Scotland - Days 10 & 11
We were up fairly early on Saturday as we were reaching critical level in the clean clothes stakes, and needed time to do some laundry. As usual, the campsite washing machine wowed me and managed to get our smelly, muddy clothes super clean in just 34 minutes (in contrast with the 3 hours our washer at home takes).
When I was over my excitement about the washing machine, I opened my birthday cards and my present from Claire, which was a necklace made out of a real Alder cone coated with metal. Before you start thinking that's a bit weird, I should tell you that Alder cones are tiny, less than a centimetre long. Not the sort of cones that get sprayed with fake snow and put under Christmas trees.
I have been using my other present from Claire all holiday, which is a waterproof case for my phone, and am told that there are further gifts waiting for me at home.
After that we stocked up on essentials in Ballater and then made our way back to the western side of the national park. We'd thought we might stay longer, but decided to avoid the chaos of the bike race in the east on Sunday.
After a very leisurely drive over, we arrived at Phil and Anne's house in Newtonmore in the evening, ready for a big local walk in the Monadh Liath hills with them on Sunday. We spent the evening drinking wine and eating lasagne and a surprisingly tasty crumble, to which Phil had accidentally added all-spice instead of mixed-spice. We also watched the England v Wales rugby World Cup match, which was surprisingly brutal and entertaining.
On Sunday morning we were up for 6, having breakfast at 7, on the road for 8 and on the hill by 9. We left George at the end point in a car park a couple of miles outside Newtonmore, and all travelled to the start point at the end of a road near a village called Laggan in Phil's car. It seemed like a very long drive to get there, but Phil assured me that it was just because there was no direct road.
Our walk was to take in either 2 or 4 of the Munros of the Monadh Liath, the final tally to be decided after the first two. The area is very wild, with very few paths or tracks into the hills. The ground was rough underfoot, and heavy going on the legs because you couldn't tell what was going to happen to your foot every time you took a step as the ground was a mixture of rocky, boggy and spongey. It took us a while to get onto firmer ground, and even then it was still a way to the first summit of Geal Charn. It was warm enough to have a sandwich on the summit (with an extra jacket on).
We then headed towards Carn Dearg, which was a speck on the horizon. Carn Dearg (pronounced Carn Jerack) means red hill, and there are loads of hills in Scotland with the same name. Three of them are Munros. The one we were heading for was not red, and I can't comment on the rest of them yet.
There was no path, and our route took us across moorland and peat bogs. I wouldn't have wanted to be up there in the mist. The countryside was wild and unspoilt, with views all around across the Highlands despite it being quite hazy. We spotted a fair bit of wildlife on the hillside - several grouse, some frogs, and a very cute little vole that could run faster than me despite being smaller than my hand. There were also several huge herds of deer, which all seemed to want to be on our route, so spent most of their day running away from us, sometimes pausing on the horizon to show off their antlers. I've never seen so many deer, it was like being in a wildlife documentary. Anne commented that they were like armies, which was pretty accurate apart from them running away!
We eventually made it to our second summit sometime around 2-3pm I think. Phil thought that the third and fourth summits would add at least two hours to our day, and we were all in agreement that we probably didn't have enough daylight left. I wasn't sure I had enough energy left either! I spotted a trio of birds soaring round in the sky in the way down, and after watching them for a few minutes we identified them as Golden Eagles.
My feet were aching off as usual by the time we made it back to George at about 6.15pm. We dropped Anne back at home and then took Phil with us in the van to retrieve his car. We we pretty tired, and the car park where we'd left Phil's car was a pretty good spot for an overnight stop, so we parked up, put the roof up and opened a bottle of wine.
The weather forecast is looking promising for the remainder of our trip, so we hope to get a few more hills ticked off before its time to go home.
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