During a dramatic night, some dramatic dreams matched the sound-track, and I slept in half hour stints. Rising at 5:30 am, the sky looked promising – blue above, but wet looking clouds were forming over the hills directly upwind. Dressing with all the warm and waterproof options on – damp cag and damp over-trousers could be dried with body heat – rucksack repacked and covered – tent flysheet off and waving in the wind to remove water droplets – and then an unseen sweep of rain arrived. Quickly I removed the pegs at the upwind end of the inner, folding it down in half so the wet stayed off the fabric. Just as the poles and pegs came out and the inner and outer were deftly shaken and bundled into the rucksack lower section, I noticed my camera unprotected. Wrapping it in my lightweight towel, I quickly hung it around my neck under the cag. With the pegs and poles stowed, the rain-cover over the rucksack, the map-case around my neck and walking poles in my hands, I walked several times around my camping plot checking for stray pegs, or any other evidence of my stay. It was 6 am and I was off.
Heading almost north, I steered through and around mini-drumlins, veering slightly east onto a diagonal for the edge of the hillside on my right. Then gradually veering from 15 to 30-degrees as I rose up towards the ridge, I stopped for a little breakfast (6:20 am), removed my down jacket and failed to find its little stuff bag in its pocket. I hoped I had it somewhere and that it hadn’t blown away out of the door when I dozed with the door open in the evening. (I found it some months later in a little pocket in the jacket sleeve.)
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| Starting to ascend the ridge, looking back towards my campsite. |
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| From the ridge, the view behind (south). |
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| Looking south from Cearascleit Bheag |
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| From the northern end of Cearascleit Bheag, the view ahead (north). |
At the stream (113153), the crossing was quite difficult – involving the use of slippery boulder tops that were 5 cm below the water surface. I definitely needed balance and support from two sticks. Personally, I would not want to make this crossing without them. Bearing in mind that the water could be quite a bit higher after significant rain, I was glad that it had only been light rain the previous night, not tent thrashing torrents. However, some people are more intrepid, happy wading through deeper water in boots but without their socks and trousers, or socks but no boots, or just in their Hobbit-feet. If there’d been no alternative and the water deeper, I’d have waded across; but there is an alternative – going upstream to cross the several smaller streams that unite to form this larger stream (around 115150) or even detouring to visit the bee-hive huts (at 116147). The water looked fresh and clear, so I drank the last of my water, refilled my bottle and added a water-purifying tablet – the packet suggested one tablet per litre - I used one tablet to ½ litre on the basis that higher concentration would be safer if there were nasty spores from the peat bog. And the 30 minutes treatment before drinking (from 7:45 to 8:15 am) I treated with caution too. My next drink would be after 9:00 am.
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| One of many beautiful bog-stacles to avoid. |
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| The stalkers cottage at Ceann Loch Reasort |
By 9:10 am I was by the seemingly disused cottage (107173) – one window boarded over, another blocked by dry stone walling, corrugated iron over the door with a padlock and a good condition corrugated roof – looking recently restored. I imagined it would take very little time to transform this into a stalkers’ shelter whenever needed. In front of it lay a nice fine grass lawn, which would have made an ideal tent pitch – although it does lack shelter from the wind. Another patch of lawn below that might well be better. Another cottage, from a distance, looking in better repair stood on the opposite side of the river – again with no sign of life or recent use.
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| West from the stalkers cottage at Ceann Loch Reasort |
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| South to south-west from north of the stalkers cottage. |
The path from the cottage initially led me on a 110-degree bearing before swinging around left to 46-degrees. I was just concluding that the track was so much better built than I expected when it completely disappeared. Crossing various fissures through the peat, I flushed out two more grouse from beneath my feet – they can impart quite a shock, suddenly emerging so loudly and flying up so quickly.
