Day 1
Friday 8th May - Oban to Cruachan Reservoir
Daily Distance 34.1k, Time by Naismith 10.05, Daily Ascent 1570m, Daily Average Altitude 76m
The map shows our actual route in Blue, and the intended route where it was different in red. The blue numbers on our route are highlighted in the text. The red squares are Munros.
We had breakfast and left the hostel. We passed Bob and Rose Cartwright interviewing people for a podcast.
Later they caught us up and there were 7 of us finding our way through Oban; Bob, Rose and their daughter and Mick Blackburn and Gayle Faulkner. Just outside Oban 1 the Cartwrights took a turn left leaving Mick and Gail to walk with us all the way to the Smokery beyond Taynault. It is a tarmac road all the way and could have been a bit of a plod, but with lively conversation about walks and walking, walking food and a bit of gear talk, the time passed quickly and we arrived in Taynault 2 for some tea ahead of schedule. It was raining as we left the pub for the Smokery and still windy. We left Mick and Gail at the smokery, 3 they were the last Challengers we met until Montrose!
As we arrived there was a vicious hailstorm. Luckily we had read the TGO article by Roger Smith suggesting that challengers used local businesses for food. He used the smokery as his example. We had planned to buy smoked Salmon. While the hail built up in the gutters we bought a pack of smoked Salmon trimmings and were persuaded to a bowl of soup each.
We had intended to attempt to climb Ben Cruachan almost directly from the smokery 4 if the weather was good. This would have got us up high more quickly and helped our average height. However the weather was decidedly not good. A high level camp without shelter might have been a problem so we changed plan and decided to camp at the Cruachan reservoir. It is quite high but looked as if shelter would be available. This added some miles on our day and included a horrible road walk along the Pass of Brander. We ate the first smoked salmon with ryvita under the wall of the reservoir dam 5. We camped in a sheltered spot half way along the side of the reservoir.
