole is lined by a light brown clay drainage pipe that for its normal usage is laid horizontally to guide water away from a latrine or other source of water. Here the pipe is a vertical conduit for all that is not wanted.
The set-up is effective, rudimentary and saves having to dig a hole and desecrate the beautiful Scottish hills. The frame of an old plastic chair – the ones found in many a village hall up and down the British Isles and that stack up and are stored in a corner – stands over the loo hole, where the concrete floor is smooth and shaped to direct any errant flow into the depths. For those people who require a touch of luxury buttock support, a wooden toilet seat, minus the lid, is attached to where the plastic L-shape chair seat would have been connected to the chair frame.
The kind of toilet paper needed in this establishment is the hardy Izal tracing-paper medicated loo roll that is swiped into the memories of many a school pupil from the seventies. Soft tissue loo paper would not last two minutes in this environment; soaking up the moisture in the air, or being blown to the four winds and adorning the hillsides like the aftermath of a pitch invasion by a horde of eighties football fans.
A galvanised bucket of water is the flush system – it is a manual system, obviously – that works great when the bucket of water is directed exactly down the hole, cleaning the pipe with a satisfying shlooop, but water splashes in all directions across the concrete if anybody’s aim is awry.
As welcome as the Feshie bothy loo is, be in no doubt, the pot-drainpipe hole, is a threatening, forbidding and unfathomable presence: welcoming in that it does a very swift job of disposing of waste. But the downside is that you need to make sure that your pockets are empty or zipped up when you take down your garments and anything loose is secure for fear of dropping your wallet, phone or wedding ring down there.
Anything deposited down the bog hole, intentionally or accidently, that does not disintegrate over time is still lost for good. You would need more than a friendly diver and long arms to retrieve valuables that have plopped into this abyss. The Heineken rubberman would struggle to reach the parts other men cannot reach in this situation. Lost items will be retrieved on an edition of the television show Time Team in the year AD10,000 – if Beijing issues a broadcasting permit, and the heat of the Glen Feshie desert is bearable for archaeologists to work in during the winter months.
If there was a queue outside this loo, the “give it five minutes” routine to dispel unsociable odours would not apply. The loo is in effect alfresco, battered and blathered by the winds at 1200ft, swabbed by the snow and rain and on occasion seared by the sun. It once had a roof but this is one water conveyance that is more at one with nature without a cover.
All done and dusted, the door to the graffiti-free toilet is unlocked – it is odd having a lock on the door when the place has no roof. Still it is good to go to a proper lavatory of sorts for once, not the usual dig a hole in the earth kind. The next job is to replenish the flush system – ie refill the bucket of water from the burn (stream).
Because it has been almost a great night’s rest in the Troookstar, undisturbed, no snoring bothy monsters, and the feet are not yet painful and the gloom and despondency of Kingussie railway station has dissipated, I am in a really happy mood. On the way to the loo my humming of a random tune develops into a song about hating ticks and cuckoos and snorers, with a couple of verses in the loo and a couple more refrains as I am about to leave. Nobody would have been disturbed, because this is not a lift-the-lid, booze-fuelled kind of singing, just quiet, to yourself, happy to be in the wilderness and about to have a cup of tea kind of singing. It’s a commentary set to music. “Hi ho, hi ho, to fill the bucket we go …” That kind of idea.
But, bucket in hand as I go to leave the loo, on the other side of the door is a young girl (pronounced: lassie) looking to come in, who takes me by surprise and I spurt out an impromptu “Oh hello” while in mid-verse.
After singing silly songs thinking nobody else is awake, you feel stupid and guilty when somebody catches you in the act. With luck she has not heard the early verses, with their over-egged swearing and references to hurting snorers who keep people awake all night. Hopefully she has not heard all of it, if she has then the weird and random cuckoo-hating lyrics might have offended her, well at least confused her.
This poor lassie is more bothered that a wild-looking bloke is blocking the route to the loo at such an early hour on a cloudy Scottish morning than she is about a rubbish song that she more than likely “cannae understand”.
“Don’t worry, hen, I’ll just go and fill the flush bucket and be back in a second.”
Hen? Did I say that? It is a lovely Scottish term, but there is trying too hard to blend in with the locals, as in Loch Arkaig. Keeping to my own dialect and saying love would have been bad enough, but hen. I feel embarrassed for her having to listen to drivel from the mouth of a man who is old enough to be her father, or even grandfather. The poor lassie says nothing, but stares at me thinking: “Give me some loo roll and get lost, you loser.”
She is standing in the same position when I return from the burn with the bucket of water. The poor deprived and shocked child from inner-city Edinburgh is apprehensive about the prospect of a roofless toilet and yielding to a hole in the ground – and waiting for me to clear off. The full bucket of water is returned to its place next to the drop zone in the privy and I head back to the tent embarrassed about the singing, and with not another word spoken.
Breakfast is muesli bars and chocolate, washed down with a cup of tea after my cooking kit is retrieved from the bothy.
Ava has rested soundly in her Lamina 0 bag, a synthetic winter warmer from Mountain Hardware. Good to go down to about minus sixteen degrees Celsius, according to the manufacturers. Who can blame her for using such a bag, it was a chilly night. For all my lightweight gear, and petty gram counting, the one item in the pack that is not particularly lightweight is my sleeping bag – another Mountain Hardware bag, the Lamina 20, and another synthetic bag, which can handle down to about minus seven degrees.
The bag is warm when wet and more to the point when the user is wet. It is a pound and the rest over the weight that would be carried if it were filled with down, but warm when wet counts. Bad experience has pushed me always towards synthetic sleeping bags and the assurance that the bag is useable, whatever the weather. Down is warmer per gram of weight but needs more care and if it does get wet, the feathers can be rendered useless.
