2018 TGO Challenge Day 3

TGO Challenge Day 3

Glen Strathfarrar to Kiltarlity - 20 miles

Total Trip Miles: 47

Sunday, May 13th, 2018

Day 3 Part 1

Day 3 Part 2

We awoke to the sound of rain on the tents, which immediately makes you just want to stay in your sleeping bag.  We actually all did a pretty good job of packing and being ready to walk at the same time so nobody just had to stand around in the rain for too long, though.  

The situation outside of the tents

Thankfully it was just a light, steady rain.  Enough to keep you wet, but not enough to be truly uncomfortable.  We all set out in our rain gear, ready for the long road-walk ahead.  According to the map, the track we were on should have been land rover track (a dirt road that Land Rovers are capable of getting over - this varies, but typically it's a pretty good rutted dirt road) but at some point it had been paved.  We were just hoping it wasn't ALL paved, as walking on pavement all day is rough on the feet.  

Don't I look thrilled to be the "holder of the trekking poles"?

About 2 km into the day we came across the power station.  The supervisor saw us and came over to say hi.  He was a very friendly guy and he gave us water to refill our bottles and let me use the toilet.  He also told us we'd probably be able to get lunch at the hotel at the end of Glen Strathfarrar.  Food other than what we were carrying was a huge motivator.

Further down the road a tractor passed us with potatoes in the front loader.  Shortly after we came upon one of the potatoes who had fallen out.  

When the sprout has grown out like this they are used for
planting, according to Kenny

Eventually the road passed through a more forested area, which gave us some trees to look at instead of just heather.

Mushrooms

A fairy door carved into a tree

Passing through some farmland

We reached the end of Glen Strathfarrar having completed 10 miles by about 12:30pm, which was by far the fastest we had done that sort of distance yet.  The first two days were so slow-going, and even though we had done a good distance in the morning it still felt like we were barely moving (at least to me).

We took a 1/2 km detour to the hotel and were able to have a nice lunch. We saw another hiker come in while we were eating that I recognized from my 2016 crossing, but he checked in and disappeared before I could talk to him. 

Cnoc Hotel

Excited for lunch!

We had all put on camp shoes during lunch to let our feet air out, and before putting boots back on we all did a foot check.  Blisters were starting to be formed on everyone's feet, and Ava was starting to have odd soreness in her foot.  

As we passed through Struy the sun came out for the first time and would stay with us for the rest of the day.  

The Struy phone box

Poor Bambi

We followed the minor road through Eskadale where we headed onto a forest path that went steeply up and then through a field of gorse.  Luckily there was a pretty wide path through the gorse.  Kenny had to stop and check his heel out as we neared the minor road we needed to connect with.

Through the gorse.

We still had almost 8km to go at this point (all on paved road, I might add).  We were all getting exhausted and all had to stop at various points to deal with hot spots.  We needed to push on to our campsite because Kenny and Ava had a resupply there and Ava had also arranged for us to stay on Belladrum Farm where the caretaker had left a bathroom unlocked for us to use.

Only about 2 km left to go!

Almost there!

We finally arrived around 7pm and found that the field where Ava had been told for us to camp was occupied by sheep.

This is our field, sheep!

Luckily there was another huge field across the drive, but it meant we were farther from the bathroom.

Our campsite for the night

Kenny unpacking

At one point Leslie went to go use the bathroom and a sheep had escaped from the other field.  Her and Kenny worked together to get the sheep back where he belonged.  Unfortunately there's no video of this since I wasn't aware it was going on.  

We all cooked and got into our tents pretty quickly as it got cold really quickly once the sun went down.  

Cooking dinner