Gaick Corbetts Backpack, Take 2, Day 3: Luibleathann to Newtonmore

24 April

Distance: 6.4km

Weather: Overcast but dry

I think I would have slept the whole night through if my cold hadn’t progressed to the point that my nose was completely blocked. That kept me awake for a couple of hours, during which time I came to realise that my feet were, once again, blocks of ice. Eventually I stirred myself to heat some water and make myself a hot water bottle. I then had two blocks of ice on a hot object, but they never did warm up. If only I’d packed my down booties!

I eventually dropped back off, and woke again (still with cold feet) at 0530. I’m not sure quite how I filled the next 2.5 hours, given that I didn’t even have hot porridge, but it was 0800 by the time I walked back along the track and in the direction of Newtonmore. 

As may be deduced from the map snippet, it’s a shame that there’s a river and a railway line that sits between my start point and Newtonmore. Potentially even more so today, when I came upon this:

Obviously, I carried on regardless, hoping the road would be passable to pedestrians. When the works came into sight, I was reassured that if the workers did object to my passage (which wouldn’t have been entirely unreasonable, as they were operating a digger on a narrow road) I could easily hop the fence, walk through the field adjacent and hop back once I was beyond the work. As it went, they had stopped work and were all standing around having a chat when I walked through; they greeted me but made no reference to the closure.

I was back in Newtonmore just over an hour after setting out. If it hadn’t been for feeling under the weather, I would have swapped some of my kit and headed back out for one more night, but as it was, I had a big bowl of the kedgeree Mick had made the previous night (third breakfast before 0930!) and not long after that I took my weary body and stuffy head off to bed for a few hours.

 

Day 1 of the trip had been the highlight. The start of Day 2 was good too. The rest of Day 2 (after the Corbett) was blighted by my back hurting every single time I lifted my right leg, which became rather trying after a while, not to mention feeling sub-par due to having a cold.

Because of the back issue (15 months old now – not a new affliction), my confidence in being able to complete the TGO Challenge has been fluctuating between 70% and 30% confidence. At the end of Day 2 it was down to 10%. The discomfort was back to being tolerable on Day 3.

I will likely work on my usual basis of ‘If I don’t start then I definitely won’t finish, so I may as well start’, although given the location of my start point (Portavadie) and the fact that Mick won’t be available to rescue me (so if I don’t finish it will be costly and time consuming to get myself over to Montrose), I do wonder whether it’s the right decision.

What this trip told me is that I definitely will not be using my Osprey Exos backpack, as on the three trips in the last year when my back has been really sore, that is the pack I’ve been using. It’s funny that I’ve carried that pack for literally thousands of miles, yet now find it so uncomfortable (or maybe it’s because I’ve carried it for thousands of miles and it's worn out?!). That leaves me with my OMM pack, which is smaller and has fewer pockets, meaning I’ll probably have to revert to using the Terra Nova Laser Competition as my tent, as it packs up smaller, even though it’s heavier than the Duomid - it’s also a lot warmer, so that could be a bonus.