Day 4
Monday 12th May - Cannich to Drumnadrochit
Next day was a bit of a slog. The first challenge was the seven or so miles of walking along the main road - albeit without much traffic.
I intended to bag Carn nam Bad - a little Marilyn just North of the road and I'd designed a loop in the route to include this. Halfway up the road it occurred to me that I could bag it from the road and leave my pack somewhere to make it easier. It was foggy on the tops and the hills around there turned out to be very heathery and rough.
So I left the road and after a mile or so, stashed my pack in some bracken and floated off to bag the Bad one. It was, indeed , very very heathery and rough and I had to acually navigate with a compass (shock, horror!) to find the thing.
More road walking followed until I could turn off onto forest tracks. These are signposted and waymarked walks which lead all the way to Drumnadrochit.
Somewhere along the way the sun came out. I met quite a bunch of other Challengers, some of whom were coasting, and some were struggling quite badly. One poor lass had developed a bad cold and was in obvious trouble (she did finish, though, bless her...its all in the mind!) Some peeps are just a bit tougher than others, I suspect.
I spent the night in the Loch Ness backpackers hostel with some Great Glen Way walkers. One was the Scottish all-comers snoring champion for 2006 - 8 and another was a windypops expert.
Had a nice scoff at a local pub
21 Miles today (I think we're up to 63 now) and 2600 feet of ascent. I was having some foot problems just here - my left foot felt like it had a ball-bearing near the ball of the foot. I did some heroic and stoic hobbling around Drumnadrochit and bought lots of food.