Kenny and Thom slept on mats on the floor in the fire room – Kenny because the bench he was sleeping on was too narrow. He says there were mice running about through the night. A case of a “moose, loose about this hoose”, somebody says. That’s not funny. The mice will have been hunting for scraps of food – there was a touch of spiced up pot noodle and shortbreads where I was sat the night before.
Thom’s boots were by the fire overnight, and in a quirky farmhouse style they and the kitchen bits and bobs gave the fire room a domestic, homely feel. Think of a country kitchen. As with Melgarve, the bothy is a cold, soul-less place in the light of the morning.
Lyndsay is up bright and perky and preparing for the day ahead after his night in the honeycomb of bed spaces.
I am curious about the whisky and port. Lyndsay must have driven close to the bothy along one of the rough estate tracks. You don’t carry bottles of port and whisky in your pack – and break your back – for the delight of others. I feel sure there will be a battered van or unbowed Land Rover Defender parked up next to a bush nearby. But the question is not asked.
The chap in the duomid under the tree strikes camp and is away by 7am. Thom has also disappeared – his walking poles have gone from outside, weathered and wet from the overnight downpour – while Ian is still in the bothy. His Garmin GPS, with his various paths on, is still working after being switched off all night and he is happy. His entire route across Scotland is on the device. Everyone of the bunk-bed boys, apart from Lyndsay, has made tracks. That’s the harsh side of bothy life – when one person wakes everybody wakes, whether they want to or not. There was “plenty of loud snoring” I am told.
Rucksack packed, it is time for me to make tracks. Popping back into the bothy, to say ta-ra to whoever is there, Lyndsay is getting busier and busier. As well as the party he is expecting, there is a fair chance there will be plenty of challengers and other walkers either passing through or staying, he says. It is a Friday, so many a nine-to-five office worker will head for the hills for the weekend that evening. Stood on a chair he pulls more equipment and accoutrements, such as another cooker, from the roof space. Once the planned renovations for the bothy are completed the roof space will once again become sleeping quarters, he says.
Lyndsay is so chatty and friendly that another hour could fly by just talking to him even while he prepares the bothy for guests. But mileage must be made. He said the evening before that: “It’s all downhill to Braemar from here.” That made the walk sound enticing for my feet – but that was the drink talking, because having checked the map and the details of my route, there is plenty of climbing to do.
Ian is ready for the off, Garmin sat-nav GPS restored to full working order and at the ready in his hot little hands. Ava and Kenny are on the starting blocks with their rucksacks protected by matching his and hers green Osprey rain covers. A sensible subfusc colour unlike the bright orange one – a Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme issue – that adorns my rucksack.
Off we trot in a diamond formation, Ian in front chomping at the bit, me at the back still with the choke out, and Ava and Kenny side by side in the middle. The school children are camped in a cluster on the right as we walk, some of their tutors are stood about, brews in hand. We smile and wish each other luck. It is a relief for me when there are no comments about alfresco loos flush buckets and silly early-morning songs.
The feet are sensitive, it takes a good half an hour – again – for the pain in them to come to the fore and be nullified. We hit quite a walking rhythm and once that is established the discomfort disappears, buried somewhere in the head, and it is time to appreciate the drab but still magnificent sodden surroundings. Me and Ian stride off and bid auf wiedershen to Ava and Kenny.
Ian walked along Glen Feshie the previous month, which turns out to be very handy, because he came across a few quirks in the route to White Bridge that have arisen as a result of the flooding in the Highlands in the winter.
We pass two lots of campers who have taken advantage of the wild solitude. One set is breaking camp, the other set has their collective motors running, rucksacks on and ready for the chequered flag.
The path is thin, wisp-like in stretches and flanked by ferns and what could be tick-harbouring vegetation. After our encounter in Corryhully I constantly keep a look-out for the places the blighters might inhabit, which is a measure of how much the bastards rattled me.
“Bear left here,” says Ian. “Stay high. It is not the most obvious route, but if we follow the track down we’ll have a steep climb back up later.”
The track we avoid descends to the river, and we follow a narrow rocky wet line through ferns. Below, alongside the river is a patch of green short-cropped land that would make an excellent campsite. It is one for future reference, and preferably out of the flood season.
Ian keeps up the pace and stops me feeling sorry for myself because of my feet. We are catching up with a knowledge of challengers that looks like Thom and a couple of other lads from the Feshie bothy, including Tom and John.
Closing in on them at NN861901, An Cagain, the water pushes up against the steep hillside on the north edge of the river. It seems the boys had taken what was the logical path, the one that most walkers would have taken, the one that Ian had diverted us away from. John and Tom have stopped on the path looking below, intently down a scar of scree. What are they looking at? When we catch up we see they are watching Thom. He is struggling to climb up a steep patch of loose rock from the obvious path.
We call to Thom. Tell him to take a line straight up the scree scar. He is trying to reduce the steepness of the climb by cutting across the contours, but the ferns are too thick and tall. The best way is straight up, slowly and away from the vegetation.
John calls: “Come up this way, Thom.” And adds the unforgettable line: “Trust me, I’m a vicar’s son.”
Thom is sat down, taking a rest. John and Tom say they’ll keep an eye on him, look after him. They must think me heartless when I say: “He’ll be absolutely fine. Just give him some space.”
John suggests that Ian and me carry on walking but not before they hear how Thom was struggling with his back on the morning that we left Melgarve bothy for Garva Bridge, but subsequently walked his way to Newtonmore for a cup of tea at the hostel then walked another three miles to a hotel in Kingussie. He looked shattered, knackered, done in, you name it he was it. But he kept walking. He still put in a shift. He has some drive going on there. He just needs a rest. He will be fine. It’s hard to explain, but you just know some people will be okay, will survive. Thom is one of those guys.
