Baileguish to Newtonmore

Friday 4 October

Distance and ascent: 9km, 100m

Weather: overcast with one shower and a few other passing spots of rain.

My day started with a burst tea bag. This is not a good way to start a day! However, I managed to drink my brew without swallowing many of the tea leaves, and it wasn’t raining (contrary to the forecast), so there were positive things I could focus on. If looking for positives, I should perhaps gloss over how bad a night’s sleep I had, although I reckon it was better than the last trip, and that was better than the trip before.

Thanks to my overactive imagination, I was wide awake at 0330, so at 0430 I got up. At 0530 I picked up my pack and was off.

With hindsight, I should have made some mental notes yesterday afternoon in daylight, as the tiny trod that leads from Baileguish to the footbridge was difficult to locate by torchlight. Or maybe I should have just followed the track, which takes a longer route to the same place.

Once over the footbridge, I was into the forest and for the first five or ten minutes my imagination stayed on a tight rein. I was even brave enough to take a little path that cuts a corner off between two tracks. Then I got to a section where the trees were creaking and cracking in the wind, whereupon my mind wanted me to believe that every noise was a mad axe murderer about to jump out (because, clearly, the most expedient place for a mad axe murderer to hang out is in a forest in a sparsely populated area, where lone females probably only pass by before sunrise about once a year). I gave myself a good talking to … and checked how much longer I had to wait until sunrise.

Sunrise was at 0721, but I was able to turn my light off at 0640, by which time I was about 3km past where I had arranged to be picked up at 0800. Thanks to the wonders of modern communication methods, this wasn’t a problem – my watch has a live tracking function and the first time Ali checked my location, she correctly spotted that I was in the Co-op in Kingussie. (Apparently there was a discussion over dinner last night as to where I would be picked up this morning. Agreement was unanimous that I wouldn’t be at the agreed spot in Drumguish. Everyone reckoned I would be either at Ruthven Barracks or in Kingussie at 8am.)

I would have made it all the way to Newtonmore, had Ali picked me up on the return leg of her trip to Kingussie, as intended, but as I happened to be right next to a convenient pull-in on her outward leg, I was picked up a little short of the village. I didn’t object, given I’d only originally intended to walk just over 4km this morning.

Hopefully there will be another window of good weather whilst we’re here, as I’ve another couple of routes in my mind.

The only photo I took today. (There were two campervans in the sloping Ruthven Barracks car park (the roof of one snuck into this snap, as you see) undoubtedly both unaware that there's a lovely, more secluded, level spot a few hundred metres up the road.)