Scotland 5th September 2021

Sunday 5th of September 2021

• Left Immy’s house at 9:30 pm for Bham
• Arrived at 122 Bournbrook and went straight to bed

Monday the 6th of September

• Set of from Bham at 7:20 for Glencoe
• Pulled into Teabay services for a snack
• Arrived in Glencoe (4pm ish) and prepared for our hike up to the ‘hidden valley’
• Hiked 2 hours (probably should have only taken 1 [was the first time immy regretted coming away]) up a waterfall, to the valley (///craters.wasps.blogs)
• We realised we had no phone signal 1/4 of the way up the path and thought as we gained more height, we might get some to let our families know we are alive… we where wrong! We spent hours searching for service walking around the hidden valley, and eventually gave up, having decided that it’s better to stick together than send one person back to the car.

Tuesday 7th September

• we drove from Glencoe, to our first stop fort William.
  • As soon as we got signal we called our fam’s, who had left a lot of messages. And during this I noticed I had a friend on my wrist (‘tock’ the tick who we ductaped up)
  • We tried to go to Wetherspoons but where denied because they only had two staff, so went to costa instead, which had a similar problem. (Brexit and schools returning having a clear impact now)
  • We managed to pick up all the necessary supplies from Tesco.
  • Fort William was not particularly nice, but that could have been because it was wet and overcast when we drove through.
• Next we departed for Fort Augustus
  • This was on the edge of Loch Ness, and blessed with nicer weather we explored all 6 locks which enter the Loch from above.
  • Jim bought a ceramic Nessie, and we got a fish and chips and sat at the edge of town looking out onto Loch Ness.
  • When I went to check if the parking was still valid, Jim decided to wander off and hide in a shop. I called and texted, but you know how it is, no answer. Eventually I found her of course, buying Nessy bar chocolate (for her fam).
• We then started the hour and a half drive to Achnasheen, view Inverness.
  • Once we arrived in Achnasheen we drove round looking for wild camping spots that would give easy access to monro Fionn Bhienn for our hike the next morning.
  • In our searches, we saw a viewpoint on the map, so headed for it, as we drove over a peak we started the decent into a valley, before turning round a corner and having a simultaneous ‘WOW’ moment as we saw the view of loch Maree.
  • We then decided to drive up the loch and look for camping, before giving up on the idea of wild camping and heading for a campsite in Taagan near the water.
  • It was just a small free, unmanned campsite. Along with two other tents we spent the night attempting to cook food while being swarmed by midges.

Wednesday the 8th of September,

• After packing up camp, we headed back up the road to Achnasheen, where we pulled into smidge bite cafe, for a ‘big Scottish breakfast’ and to ask where we could park.
• We set off from the station, and started our ascent up Fionn Bheinn, we couldn’t see the top, as the majority of the hill was set back from the base, and so was hidden from the road. Climbing the first 2 km took an hour, with many complaints from Jim, and requests to turn back.
• Following this, the hill started to flatten to a marshy land, where We could now see all of what we had to climb, the km walk across the marshes, didn’t take long, and gave us an opportunity to refill our bottle, and for Imogen to apologise for being so angry before.
• As we approached the second half of the climb, Jim was adamant she would not be climbing it, but with some motivating words (and some less motivating) I persuaded Jim to keep walking. We kept climbing, at quite staggering rates, and after a final push reached the ridge.
• Here we had a little rest, before we headed up the last 100 m to the peak, which did not take much effort at all.
• I was extremely confident at the top and started running around the edge of the sheer drop, ignoring the 9000 mph winds.
• We then started the descent, a different path down, and headed down the ridges, it was a long route, and we spent most of it trying to find the path, as opposed to actually walking the path. But eventually we reached a dry stone wall, which indicated the rest of the path.
• When we reached the wall, we realised Jim had a new friend (‘Travis’, the tick) in between her fingers. So we taped him up and carried on walking towards the spruce tree woods.
• As we arrived in the woods, Louisa called with knees of her being in trouble for hitting a motorcyclist on her way onto loosely row (fortunately everyone was fine, and she just got a telling off by the police)
• The total ascent took 2:48 minutes, and the descent 1:35
• Following this, we went back to the car and decided to head straight off, heading for shieldaig,
  • Arriving in shieldaig Imogen started stressing about where we would camp, so after some research, we found some wild camp spots round the corner, only we where at a different shieldaig than the one the review was talking about. Turns out theres two towns with the same name on neighbouring peninsular’s, only (50 minutes from one another).
  • We then managed to find some more potential wild camping near, and headed up the coastal road to applecross, where we saw some boys camped in what looked like horrid bumpy conditions, and inspired by this, we found the first parking spot, ditched the car and walked round till we found the flattest spot we could.
    • Although the camp spot wasn’t the best, it was okay, and despite not having signal in the tent, we had 4G and full bars by the car, which was a bonus.
    • We camped at (///skewing.destined.monopoly)
  • Later that night we inspected for any more ticks, when we found Imogen had another, on her groin… (‘Tarzan’)
  • At the middle of the night, Gil thought the wind was too strong and since there was a yellow weather warning out wanted to check online. Since we where by the ocean and unprotected I wanted to move. So we packed up and drove down the road to the next place we found 4G (///relate.education.shell).
    • We arrived here at 1 am, to a display of lightening across the Loch Torridon

Thursday 9th September

• We barely slept in the car for the night, and in the early hours (7) decided to just drive on, so headed for Glencoe.
• We stopped at Glencoe after 3 hours of driving to find the coffee shop wasn’t open and so started driving to Glasgow to get cheap fuel.
  • We calculated we would have 50 miles on the tank before we got there, and so committed to that, rather than filling up with pricey stuff.
• We managed to get to Asda with just enough
• We drove all the way back home that day, something like 11 hours driving (at one point, about half way, Jim was falling asleep at the wheel and I had to grab it, so from that point onwards I drove the entire journey)