But John the vicar’s son is concerned about Thom. He and Tom stay to keep an eye him, and again suggest that Ian and me should feel free to carry on, they will look out for him.
“Just give him time to rest and he’ll be cool,” I say.
Thom is having a break before clambering up the scree. There is helping and there is interfering. It is a fine line. Four of us hanging about watching Thom would be interfering, putting pressure on the bloke. Give him some air. Let him do it in his own time. Wait for him further up the trail.
Ian is off again like a dog out of the traps, excited by the prospect of his munro-bagging expedition planned for the afternoon.
Ancient trees litter the top-end of Glen Feshie but the scars of the flooding have made more distinct lines down the valley back along the way that we have walked. Some trees have been uprooted and dumped in no uncertain terms, in a manner that disrespects their age, beauty and dignity. The floods have reshaped the valley, bending the lie of the river, washing away the green, exposing the vulnerabilities of more of the ancient sediments. But this is perhaps the way of things, the way of nature, the way it will always be. And it will remain beautiful and accessible in this part, its heart, only to those with a map, a rucksack and the wherewithal to walk it.
Strolling in the sun-kissed mellowness of Loch Beoraid is a million miles away right now. But just as that warm dawn will stick in the mind, so will the grey remoteness of this morning. It is damp, it is a touch miserable and it is cold, but it feels alive. It is the exhilaration again that comes from knowing that if you really want to, really have to, because of your equipment, you can camp here and rest for the night in caressing, wild solitude.
The path crosses streams and bogs, the usual Scottish Highland ground conditions. It pulls us higher, we become more exposed with the wind growing stronger and the rain rat-a-tat-tatting into our faces. Wearing glasses provides a shield for my eyes.
Ian is a hundred yards ahead and I am alone in my thoughts again, drifting, wondering and wandering. With the cloud low, shielding the hills and the wet clinging to the day, my mind is transformed again to the 1970s and the barren, heather-strewn moors that litter the Trough of Bowland of my youth. I am back again walking Parlick Fell. Mist. Rough peat hags. Steep climbing. Mist getting thicker. It is the mist, and the sodden-ness, that puts me in mind of Lancashire. But unlike the walk over from Laggan Loch and my dreams of Parlick Fell, I have not drited off to sleep.
Was it nostalgia, melancholia, despondency born of distress, discomfort, or mental discord, who knows? But for a flash, for a second, a dreamy elongated moment, me and my two pals are back wondering along the path on the saddle from the top of Parlick to Fair Snape fell in thick, cold, mist. They are adorned with bright orange cagoules. Luminous, beaming, beacons on the heights of a desolate, dreary, rain-battered hillside. I am in green and lost, subdued and camouflaged against the earth as they disappear into the mist. For a moment I am there.
Snap out of it. I do as the pain in my left foot gets to me, kicks down the barrier in the brain that blocks the soreness. We are back in the room, back on track, back with the pain.
The firm soles of the new boots protect the tender undersides of my feet from any sharpness. It has been a baptism of fire and straight into action for the boots. But they have stood up to the test. The old tradition of wearing in new footwear has been cast aside. The soles of modern boots are less hardy than some of the old thick-soled heavy leather models, but they mould better to the feet.
The walking poles and their zinc oxide bandages are again proving a big help in assisting the climb out of the glen. They have become a part of my walking pattern and converted me to being a fan of poles, despite our early travails in the bogs. The walking is easy enough, gentle climbs for a while, then a few steep points, there is just the weather to contend with. Elemental and endearing. Cold and windy. Great views and no rain. Great views and rain. Great views and yet more rain and mist. The beauty of Glen Feshie gives way to the flatness at the head of the Geldie Burn. The cloud is so low that it feels like a piston is bearing down on us the higher we climb.
Ian says there is a shepherd’s hut just up ahead. That will be a stop off. Coming up in the rear view mirror are Mark Swift and Steve Whyman, two guys we spied earlier getting ready to leave their pitch just north of the bothy. They are travelling at a pace. We linger in each other’s company as we walk.
Crossing the Allt na Leuma (pronounced alt nae Lima) at NN880890, the path dinks round and down past another possible future camp site, out of the wind. Pulling back up the gradient and returning into the wind a second pair of walkers comes into view. Another Canadian couple and like the pair encountered all those days ago at Loch Beoraid, they are well equipped, but not too happy and she is non-too chatty. A theme is developing. Hellos are exchanged but that is it. They might or might not be challengers. They are struggling a little, but not in distress. Chilly, windy and rainy. Exhilarating, but no chatter. It is not a day to natter.
The shepherd’s hut is more “up ahead” than Ian had thought, but, after twenty minutes, he assures me it really is “just up ahead” this time.
In my hallucinating mind, a shepherd’s hut is something akin to those refreshment huts that do a roaring trade at weekends on the ninth holes of golf courses across the British Isles – bacon sandwiches, hot dogs, crisps and industrial strength tea. That is the mirage; wishful thinking; desire not realism.
The shepherd’s hut is a wreck of a wooden shelter at about 1,700 feet. It has a prominent mark on the OS map so a person could be forgiven for thinking that the place was more substantial than it is – a few upright pieces of wood clinging on to a frame of four by four beams, that are close to giving up the ghost. Bits of the shelter provide some respite from the elements and I am sat on a stone inside the shelter, my back against a couple of uprights that cut out the bite from the wind. Ian whips out his Jetboil for a cup of tea; my brew is water with an orange tablet (vitamin C) popped in and drunk with a bite to eat from the bag of trail snacks – the last of the Jordan’s breakfast bars. Mark and Steve soldier on.
