Days six and seven have been the most beautiful of the trip. I want to get that on record before I tell you everything that went wrong today.
Days six and seven have been the most beautiful of the trip. I want to get that on record before I tell you everything that went wrong today.
The morning started perfectly. Sun coming through the tent, that specific satisfaction of being warm inside while the air outside is cold and clear. I reached for the coffee.
Andy didn't want any.
Right Fine. I put mine away too, because that's what you do, one for all, all for one, no man left behind and all that. This is a partnership. We look after each other.
Andy's a dick. A lot of today was marching through glens on paths that were, to be charitable, more of a suggestion than a path. Gorgeous, genuinely, properly gorgeous, the kind of walking that reminds you exactly why you do this, but not the sort of terrain you cover quickly. Every step required a degree of attention that the body, at day seven, is having to consciously apply rather than offer freely.
We marched. We made progress. It took the time it took.
We came through Amulree and found ourselves walking through the remnants of what had clearly once been a proper eighteenth century settlement, walls, foundations, the ghost of a place that people had lived and worked and presumably argued about coffee in. It had the kind of quiet that only comes from somewhere that used to be loud. Worth a moment's pause, which we gave it. Ordnance Survey suggested a path. We followed the suggestion. The maps, on closer inspection, were not entirely backing this up, the path existed on one layer of reality and somewhat less on others, which is not ideal when you're navigating unfamiliar ground. Then, a few steps in: big signs. Welcoming walkers. Arrows pointing helpfully in the direction we were already going. Excellent, we thought.
This is fine.
Then an ATV pulled up.
The sheep farmer astride explained, with the direct efficiency of a man who has had this conversation before, that we were technically somewhere illegal. The path, the signs, the welcoming arrows, all the work of a man who is, at this current moment, in jail. He was clear about this detail. He mentioned the jail specifically.
He then pointed us in the direction we were heading and wished us well. I've been thinking about this interaction for several hours now and I still don't entirely know what to do with it. We thanked him. We walked on. The path was fine. At the end of a long day, when the legs are done and the mind is already half in the sleeping bag, I went over a stile. Went over is perhaps the wrong framing. I fell over a stile. Came down hard, landed directly on my camera, the wind left my body entirely for a moment that felt considerably longer than it was, and I lay there briefly taking stock of what had just happened.
The lens is gone. That's confirmed. The camera itself is probably fine, I'll find out when I get home, which is a thought I'm holding at arm's length for now because there's nothing to be done about it out here on a Scottish hillside with bruised ribs.
The ribs. Yes. Bruised, I think. Not broken, but bruised enough that I'm aware of them in a way I wasn't this morning. They're making their presence known.
This should, statistically, be our disasters done. We've had ankle issues, blisters, a tent in the trees in the rain, a camera lens, and now ribs. There is a finite amount of things that can go wrong and I choose to believe we've covered most of them.
Bankfoot at 11am. A shop. Hot lunch, if we're lucky. The sort of small concrete thing to aim for that makes the next morning's walking feel structured rather than open-ended.
Always something to look forward to. Gonzo out.