Journal:
I had a good night's sleep and things went to plan
in the morning when I went across to the store/Post
Office at 9am after breakfast and picked up my last
set of maps for the trip and bought some food to see
me through the next week on the days I am not booked
into hotels/inns. I returned to the hotel,
marked up my maps for the day and packed the food
before checking out at 10am and hitting the trail.
According to the guide book I was in for a tough
day, even without a late start, so I was a little
apprehensive about how close I would get to the
target of Inverlael, 40km away, by day's end.
I was expecting to be camping, so I could stop
short, but needed to be within range of Oykel Bridge
the next day, where I was booked into an inn.
The walking started well
with a long gradual climb up a valley out of
Kinlochewe to Lochan Fada, a loch high in the
mountains. I walked for three hours straight
with a fully-loaded pack, but did it comfortably,
which was a relief after the fatigue and headaches
of yesterday. I took a break there on a hill
overlooking the loch with its grand backdrop of
mountains. I then had a few kilometres of
cross-country walking to a pass and once again
thanked the gods for the good visibility which had
helped my journey across the Highlands. I
could clearly see the pass in the distance I was
aiming for, so was able to make a bee-line for it,
though had to deal with the usual peat bogs and
steep-sided side valleys which made for slow
progress. A couple of hikers appeared ahead
from my left, hiking cross-country and followed my
course to the pass some distance in front of me,
then suddenly disappeared from sight at a time I
wasn't looking and I was on my own again.
From the pass I picked up
a narrow trail and followed it down a long valley
past a picturesque loch with the vast rocky
bare-sided Sgurr Ban mountain to the west, ending at
a pretty valley with some trees and heather at
Achneigie. By this time it was late in the
afternoon, but I was happy with my progress and
enjoying listening to the agonies of the
commentators previewing, describing and later
analysing the England v Germany World Cup game,
whilst traversing the spectacular wilderness.
I then had another long
climb followed by a crossing of a high plain dotted
with small lochs before descending to a green valley
with a few houses and a road. However, this
contact with civilisation was brief and I was soon
climbing up to another pass through some forest.
It took some time to cross the pass and it was after
8pm, so I began looking for somewhere to camp, since
I was only four or five kilometres from Inverlael.
I found an exposed spot near a creek and set up the
tent just as the first of several showers passed
through. I thankfully crawled into the tent,
hoping I'm not too exposed to the brisk wind, and
had my dinner and did my diary. I had planned
to have a wash in the stream, but it was too late
and cold, so I went to bed dirty.