Another layer is added to the top half of my body and the windproof is replaced by waterproofs. The boots and socks come off to bathe in cold air and the feet soon super cool. It is bloody cold all of a sudden, not cold enough for snow, but a strong wind is stripping the air of any warmth. It becomes even colder once the body heat generated by walking wears off. Sitting for too long will lead my legs to seize up which will lead to the half-hour ritual of walking off the pain and quarterising the area – again.
The toes are starting to freeze. That will quarterise the aching. The socks and boots are back on – evoking that warming-up feeling.
Out of the shepherd’s hut Ian’s global positioning satellite comes into its own after all that faffing about the night before. Shortly he will veer off south heading for Carn an Fhidhleir (pronounced: GhI’m Bheyondacaring), a munro of 994 metres (3,260ft in old money) and the Garmin will guide him along the route. From the hut, Ian is off again at pace through the heather path leading for the bridge just above the waterfall on the River Eidart (NN912885).
The bridge looks sturdy, because its frame is made of metal, but at the same time flimsy because the metal struts and structure are thin and the whole construction looks to be too high in the landscape like it is attracting attention to itself.
The wooden slats that form the stage across the metal frame have seen better days. A section of slippery green slime here, and a hint of rotten wood there, when added to the sign warning walkers that they cross the bridge at their own peril, is all a little disconcerting.
The sign is succinct: “Users cross at their own risk.” Another notice says the bridge was erected in 1957 – making it 59 year old, so it has done pretty well in such a weather-worn environment. But it feels uncomfortable lingering in the middle of the structure to admire the pounding water below, especially if the slats that form the bridge are the originals.
So powerful is the flow of the water in the river that it cooks up a thunderous force at the bottom, which is firing up for a peak performance as the heavy rain that arrived overnight on the moors above the river make their way downstream. The waterfall is mesmerising in a fashion that makes you want to dance into its pounding, dangerous, dazzling waters.
The rain has returned, in the form of fine drizzle, which is like fairy dust.
Ian is ready for his adventure as we head away from the bridge. He has timed the move south across the valley so that he has a route that is free of river crossings on the way up Carn an Fhidhleir. Where we are standing, at about 1800ft, on one side is the River Feshie, which swoops round in a vast arc gathering momentum for its journey down the glen from where we have come to link up with the River Spey. It is not hard to imagine, after heavy rain, what a torrent of water would be unleashed from this height on the lower reaches of the glen. On the other side of where we stand are the gentler streams and waters that will amalgamate to form the Geldie Burn, travelling in the opposite direction, east, to join the River Dee.
On the 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map there is a path, which Ian has earmarked as his route – not that the line will amount to much because it is a line of whimsy, a line barely visible on the ground. For the walker the line is not so much a path, just the prospect that the way is navigable. The top of Carn an Fhidhleir is deep in a hefty chunk of mist. It is a mist that hangs, at a guess, down to 2,500 feet if not lower. Ian will need to keep that satnav handy, and for it to not play up again.
After reaching the summit, he intends to spend the night at the Tarf Hotel – a remote bothy that has been renovated in the past three or four years into a splendid venue that has the added bonus of being miles from anywhere but more particularly miles from a road, which should keep it free from bothy party-animals.
It is 11.30am and after three hours of walking we wish each other luck and Ian sets off across the bogs. A look back down the way we have walked reveals no sign of anybody, in particular no Thom, John or the other Tom. Mark and Steve are already off the radar, although they did not say which way they were heading. There should be a host of people coming up over the next few hours or so. Ian should have bags of time to reach the top and slip down to the bothy. And Thom will be along here at some point for sure.
As for me. A notice on the footbridge said the Linn of Dee was 11 miles away and Braemar 17 miles away. Braemar equals fish and chip shop – Ava had told me there was a good fish and chip shop in the town. Fresh-cooked fish and chips after a day in the hills. Oh my. What a temptation; what a reward; what a tantalising goal. Fresh fish with a fluffy light batter and just cooked firm crisp chips that steam when bitten into, covered in salt and vinegar, heaven on earth.
Geldie Burn is on my right as the path heads east towards the Linn of Dee away from Glen Feshie. Ahead lies a sea of brown and yellow; boggy paths and peat. It makes a walker feel at home. The damp windswept canvass of the day has returned with a vengeance. The rain is relentless for the next three hours across an exposed landscape, a succession of mini fords, rocky tracks and mushy trails.
My body is wetting out with the waterproofs; but it is a warm wet, as the wisps of steam coming out from the neck of my jacket testify. Being out there in the rain and the wind, exposed to all that the hills can throw at you perversely feels good. Delectable. Isolated. There is nobody … except a young chap walking back the way, heading in the direction of Glen Feshie. On the barren, exposed ground beneath the mist he is visible for 10 minutes before our paths cross, slowly getting nearer before we collide – roughly at right angles to Geldie Lodge (NN951873).
This walker has his head down sheltering from the weather. He has seen me just as I have seen him but is not going to say hello. You cannot do that. This is not the footbridge at Cannon Street station in the City of London at rush hour. This is the middle of nowhere on a severely damp Thursday afternoon, and the 7:49 from Hassocks is not going to arrive. People are rare here, as are commuters. Talk to me, sunshine, talk to me. Ask me if I want to buy a Big Issue; sell me double glazing or a hamstrung sheep, but talk to me. This is Scotland.
To hell with it. It is my prerogative to break the ice: “Hello.”
“Oh, hello,” he says, without breaking his stride.
Oh hello. Is that it? The way he emphasises the word “oh” suggests he has not seen me or my bright orange rucksack rain cover approaching as he was looking up through the dingy, dark, dullness of the path.
The “oh” is more a “must I say hello?” … or “I didn’t come here to be sociable…”
He is away in the distance, next stop for him is a cup of tea with Lyndsay at the Feshie bothy. It will be busy this night, plenty of “oh hellos” for you mi lad. Keep off the port, it might make you friendly.
