2018 TGO Challenge Day 5

TGO Challenge Day 5

 Inverness to near Loch Moy (planned)
Actual:  Inverness to Wild Camp at NH 783 322 - 14.6 miles
 Total Trip Miles: 74.6

Tuesday, May 15th, 2018

Day 5 Part 1

Day 5 Part 2

After a filling breakfast at the hotel we said our (temporary) goodbyes to Ava and headed out as a threesome.  We crossed over the Caledonian canal, which I had also crossed over in 2016 in Fort Augustus.

The Caledonian Canal

After that, we stopped at the Tesco to buy a few odds and ends we needed for our resupply, and to play on this...whatever this is:

The next 4km were on a sidewalk next to the A8082, which circled around the outskirts of southern Inverness, before turning onto General Wade's Military Road.  The military road was paved for the first few kilometers and a gradual uphill.  

Nessie in one of the roundabouts in Inverness

Where the road becomes a footpath

The next mile or so was on a nice path, for the most part, through a wooded area.  We stopped for lunch when we found a decent spot about halfway through the wooded area.  

After lunch we came out to a minor road just north of Faillie.  We were all low on water and decided to see if anyone was home at the house just down the road.  A dog came out to the fence to greet us, and an elderly gentleman was outside.  He very kindly let us fill our water bottles and we spent a few minutes talking with him and petting his dog, who was partially green from playing in the grass.  

We continued on into Faillie, which was just a collection of run-down garages and barns from what we could tell.  There was a pretty neat collection of rusted out old cars in the yards, though.  The road went through some fields populated with sheep.  Leslie got a big kick out of watching all the lambs playing.

We followed the road down, eventually turning off onto a land rover track, almost mistakenly taking the road to the quarry. 

Clouds building

On the LRT

The LRT continued through a farm, and then connecting with a gravel road that appeared to be for construction traffic, although we didn't see any vehicles until the spot where we turned off the road, about 3 or 4 km distant.  Along the road we saw a monument to a battle that was fought in the area in 1746.  There was also a geocache there somewhere that Kenny was looking for.  We spent a few minutes looking but couldn't find where it was hidden.

Right as we reached the path we needed to take it started raining so we stopped and put on our rain gear.  The path took us through a boggy section once again, but all of us managed to keep our feet dry.  It soon stopped raining and we were all sweating so we took off all of our rain gear (annoying, isn't it?).  We passed a couple cottages and then came to the small wooded area across the A9 from Loch Mor where we were supposed to camp.  There really wasn't anywhere good to pitch so we decided to fill up on water, have a snack and then push on. 

Kenny scouted the small path ahead but it didn't go anywhere.  There was a freshly bulldozed road through the forest heading in the general direction we needed to go so we decided to follow that.  The road was muddy but it took us to a fenceline that looked like it could take us out to the LRT we needed to find.  The off-path along the fenceline was slow going and tough work, but it eventually spit us out just where we needed to be. 

There was nowhere immediately to camp, so we pushed on looking for an ideal place.  The first relatively flat place we found was between a field of sheep and a canal.  There was lots of cow manure around, but we managed to find some flat spots to put up tents. 

The view from my tent

After getting set up I looked out of my tent and there were 30 cows standing about 100 feet away just staring at us.  I called out to Leslie and Kenny and we all got out of our tents to look.  Then we heard a tractor coming down the canal and the cows all started mooing like crazy.  Turns out the farmer was coming out to feed them their dinner.  He kindly had his son feed them away from where we were.  He stopped to chat and told us his name was Dave.  He was very nice and we thanked him for letting us camp on his property (even though technically he couldn't stop us.  Scottish Rights of Way law says we can camp on his property as long as we give a wide berth to houses and don't camp in fields with livestock or crops). 

Farmer Dave heading home after feeding his cows

The rest of the night was uneventful, except for a nice sunset which I braved the cold to take a picture of .