Thursday 10th May - Day Zero
After consuming the best mixed kebab on naan that I’ve ever eaten as well as several lagers with Stuart and Josh the night before I woke up feeling fairly good, and just a little bit giddy about what was to come. We had plenty of time for a brew and some last minute checks of the rucksacks and then Stuart gave us a lift to Queen Street station for our 10:10 to Inverness.
I expected Queen Street to be full of other TGO’ers but I only saw a handful, we grabbed a nasty coffee from one of the kiosks and retired outside to top up the nicotine ahead of the journey. Time was almost up so we headed for our carriage, found our seats and met our first fellow Challengers of the trip, Mike and Marion Parsons, or “We just stopped for an early lunch” as we later referred to them. We had a good chat on the way up, their routed sounded much more adventurous than ours and we were probably 30 years younger than them, “We’re keeping it nice and simple for our first crossing” was our excuse.
The connection at Inverness was fairly painless and we were soon chugging westwards through some pretty baron landscapes along Strathconon Forest, a rip off eight pound odd for a 4 mile ride and we stepped off the bus at Sheil Bridge bus shelter. The camp site was a few hundred yards away so we headed over and got booked in, not the fanciest of camp sites but the basics were there, plus they sold cold beers in the shop.
Tarp setup at Sheil Bridge camp site
After having some grub we took a stroll up the hill behind the campsite, enjoyed a couple of cold ones and discussed the plan for day one.
River at the back of the site
Friday 11th May - Day One
Shiel Bridge to Glen Affric
14.53 miles (planned)
775 metres of ascent (planned)
17.42 miles (actual)
862 metres of ascent (actual)
Friday morning was wet, cold and grey, I’d slept really well though so got up to face the elements and take a stroll over to the shower block. By the time I got back Mick was unzipping his tent and was getting up. I noticed some of the likely looking one man TGO tents had already disappeared, it was only half seven and we had to wait until nine before we could start the Challenge, maybe the others new where we could get a decent breakfast from? Into the rations then for breakfast, golden syrup porridge with granola and milk powder, washed down with a Kenco 3-in-1.
Walking to our sign out at Kintail Lodge Hotel, that’s a Llama I think?
Dipping the toes in the west coast ocean
Me
Mick, steady
Walking under Carn-gorm on our way to the Mountain Rescue Post
Turning SE into Gleann Lichd
Heading to Glenlicht House
Approaching Allt Grannda waterfalls
Heading for Fionngleann
Looking back to the west, Alltbeithe roof reflecting
We’d pushed on for a couple of extra miles on the first day, not for any particular reason other than we were being a bit fussy about campsite selection. Although we were following the river down the valley, the obvious campsites we’d spotted in the planning were either under water or looking very soggy. We made our way down the glen as the landscape started to change again, we could see trees in the distance which meant we were getting close to Loch Affric. A quick check of the map showed a couple of promising spots, the first one being a large crescent shaped beach with flat drained grassland behind it, it was perfect. Tent and tarp were pitched and we relaxed in the last couple of hours of daylight. Another challenger arrived as we were about to retire, Julian was his name, we would refer to him as Wing Commander. We found out later that he was actually in the forces, total fluke that one
Campsite for night one, Loch Affric