Looking back the walker’s tall frame slips into the distance, but there is no sign of Ian, enveloped by the mist on his hill climb and a look back down the valley is futile. There is still no hint of any other backpackers and as the anti-social walker motors out of sight there is only one king of the moor.
Window shopping for wild pitches reveals nothing. The weather is deteriorating, the wind speed increasing and the rain relentless. The shifting scenery remains all greys and blacks and browns, with a hint of wishy-washy yellows. And it feels wonderful. This is Glen Turret syndrome again. Not a soul to be seen.
The new boots are pounding through the alternatively peaty and harder ground. The feet, well the left foot, do complain, but the boots are doing their job in protecting the soles from more damage and the walking poles – well, god bless them, they have been no trouble. And there has been not a murmur from the one part of my body that would seem to be the weakest – my back. It has stood up well.
From about 1800ft above sea level at the old bridge the route gradually slips its way gently down past the ruined Geldie Lodge on the opposite side of the river to about 1400ft where it comes across what is referred to as a dangerous building – this is the Geldie bothy, at NO002869 – a dilapidated construction owned by the National Trust for Scotland that is decorated with signs that warn the would-be wary, and weary, walker not to enter the building. “Caution – Dangerous Building”. To hell with that. In my head is the Simple Minds song Waterfront and the words “Get in, get out of the rain.” I do because I need a breather.
The wonder of this building is that it has a glorious location and although another of its attributes is that it offers respite from the elements, Geldie bothy could not be further away from luxury. Inside – as if this ruinous building’s dignity has not been stripped back enough – wouldn’t you just know it, some wondrous human creature has used a corner of the crumbling structure as a toilet and tried to disguise their mess with tissue paper. Not even buried it. Cheers. The floor of the place is soil, and is now soiled.
The walls are littered too, with graffiti. So and so from Sterling; people from Port Glasgow, blokes from Brechin. All of them trying to make their mark on a defenceless edifice.
To step out of the wind, even if the Geldie bothy is a dangerous building, is lovely, but a circumspect traveller will have an eye out for anything, a groan, a strain, a gaping crack that might suggest this old lodge is on the point of collapse. It is the sort of place where a superfast water heater such as Ian’s Jetboil might be more appropriate for making a cuppa than a slower meths-fuelled burner.
Geldie bothy oozes sadness and the cracks and the melting mortar suggest it is not long for this world, unlike Kinlochbeoraid. A track from this sorry looking site leads, across a ford, to Bynack Lodge, another ruin. Restored, one or both would make a superb bothy.
My feet are misbehaving again. The socks are removed and the bare skin stands on the outside of the new boots, to avoid the soil floor. The left foot was tight when pulled out of the boot and still is, despite being super cooled again, when it is returned. The cold has once more rapidly chilled the toes and with both feet again adorned with socks and boots, that comforting tingly feeling of warmth overtaking cold returns and slowly works its way up the feet. A Land Rover track heading for White Bridge is straight and exposed, and the intensity of the wind accelerates as the bridge draws near. The feet are soon grumbling again. Sore, uncomfortable and then numb.
This area should be renamed valley of the ruin. After Geldie lodge, Bynack lodge and Geldie bothy another old building appears, Ruigh nan Clach, a veteran ruin, this one, with no roof and it looks suitably tumbledown.
Through the wind and rain two people clad in waterproofs appear from the left, from their camp next to the ruin, heading at right angles to my direction for Geldie burn with water containers. They are blokes, judging by their less-than dainty gait, and my equally less-than dainty gait takes me along slowly heading to the point where our paths will intersect.
I intend to say hello, but they walk fast and have filled their water bottles at the river and are back inside their tents at the Ruigh nan Clach (pronounced Rug nan Clack) before you can pronounce Ruigh aiteachain bothy properly. “You TGO?” will have to wait.
One of their tents looks like a Mountain Laurel Design, but is too far away and the weather too wretched to see properly, let alone care whether it is duomid man from Feshie bothy. White Bridge is a few hundred yards up the track and the force of the wind can really be felt once the route is exposed to the flatness of the land at the Chest of Dee. The boys near the ruin have found themselves a sheltered spot. At White Bridge there are plenty of pitches, but exposed as it is to great views up the Chest of Dee it is also exposed to the mighty wind.
Feeling down in the dumps, I am tempted to throw up the Troookstar at a low pitch and bed down for the night, but the time is only 3pm. Thinking of stopping in the mid-afternoon must be a syndrome; it happened the day before on the way to Feshie bothy. The body hinting that it is getting old and a siesta is required. We are not stopping. A rain check will be taken at the Linn of Dee, several miles down the track and out of the wind. Come on, keep going, think of Kingussie railway station, hell and high water and all that.
Two hundred yards up Glen Dee from the point where it meets Geldie Burn is a hut. It has grabbed my curiosity – in so far as it is out of the wind. But it is on a fenced-off parcel of land and the nearer it comes into view the clearer it becomes that it is some form of animal shelter not another would-be refreshment hut at the ninth-hole of a golf course. Interest over, about turn and I head for the Linn.
At three miles it is a mere hop and a skip. It is slow progress, though, with numerous stops because of the quarrelsome feet and to slake a rampant thirst. One or two possible pitches, particularly below the track, pop into view, but of course this is window shopping.
The Land Rover track is straight forward. Dull and wet, but great views at 1300ft. On either side of the river, according to the map, are ancient townships. Four old settlements of some description with the vague outlines of structures all along the route.
The Linn, where the waters of the River Dee ride roughshod over rocks, is beautiful and the bridge across the river provides a perfect picture opportunity. There are woods on the approach to the bridge; thin woods with the trees spaced out between each other so that the light can penetrate the pine needles and hit the earth. The floor is verdant, and looks so inviting and with the sound of running water would be a perfect place to usher in sleep.
