11 May 2013: 23km. Started 08:30. Arrived 18:00.
This was a new experience for me that I set out in the morning with nowhere booked to stay. However that was the whole reason for having my tent and I would be away from the Loch Lomond area where wild camping is not allowed. My initial plan had been to get to the Tyndrum area but, more realistically realising that the weight of my rucksack was slowing me, I was aiming for a wooded area near a stream just beyond Crianlarich.
The weather was showery. The ground was soaked following the torrential rain of the previous day. I struggled scrambling over wet slippery rock and felt perilously close to some exposed cliff edges with my heavy load. I could see trains and cars speeding along on the other side of the loch. At one stage, where the visibility to the loch was poor, I could hear commentaries from a tourist boat on the loch. It seemed eerie to think that I was eavesdropping on their comfortable, warm and dry experience while risking life and limb scrambling over wet rock with a rucksack which I could only just carry.
The loch side scramble seemed to go on for ever but eventually I reached some easier terrain. Apart from the disembodied tourist commentary, there had been just two walkers coming in the opposite direction. They had spent the night in a bothy near the upper end of the loch. I was pleased to see five deer that didn’t run off.
I was relieved to arrive at Beinglas Farm around lunchtime so decided to eat at the café rather than from my carried provisions. I was impressed to meet a man who had already walked that morning from Rowardennan and was going as far as Tyndrum – he was not carrying a heavy load.
Unfortunately, I managed to tweak the left side of my back putting my rucksack on after lunch. Added to my previous left hip injury sustained at Hawes, this left me limping intermittently right to the end of my walk. Fortunately it was less painful with my rucksack on than off. It also wasn’t as bad as my MRI proven disc prolapse only two years earlier in 2011 (and managed very successfully with physiotherapy and attention to core stability), but I could only manage to walk between rooms in the house when that was at its worse. If that recurred, there would be no way that I could continue.
The path for the afternoon was generally straightforward, but unfortunately all the earlier scrambling had made me very tired. I felt that I was making slow progress. Of course, it wasn’t all easy. There were some cattle with calves and I was scared about getting past them. However I was lucky to meet a group of four walkers from Preston who helped me through. Amazingly my pace was faster than theirs although they did overtake me later when I stopped for a rest.
I was pleased to find the spot next to Herive Burn which I had earmarked on the map as a potential campsite. I had only erected my tent in the back garden previously so I was delighted to be able to get it up after a fashion. Sorting out my camp ended up taking me two hours and I was worried about packing it all away the next morning. It rained as I was cooking my dinner – but everything was dry in my tent (at that stage). My concern was that the fly sheet seemed to be too long for the tent and was touching the inner – not good news if it rained in the night. This was really outside my comfort zone – my first solo wild camp ever and the last time I had wild camped at all was 1989 with no nights in any tent since 2004. I should really have tried this more locally and when the stakes were lower, but I had been too busy working and the time to practice a night away had gone.
As the evening drew to a close, I was warm, dry and felt a sense of achievement that I was lying in my little tent reading my book by the light of my head torch.
Where's Kathryn? 