2017 TGO Challenge Day 3

2017 TGO Challenge Day 3

Wild camp (NH 113 018) to Laggan Locks (Great Glen Hostel) - 18 miles (probably more)

Total Trip Miles: 46.5

Sunday, May 14th, 2017

Day 3 part 1

Day 3 part 2

We packed up and were out of camp a little bit before John and Neil, so we said goodbye knowing we'd probably see them a little later.  The first few miles of the day were along the paved road on the north side of the River Garry and, eventually, Loch Garry.

There's cell reception at the hubcap house

 In Tomdoun there is a church, a phone booth, and what appears to be a couple of houses.

The Tomdoun phone booth

It works!

Shortly after that we passed the old Tomdoun hotel, which is apparently now a private residence.  

It had been raining on and off all morning, but as we approached the bridge heading south across Loch Garry the wind picked up.  As we crossed the bridge we had an extremely powerful, constant wind coming from the west.  The brief time we needed to cross the bridge was enough to freeze both of us, and the rain wasn't helping.  

The sign before the bridge

Luckily the next section was through a wooded area and the freezing wind died down.  The next section was a wasteland of felled trees. 

Yours truly in the wasteland

We passed some fenced areas with sheep in them.  These guys were in a separate pen from the others and really wanted out.  

Next we had to go into a section with lots of cattle roaming around.  

We found an area where there were huge tree stumps remaining from all the trees being felled and decided to stop for lunch while we had something we could use as a table.  

The view from our lunch spot

As we were eating, a mother cow and her calf came up on the road alongside where we were eating and she stared at us while mooing.  We weren't sure what she wanted, so we continued doing what we were doing.

Moo!

 At this point, the mooing cow decided she wanted to be our friend/trample us (we're still not sure which) and started walking towards us.  We were on one side of the giant stump and the cow was on the other.  Whenever she would make a move we moved the opposite direction to keep the stump between us.  Leslie threw her food in an assumption the cow was after her re-hydrated lunch (I was skeptical).  The cow mooed some more and then walked away....disaster averted. 

Leslie with the giant stump that saved our lives, maybe

Not two minutes later John and Neil walked up the road, passing mom and calf with no reaction whatsoever.

John and Neil not being attacked by momma cow
 (note one of the giant stumps Neil is sitting on)

After chatting for a few minutes Leslie and I headed on.  With a new lease on life after our near-death experience we knew we had to keep pushing forward, we couldn't get complacent. For the next few miles, we followed the land rover tracks (LRT) until we turned off on a path heading south where we once again had some good views.

We followed the path down to the river

From the river was a 2km off trail section to get us to the edge of the hill that would take us down to Laggan lochs.  

I read in the journal of another challenger that the hill by the stand of trees was steep but do-able (where the B is on the map below).  About halfway through our off-path crossing, Leslie started getting some sharp pains in her knee. 

We were trying to end up where the B is but ended up where the A is

Somehow we got pointed in the wrong direction and ended up SW of where we wanted to go.  We came out near Kilfinnan Fall, which is a very steep ravine.  It took us a good amount of time to figure out we were too far SW and not too far NE like I thought.  While walking around trying to figure out where we were the pain in Leslie's knee was getting worse and worse quickly.  

We finally figured out where we were and made our way to the proper hill to descend.  Leslie was in a lot of pain and had to go slowly down the steep hill.  We knew there was a floating bar waiting for us, and I'm fairly confident that is what kept us moving at all.  

The view down to Loch Lochy

The view down to Laggan Locks from the top of the hill

The view back up the side of the hill (it's steeper than it looks)

Finally we made it to the bar!  We had some beer and a nice dinner on the deck of the boat.

Exterior

Interior

The hill we walked down

After dinner we had a short but painful walk for Leslie to get to the Great Glen Hostel.  We checked in, had a shower, did some laundry, and then assessed where Leslie was at.  Just walking up the stairs in the hostel was extremely painful for her.  The front desk had a small shop and I inquired if they had a knee brace, which they did not.  Funny coincidence though, a friend of Leslie's from Florida happened to be in Scotland for a wedding and was about 1 1/2 hours north of us.  He told us he could meet us in the morning with a knee brace to see if that helped with the pain Leslie was feeling.  At least we had some semblance of a plan.