On the opposite side, in trees above the track that are more densely packed than the ones by the river, are deer. They are not like the deer on the approach to Melgarve bothy that were startled half a mile away by the sound of clattering walking poles. This bunch saunter away with a devil may care attitude; feareless, they slip deeper into the trees in their own time.
By the side of the river are two tents. One might be a Terra Nova, the other is most certainly a duomid, and at a guess the same tent that was pitched up in Glen Feshie the night before.
This is an ideal opportunity to add to the count of “you TGO?” but the tent looks like it has been erected and abandoned. Has the occupant hitched into Braemar for fish and chips? That is the main train of thought on my mind. A hearty, not healthy, helping of fish and chips. The vision of piping hot fish and chips, preferably from newspaper, but certainly with plenty of salt and vinegar, replays through my brain. There have been no thoughts about where I might stay.
The sensible head says, stay here and take it easy. The primitive hungry head says get to Braemar as does the part of the brain monitoring the potential for an attack of gout. The legs feel leaden, like they can be walked on but not climbed with. There is no accommodation arranged in Braemar. The idea is to call the campsite, find a B&B at short notice or failing that grab a wild pitch. But whatever is settled upon, grab some fish and chips. The thought of fish and chips, well the memories of fish and chips are all consuming. Ava did not know what she had triggered inside my head when she mentioned the chippie in Braemar. Seaside suppers, Friday night special treats, a teenage post-pub stomach filler; all the associations of fish and chips are with good memories; holidays, high-days and fine times.
This way to Braemar is a road walk. A walk on wet tarmac. Past cottages and Highland homes with windows in the roof that are characteristic of Scotland.
A car stops. It is a black Vauxhall Corsa.
“Do you want a lift?” The driver’s accent is English. Or posh, high-brow Scottish? Educated at Fettes, possibly. It’s not from the north west of England that is for sure.
“Thanks, but I have to walk. It’s the rules.” A brief explanation of the challenge elicits a curious, puzzled look that suggests the driver thinks he has come across a mad man. When the words “I’m aiming for fish and chips in Braemar” are uttered the driver looks at me hard again, smiles and is on his way with an “au revoir”.
I suspect the chap is a holidaymaker. The homes along this little stretch of road are neat and tidy and well maintained, and have the look of holiday home not the look of scruffy, personalised homesteads with animals and farming accoutrements lolloping across the land.
Muir Cottage stands out against a backdrop of thick pine forest. Next come more homes in Little Inverey and Tobar Mhoire and then Inverey itself. Downtown Inverey presumably. From what can be seen, two houses and a telephone box. And this is still a telephone box, not one of those boxes that have been transformed into a library or a glorified village notice-board. It is free to enter but 60p for a call. Whatever happened to the 10p and 2p public telephone calls of the post-decimalisation era?
Stepping inside the box is a temporary respite, a sanctuary from the rain. Don’t judge me, but thoughts of phoning home are scotched by the excessive charges for a call – that and what a policeman in Manchester told me: “In the age of the mobile phone, only drug dealers use a public telephone box anymore.”
Wearing the backpack inside the phone booth is a squeeze, but a squeeze that means it is possible to stand up, leaning against a non-door side, and rest without sitting down; jammed inside, watching the rain outside. It would be so easy to drift into slumber. Kip for the night, and be awakened in the morning by a cold caller offering to help a hapless hiker make a claim for payment protection insurance.
Close the eyes. Out of the rain. Those fish and chips are dancing across the tongue, adorned with sea salt and cider vinegar. Me and the gout are coming, hold on, batter the fish and cut up the chips.
The road to Braemar lies above the Dee. The vistas are close and comforting. On the left is the Victoria Bridge, leading across the river to Mar Lodge, where a welcome awaits any TGO backpacker not fixated with consuming fish and chips.
On the side of the road opposite the bridge an unused gatehouse looks on forlorn but still majestic with its windows boarded up and its mini Toric columns. Once an estate worker’s house, in the modern days of inflated house prices it would make a desirable house for people with more money than sense. The doorway’s porch is a temporary shelter from the rain, with me looking across to Mar Lodge thinking about drinking a hot cup of tea.
If the planets were in alignment, or the legs were so much less leaden, there would be plenty of opportunities to head for the heights and walk off road into Braemar. But the rest of the day is a road yomp in the rain.
The time is late as far as walking is concerned, because it has been nearly ten hours on the hoof. Across a river at Corriemulzie (NO116890), three people are in view. A woman and two men. They are young at a guess about 20 years old and Spanish, judging from their voices. My “hello” is met with blank stares. The three of them are not happy, but not with me. Something has happened between them. They are sulking with each other. Best to leave them to it.
The black Vauxhall Corsa races past me, back home with supplies. My long plod will soon be over.
Sweeping into town the feet are on autopilot. The legs are heavy and swung more than lifted, with the walking poles adding impetus and maintaining the rhythm. The prospect of lifting the legs over any kind of height, such as kerbside, fills me with apprehension and makes me realise how redundant me and they are.
It has been damp all day, and my water consumption has been virtually zero compared with the gallons quaffed in the heat and sweat of the first three days. The new boots have stood up well on their second day of walking. The day before counts as their breaking in day, as today they feel more comfortable, if tight with plaster on the upper ankle. The trailshoes are a distant memory.
Braemar is entered by the back roads. My last visit to the town was in January 1989, in thick snow, during a quick stop-off en route to Boat of Garten. We stopped in the town square then, but this evening nothing is recognisable from that visit because then it was snowing and all the buildings were white, with a tint of orange street lamp. This evening the rain has finally stopped and the buildings, pavements and cars are dull grey and drip-drying and the paint of cars that are waxed bubble with drops of water. In the gloom, the Braemar Co-op shines out. On the left the Fife Arms pub/ hotel is undergoing its reconstruction surgery and will not be out of the recovery room until late 2017.
