Wednesday, May 16th, 2018
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| Day 6 part 1 |
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| Day 6 part 2 |
I looked out from my tent when I woke up and saw the cows were still milling about, staring at us.
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| The Cows |
It was another sunny day. Unusual weather Scotland is having this year. Much better than slogging through the rain though. We did our usual morning routine, which meant being 20-30 minutes late getting ready to go.
The first 3km of the day was on a LRT that would take us into Tomatin.
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| Random glove hanging on the gate |
We emerged into town into a backyard, unintentionally, as we had missed a turn somewhere. We walked around the side to a gate, which was locked shut. An older man was just pulling in. He was not happy. The conversation went something like this:
Us: We accidently took a wrong turn and are in your backyard.
Him: Yes...you did.
Us: How do we get out of your yard?
Him: Around the other side
Us: We went this way so we didn't bother the sheep and lambs on the other side
Him: ...
Us: Okay then (as we walked around the house and out of his yard)
We came out into Tomatin right next to the distillery. There wasn't much action going on this early in the morning, other than a delivery. Tomatin seemed like a quiet little village. We did stop at the town corner store for some snacks, of course.
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| Snacks! |
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| I picked up some Randoms |
After our snack break we headed back out of town and through some more farmland while still following General Wade's Military Road.
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| Under the railroad |
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The path went up to the left of the wall.
It was steeper than the picture would indicate. |
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| We saw a bunch of hunting stations |
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| And then a cabin that we stopped in for lunch |
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| Enjoying a table |
After a steep uphill we came to a small lunch cabin for hunters out with the estate. It was open so we used it to take a nice long lunch break. I happened to have cell reception and told a friend of mine that we were in a hunter's cabin for lunch and he said "That sounds manly as f***." We all found it amusing.
After lunch we had a 2km off-path navigation section over some pretty uneven terrain. The first section was uphill and it was tiring. It actually seemed like more uphill than the map would indicate.
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| The type of stuff you have to walk through or around |
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| The vast openness |
There was a fence that wasn't on our maps, but luckily there was a gate not too far out of our way.
After going through the gate we had a view down the hill and all stopped for a picture.
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| Leslie |
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| Brian |
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| Kenny |
An LRT that we needed to find was on the other side of a steep ravine, but luckily on the side we were on had some stairs heading down. There was a small stream at the bottom that was easy enough to jump over. We stopped to refill our water bottles. Then we had to make the steep climb out. The LRT was quite steep heading down from where we were. We followed that until it merged onto the B9154, which was a pretty busy road (no sidewalk, or pavement as the Scots call it).
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| Steep down |
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| Along the B road |
We made it into Carrbridge right about 5pm and found a nice bar that served food, but not until 5:30, so we waited like any good challengers would do.
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| An old bridge - notice the kids swimming in it's shadow |
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| Locals at the bar |
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| Our pints in the foreground |
Our original plan was to get just south of town and find a place to camp. We decided over dinner that since we had a cabin to relax in the following night we'd push on to Boat of Garten, which had a campsite shown on our maps. That would make today about 17 miles, but would leave us with just about 8.5 miles the next day. Theoretically we could knock out those 8.5 miles in the morning and have the whole afternoon to relax.
By the time we left the restaurant had filled up and there were some other challengers at the bar. We chatted briefly while paying our bill. We also ran into another challenger walking by outside as we were getting our gear together.
We had to walk along the road for a while longer to get out of town, but about half a mile out of town we took a path off into the forest which was a decent uphill at first. It's a good thing we had decided to push on as we really didn't see any options for camping.
We went through some more farmland with the usual unhappy-seeming cows. None of them bothered us though, and we did likewise.
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| Great view of the sunset |
We came out of the farm and crossed the A95 and had a long, straight walk into Boat of Garten that seemed to take much longer than it should. We were all exhausted and ready to be there. We finally arrive around 8:30ish (maybe slightly earlier). We went to the campsite office and saw a sign on the inner door that said "No tenting." We sat down on the grass alongside the campsite drive and tried to figure out a plan. A couple minutes later we saw a car pull up and a couple people went into the apartment next to the campsite office. Kenny ran over and asked if we could tent there but they said no. He said we walked 16 miles to get there and they said "there's a campsite at Aviemore." Aviemore was 12 miles away by road. That would have been convenient if we had a car.
We went across the street to a B&B and asked if we could pitch in their yard, but the owner wouldn't bite. We decided to head out of town towards the river and look for a place to pitch. We started walking out of town and about 100 feet down the sidewalk I looked to my right and there was a path going off into the forest behind the row of houses. I stopped Kenny and Leslie and said we should walk back there and see if there was anywhere to pitch.
Turns out there was an abandoned basketball court with some grass and a fence around it. We found suitable spots for our three tents and pitched. We heard a few people exercising or walking dogs go by but nobody bothered us. So if you're in a pinch and need to camp there is somewhere to do it.
***If you're reading this for planning purposes, there is no tent camping at the Boat of Garten campsite. We found a place to camp outside of town at NH 939 188***
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