About half a kilometre onwards I discovered a quite different sort of track – in fact lots of them, quad-bike tracks, running through mashed up boggy ground. These tracks increase the difficulty of walking rather than helping. A skylark sang above and the sun showed very weakly through a uniform high pale grey ceiling of cloud above lines of mid-grey cloud. The trudge wasn’t easy-going, but there was a charm with the isolation; the eee-eee calls and the eek calls; the panorama of distant hills and rocky outcrops, behind the “empty” expanse of desolate peat-bog, lochans and pools. This could be a delight on a clear calm day before the midge population increases; and it could be a nightmare if caught unprepared with cloud down to the ground and driving rain. At 128194 I encountered a single clear-ish boot-print pointing in the opposite direction. It makes me wonder about that one person with only one footprint – last week or last month? Was this one step off a quad-bike and back on again? However, this one print emphasises the lack of any other human foot-prints seen since leaving the track on the previous day.
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| Bog-stacles - invisible until on their brink - to be weaved about with caution. |
By 11:55 I was by the weir (134214) where I stopped for lunch, with cag on for windproof; egg, peanuts, Brie and oatcake, and a double round of sandwich. Two people passed with a guide-book directing them to Beehive huts at the fords at 132200 – I hadn’t seen the Beehive huts since they are not marked on my OS map and since I crossed the stream a little lower. Getting cooler, I changed back to my balaclava, and paused for a cookie and a banana. The wind was whipping up and I was feeling cold. Splashes of rain arrived and I either needed more insulation (eg down jacket) or to get moving. I chose to move at a suitable pace to maintain a comfortable temperature. At 1:10 pm I reached the track leading left to the lodge or slightly longer, to the right, around the loch, avoiding the private grounds of the lodge. I turned right. By this point, I was too hot – cag off, fleece off, cag on. Reaching the loop of old road (139237), I could see that turning right would be much shorter except that the map does not show it completely connecting with the road, so I went left, expecting to use the track north marked at 137239. Unfortunately, this track was blocked by a house, so I had to follow the long route up the tarmac to 134244 before turning right (at 1:55 pm). Passing the other end of the old road loop, I realised that it not only failed to connect, but was also obstructed, so my chosen route had been the best choice, since it was the only alternative that connected through.
Just after the cattle grid (154252), I forked off onto a section of old road – a bit hillier than the new road, but it was more relaxing to be away from the occasional speeding vehicle. About 2:40 pm, I stopped near the road to Scaliscro Lodge Hotel, but moved on again due to the rain. With 11.5 km of relaxed road walking/sauntering, I estimated this would take me 3 hours, so my estimated time of arrival was 5 pm. In fact I arrived at my van at 5:30 pm. I would have taken longer if there had been suitable lighting for photos, or if the rain had stopped for me to rest.
After a quick sort out at the van, I drove straight to Siabost campsite. I’d read on-line that it was crowded and that pitches were rather close together. True, the pitches were quite close to each other near the wash-blocks, but since I did not need electricity, I chose the furthest hard-standing, down the sloping field, with the sliding door away from everyone else. This gave me a peaceful spot, but a wet grassy walk up to the wash-block. I took the opportunity to top up the van’s large water-tank as well as my large drinking water container. Then I cleaned out the Porta-Potti – my first experience of doing this – and recharged its two tanks. It was not unpleasant or at all difficult - the only smell was coming up from the waste disposal drain. Then with the van on its “pitch”, I fixed up the van roof, spread out the little tent fly and inner tent in the roof to dry out, and spread out my sleeping bag in the front. With my rucksack and wet rain-cover ventilating in the back of the van, and my over-trousers and cag hung up from one of my internal washing lines, I made a 7:40 pm cup of tea. (I still had not managed to find my down jacket stuff bag – even after emptying out all my rucksack contents – and this was annoying me.) Then for my meal, I augmented and used up my last perishables – rye-bread with Brie and a hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, the last third of a bell-pepper, a cup-o’-soup and peanuts. The rain continued on and off, mostly on, all evening, as it had been doing since lunch.
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