The Co-op, green, black and lights blaring, looks like it has received a facelift too. Soda water and lime is required. Two bottles of soda water for 90p are a bargain. None of the shop assistants mention my bright orange rucksack. Only when another shopper tries to get round me does it dawn on the addled brain that the bloody thing is in the way. A quick spin round and the shelves could have been cleared in an instant, not to say sprayed with water.
The orange rain cover is less noticeable in the brightness of the store, which is clean, with me making it look grubby. It would have been polite for me to wipe the feet.
“Is that everything, pet?” The lady behind the counter is a lovely, smiley Geordie lady. “Just the sooodah water and liiime.”
She says it melodically, like the words soda and lime were crafted for the Geordie accent.
“Could you tell which way is it to the campsite?”
She points. “Down the road and turn rigghht at the Hungry Highlander.”
“The Hungry Highlander, what’s that?”
“It’s the fish and chip shop, pet.” Not A fish and chip shop, THE fish and chip shop. Must be the one that Ava mentioned.
Did this lovely lady from Newcastle actually say pet? Truth is, the memory is not too clear on this point. But it feels like she did say pet. The politically correct brigade might not like it, but to the lovely lady in the Co-op at Braemar I say: “You can call me pet with that beautiful accent until the cows come home – love.”
A quick plan is made, for once, to shuffle down the road, scoff fish and chips, get to the campsite and wash down the food with a cup of tea, lots of ibuprofen and copious amounts of lime and soda. The lovely Geordie lady receives a summary of the day’s events along with a request for as much ibuprofen as she can muster.
“Are there any hostels nearby?” It’s been more than ten hours of walking and the thought of another mile – even after fish and chips – does not appeal. The campsite was booked up months ago for the next evening, Friday, and the Saturday. They are not answering their phone, and I cannot be bothered taking the risk of walking up there to find there are no spaces and having to wander back.
“There’s a bothy place across the street, over the square pet,” says the Geordie lady. [Did she say pet again, I hope so.] The place sounds like a possibility, the bad experiences at Melgarve bothy apart. Either way it is worth a look.
“Thank-you, I’ll pop across and see. Have a good shift.” The Geordie lady will be working until the shop closes at 10pm.
Across the road into a kind of square, with a chemist – which is closed – on the right there are only houses. On the left is a tourist information office, a modern building that will be a port of call the next day. There is no bothy or any obvious place to stay. The houses all look like any you might find in a normal residential street in the Highlands, with the windows sticking out of the roofs. In a corner where the tarmac road turns left is a track off to the right that leads to a house and then goes off to the left itself.
It too is a normal house, but in the top-left corner of the front wall is an unobtrusive two-tone sign in dark blue on a cream background that says simply “Rucksacks”. Here we go. This is it. To the left of the house is a cattle gate.
On the other side of the gate the land behind the house rises and a woman flits across the view oblivious to me and my bright orange rucksack. The latch on the cattle gate squeaks in my feeble efforts to get it open and in the same instant the woman appears in front of me as if from nowhere.
“You TGO?” she says, with me thinking: “Surely that’s my line?”
“Erm … yes, I am,” adding, because of a flashback to Garva Bridge and Ian in his campervan: “Do you want my number?”
She does not register what is said. “This way,” she says.
The lady is Kate Muirhead, proprietor, owner and engine room of Rucksacks. She shows me into the Alpine lodge suite, a block to the left of the cattle gate. Inside is dominated by a huge bunk bed, roughly 16 feet long and the depth of a single bed. At an estimate it would house five people on the top and five on the bottom. Six close friends at a squeeze. At the far end of the dorm at right angles to the mattresses are 12 pigeon holes, roughly two foot square, in which to store equipment. Functional and dry.
There is a loo and a separate shower at the entrance to the hut, where the porch has a noticeboard and an electric plug point, which is handy for the phone charger. On the walls above the mattresses are night lights for each sleeping space. Nice touch.
It could get a little cosy in the beds if they get too full and people start rolling over in the night. Is it men upstairs and ladies downstairs in the bunks? Snorers and the like all huddled into one big mattress. A Nigel-type snorer would not survive in a bunkhouse such as this because a mob would not let him. And that is my fear, not the survival thing, a Melgarve-bothy type snoring experience again. Kate says she is not expecting anybody else, but then she was not expecting me. If the trio encountered on the trail turn up, the atmosphere could turn frosty.
But at only £10 a night and with a toilet and shower en suite, it makes sense to go with it. It’s unlikely to get mobbed this night and so late, even if one or two walkers turn up, plus Rucksacks is right in the centre of town. The furthest that has to be walked, well hobbled, is to the chippy and back – without a rucksack. Besides which I am shattered.
Kate shows me to the drying room next to the Alpine Suite and then takes me through the garden to the kitchen building. It is big, with plenty of space for eating, sitting and chatting and well-equipped too with a long, impressive table that stretches the length of the windows and outside the views to the garden and the hills beyond to the northeast and the dark-brown hillside colours of May – Craig Leak, Meall Gorm and Little Elrick.
Bits of clouds sweep across the eyeline. What a great spot to rest up, a great communal kitchen and an easy decision, fantastic, I am staying. Outside the door to the kitchen and the rooms are boxes for recycling paper, plastic and cans, which is a great idea, but being tired I am finding it hard to remember which is which as Kate explains how the recycling works. Here’s hoping she gives me a refresher course in the morning.
The soda water and lime find a home in the fridge. A chap called Bill is sat in the kitchen – he politely declines soda water and lime. Bill is staying in one of the rooms adjoining the kitchen block, using Rucksacks as a base for munro bagging.
