We woke this morning to a peaceful, dry -in the sense that it wasn’t actually raining, the air was pretty damp – morning. We packed up the tents and made our way to the hotel for breakfast. We were on our way by 9.20 with another short day of about ten miles. In the end it was eleven and a half miles but we did take a detour.
The route was along an old drove road designed by Thomas Telford, and made when the old military road fell into disrepair. As a result, the gradients are gentle but sadly the road surface is rockier than the Borders drove roads. Interestingly it was the main road until the early 1930s
It did make for an easy day. There were bridges over tumbling streams, views of Rannoch Moor and the mountains surrounding it, and, bizarrely a lot of flying ants. There were so many flying ants that they clung to our trousers and we couldn’t help squashing them as we walked.
What with the easy path, the lack of gates and stiles, and our hearty breakfast we were halfway before we knew it and decided we had better slow down or we would be sitting outside the Kingshouse Bunkhouse for some time before our room was ready. We sat on a bridge parapet, aiming to spend an hour or so there. We had, unfortunately, forgotten about the midges. Despite being covered in a layer of Smidge midge repellent, we were still a source of attraction for the wee beasties (only been in Scotland for a couple of weeks and already lapsing into the vernacular). Our plans for a long elevenses were rapidly altered, and we set off again, aiming to amble along slowly (midges only get you when you’re stationary). We were, it has to be said, overtaken by a lot of people. We chatted to Simon who I had first met climbing Conic Hill and some other people. It was a busy day today with a lot of walkers out. It was an amazing walk, it felt remote but not as much as the day out of Byrness. I think that was because there was a good path rather than just a track through the bog. And of course, the A82 was occasionally visible in the far distance. The mountains surrounded us and the wreaths of cloud made it all feel very dramatic.
By now we were nearly eight miles in so we thought we would visit the Glencoe Ski resort cafe. 200m said the sign -it was at least 400m- and as we had time to kill we had a drink, charged our phones and caught up with both the news and the weather forecast (being shown on a screen in the cafe), along with snowy scenes of the ski resort.
We could put it off no longer. We made for Kingshouse where we had a bunkhouse room. We were early for checking in but happily the room was ready. There was a drying room so as we collected our bag we hung up the tents to dry, and got to our room about five minutes before the heavy rain started.
The room is basic (concrete floor) but there is WiFi and plenty of charging plugs. We have four offset bunk beds (so no-one’s head is below a bed) and the loos and showers are down the corridor. There is a second drying room in the bunkhouse so our washed clothes are now drying there. Matthew is watching football in the bar and I am about to rescue the tents as the rain has stopped. We have dinner booked for 6.30.
Rose's LEJOG 