We decided to have a very gentle, lazy day today, so in poring over the maps I chose a forest-and-river walk, starting from the campsite and heading over into Anagach Woodlands. At 7.75 miles and with barely any uphill it was going to be a straightforward, easy stroll.
It didn’t start entirely smoothly. We’d made it half a mile from the campsite before I remembered what I’d forgotten and backtracked, leaving Mick to buy whatever he fancied from the bakers and to sit on the green consuming it whilst waiting for me.
That wasn’t the end of the teething troubles either, as only a few hundred yards into the woodland something didn’t seem right and it turned out that we’d already missed a turn. A pause on a convenient bench to eat the butteries that Mick had bought gave us the opportunity to consider where we had gone awry. After a tiny backtrack and an alternative route we were back on the Speyside Way and our route was such that it would have been almost impossible to lose it again from there.
It was cold in the woodland, and not much warmer when we got to Cromdale bridge and turned back along the River Spey in the sunshine, as there was a chilly wind today.
I’m not sure whether Mick thought he was late for tea with the Queen or thought that he had some other pressing engagement, as once on that riverside track he was fair trundling along – faster than my little legs could carry me. It was time to declare it lunchtime, a ploy which worked as he returned to a sensible pace afterwards.
Whilst a perfectly pleasant walk, there was nothing spectacular about it, although we did particularly enjoy oggling some of the houses we walked past as we came into Spey Bridge.
The only photo I took today. Those clouds were the only ones in the sky on yet another stunning day.
Arriving back into Grantown we were both in agreement that none of the day’s walk had rung any bells with either of us. Odd as half of the walk was on the Speyside Way, which we have walked before, albeit quite a few years ago now.
The stats for the day were 8.25 miles walked (9.25 for me, if you include my ‘ooops I’ve forgotten something’ detour) and a couple or three hundred feet of ascent (certainly not the 900’ being suggested by Anquet).
Ok, so you had a couple of blips. It's all too familiar. I have the capacity to turn a walk to the local post box into an epic.
ReplyDeleteI've just read Into the Silence by Wade Davis, a monumental tomb about the members of the Everest Expeditions, 1921/22/24, and their earlier experiences in The Great War, and blow-by-blow accounts of the three expeditions. It seems Mallory was well known for being absent minded, leaving things behind in the tent from which he was making a summit bid, so at least we can say we are in good company.