He loves the Highlands, he tells me, and has driven up from Cheshire and is a regular at Rucksacks and Kate talks to him like an old friend. He has only 20 more or so munros to bag before he has completed the round. Impressive stuff. He tells me the name of the munro he has climbed today and the one he is planning for the next day – but my brain barely registers the names let alone how to spell them. No surprise there.
A huge map of the Cairngorms and routes out to the east dominates one of the walls in the kitchen. An area roughly from Kingussie to Aberdeen is covered in 1:50,000 scale Ordnance Survey maps. My day’s walk has felt like a yomp and a half and looking at the map makes me realise how much of a trek it was: about 24 miles. That’s the power of suggestion, the desire for fish and chips, because dreaming of a fish supper has been the motivation. It would have been far more sensible for the feet to stop and camp at Linn of Dee.
Kate shows me the loos in the kitchen block. They are very clean and tidy, a couple of steps up from the ones in the Alpine lodge.
“They call me the ayatollah,” she says. “People think I’m bossy.” And here is me thinking she came from Iran.
There are just a few forgotten odds and socks in the drying room, so the Troookstar is spread out with the rain jacket, the boots and the polycro groundsheet, which is moved away from the heat in case it shrivels up. The polycro, being so flimsy, is not ideal as a ground sheet, but it works well as a secondary protection against the rain for the rucksack when placed under the orange cover.
I need to check the feet, but the hunger pangs outweigh the pain of the feet, which feel raw in the softness of the lightweight Zuuk shoes. I realise how much the boots have been shielding the tenderness. I limp and hobble down the incline to the Hungry Highlander for my reward of hot fresh cooked fish and chips. I can’t wait and am enthused at the prospect – crisp batter and deep white flesh adorned with salt and vinegar – it has been impossible to put the thought of them out of my mind.
The air in Braemar smells fresh, cleaned by the air. Looking over the wall of the bridge across the River Dee the waters clash and splash on the north side and flatten out their frenetic energy dispersed on the south side.
A middle-aged couple in the Highlander finish their food, leaving half their fish suppers by their seats at a window. And my fish and chips are overpriced and overcooked and not what had been imagined, looked forward to – they are not the driving force that pushed me on and are more disappointing than the sausages at the Eagle. Me being ravenous and having soldiered on from Linn of Dee to get them, the fish and chips are wolfed down regardless with plenty of salt and vinegar because they are needed for a lining on the stomach before the next batch of ibuprofen is swallowed. It will be a double dose washed down with several pints of lime and soda.
Outside the Highlander, people, many with little dogs, some Highland terriers, wander up and down the road – some traipse up the road to the Invercauld Arms on the Glenshee Road, left at the junction of the A93, just yards up from the chip shop. The campsite is on the same road, in the opposite direction roughly half a mile away, just beyond Braemar youth hostel.
Much as I would like to look at the campsite and the Invercauld, I am hobbling and need to get back to the Alpine lodge. The Fife Arms, which dominates the town, is a building site, with the hotel being refurbished, transformed, revamped, brought up to date: whatever you call it, Braemar is empty without it being open. It’s the place I remember dominating the town from years ago.
At the hostel an inspection reveals my feet are swollen and my toes red with the blood vessels puffed up, protruding from the feet. Their puffiness is a cause for concern, because they appear to have the look of gout. As to how, well an inquest will have to come later, for now 800mg of ibuprofen is downed – double the recommended dose – to try to thin the blood and keep the condition from worsening. Yet more lime and soda are consumed to keep flushing out the system is consumed.
At the kitchen table, the left foot is raised up along the bench while Bill chats. He is off down to near Blair Atholl the next day. Again he shows me on the map instead of telling me the name of the munro that he is to climb. The name does not register, but the position does. It looks like the peak Ian had attempted that day – whatever it is called.
Bill scoots off to his room in the kitchen block. He has an early start. His parting shot is to ask me where I am walking the next day. I say I do not know – how can I say when it is still in the melting pot of my dishevelled brain. All that bravado at Kingussie railway station about getting to the east coast as quickly as possible has dissolved and I want a rest day. Give me time to weigh up what is the most sensible course of action. The route that Stan was talking about at Laggan Locks – the Deeside Way – or my route over the hills.
My original route goes south at Easter Balmoral – after a walk past Balmoral, which I have never seen in the flesh. My thinking while planning the route was to visit places of interest. Hence Glenfinnan was on the map because of the Harry Potter connection, which would interest my children; then Bonnie Prince Charlie threw his weight into the planning process via his escape route through Kinlochbeoraid; Glen Turret because of the parallel roads; Newtonmore and Kingussie because of the hostel and the shinty connections plus Ruthven Barracks, which dominate Kingussie and their rebel connections and have lasted far longer as a solid ruin that they ever did as a barracks. Glen Feshie was on the list because of its beauty and because it is home to remnants of the ancient Caledonian forest; and so the list goes on.
From Easter Balmoral the route heads over the hills by way of Glen Lee, Tarfside, Edzell, North water Bridge and St Cyrus, part of what is referred to as the challenge trade route, but in need of being experienced by a first timer. The map on the wall in the kitchen shows the Deeside way, which for 80 per cent of the route follows an old railway line from Ballater into the heart of Aberdeen.
Fifty-five minutes later my mind is made up, tomorrow is going to be a rest day as the change of route that I am half decided upon is something that needs to be slept on, and worked out.
There have been no further arrivals at the Alpine lodge, so the place is all mine for the night. The stuff in the drying room can stay there until the morning. Knackered is not the word. It’s 10pm, it’s chilly, but soon the sleeping bag is toasty with the hood wrapped round my head and that feels great. So cosy and comforting.
Fed, watered and sleepy; tired, drained and aching I drift off to the sound of no cuckoos, no snorers and no prowlers.
itsgoodtowalk 