Glas-allt-Shiel to House of Mark
(13.5 miles/623 metres ascent)
...but fairly quickly we all got up and began to clear up the detritus of the night before downstairs. Bizarrely, a pigeon had appeared in the fireplace and initially it seemed to have fall down the chimney, but on reflection it seemed more likely that the poor thing had jumped up to roost on the warm log after we'd gone to bed.
It was a friendly little thing, with rings on both feet, and Steve reckoned it was a racing pigeon which had become separated from the rest of the birds. I hoped it had been feasting on the crumbs we'd left in the fireplace the night before, and it sat around watching us as we moved about the room. Eventually it fluttered up onto the window, though, and gazed with what I interpreted as longing at the view outside.
I got up onto a chair and managed to capture it, and then took it outside and threw it high into the air, hoping that it would recover its bearings and head off home. It seemed to do just that, and set off strongly in the direction of the loch. A little while later, though, it returned, and went back to sit in the fireplace. I hope it survived, and found its way to a warm, safe shelter.
As we'd been sitting around the night before, enjoying the fruits of our good fortune, we'd wondered on a number of occasions whether Bob, Rose and Lee might come down from the hill and join us in the bothy. We hoped they would, but by about 8pm it was dark and we'd realised they were unlikely to arrive. As we were getting our things together in the morning, though, they suddenly arrived, and I've rarely seen a group of rufty-tufty backpackers look as green around the gills as they did when we told them of our experiences the night before! :) (Not that we were smug or anything, you understand... ;) It turned out that they'd camped up at Dubh Loch, where their tents had barely survived the onslaught of a gale-force wind mingled with torrential rain. They'd headed down to the bothy to make breakfast, though, and so they set about boiling some water and warming up a bit.
While they were doing that Lorraine and Steve set off for their next destination, and I stayed on to walk with the others, who were going to be heading towards Tarfside, like me.
While Bob, Rose and Lee had something warm to eat and drink I went outside to take a better look at the bothy and its immediate surroundings. It adjoins a most impressive house, and looked like the ideal place for barbecues and luxury camping. There was even a set of stone steps laid into the side of the stream to make it easy to collect water, and a most impressive toilet as well!
The view onto the loch was lovely, through sweeping larches...
...and I decided I'd be quite happy to settle down there and stay for some time. Maybe forever! :)
I got back to the bothy to find Little Peewiglet deep in conversation with the pigeon :) ...
...but by that time the others were packing up and so I had to tear him away, and we soon set off for the tourist information centre a little east of the top of the loch. As we were walking, Kev and Ali drove past in their car, and I waved goodbye :)
It had been raining and quite windy when I'd first got up, but the weather brightened now and the rain had blown off. The walk along the side of the loch was pretty, and relaxing, and there were a number of interesting and attractive shrubs and creeping things growing on the bank at the side.
We pressed on, with brief stops from time to time...
...and eventually we got there.
It was nice to get a chance to sit down with a coffee - the tourist information building had thoughtfully installed a drinks machine, presumably just for us - and we met several other Challengers there who'd stayed at various places the night before.
We probably stayed about 20 minutes, but then it was time to press on towards Shielin of Mark and so we left. As we left we passed an elderly man who asked us whether we had to 'sign out' before setting off on this sort of walk. We said not, and he said he thought we should have to, because it was terrible the amount of money the tax payers have to pay for helicopters and mountain rescue to get us all off the hills... :) I can no longer remember who took this picture, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the elderly man...
The path struck gradually uphill, by the side of a stream, and it was really very pretty. I had to stop a few times to fiddle with my Platy, which had somehow become uncomfortable in the airspace at the back of my Atmos, and then to take off my Fuera as it was now quite hot...
...but I caught up a little further up the path.
The water in the stream was really storming down, and bubbling away in small pools along the way, and I couldn't resist another quick stop to take a photo.
When we got to the top we arrived at an area of very boggy ground, and it soon became clear that my attempts to avoid wetting my socks again were going to prove fruitless, so I stopped trying to hop from tussock to tussock and just walked through.
Bob and Lee had both been there before, and a discussion took place about the best way to find the least boggy route to Shielin of Mark. The GPS was even pressed into service! We pressed on and got there in the end, though, and a very welcome sight it was.
When we went inside we noticed a beer bottle accompanied by a note on the table. Bob read it, and it turned out that Lorraine and Steve had kindly left him a few swigs from their last bottle of beer as compensation for all the lovely scram and drinkies he, Rose and Lee had missed out on the night before! Lol! How thoughtful :)
We all set about finding something to eat - Little Peewiglet wanted oatcakes...
...and I decided to take off my soaking Smartwool socks because I was now shivering and my feet felt horrible. I dug out my Sealskinz and put those on instead, and fairly quickly my feet began to feel a little less cold and miserable.
We gathered in the doorway for a piccy...
...and then it was time to move on again.
By this time I was getting really quite worried about my upcoming stay at House of Mark that evening. I'd heard all about it at the Montrose bash the year before, from Jean, Barbara and the Boys from Balerno, and one of the first things I'd done on getting a place on the Challenge for 2006 was to ring and book a room. The realisation had gradually dawned on me as I'd walked from Mallaig, though, that I'd never got round to sending off the deposit, and by now I was worried that Bea might have thought I'd changed my mind, and I mightn't be booked in. I wasn't so much worried about not getting a room, because with the tent I knew I'd be able to camp at Tarfside, but I was worried about having failed to confirm, and anxious that it might have caused confusion or concern at the House of Mark end. The obvious thing would be to have rung earlier in the walk, to check the situation, but - with my usual flair for organisational detail - I'd managed to leave home without the phone number, and I could no longer remember the name of the woman who ran it. Added to that, everyone at House of Mark sits down to dinner at the same time, and I couldn't remember what time that was... so by the time we left the bothy I was approaching a 9/10 on the anxiety scale, and very keen to press on there as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, a nasty little hill - Muckle Cairn - stood between us and the path that would eventually lead down towards Tarfside (passing the House of Mark on the way), and we all set off to get up it as quickly as we could.
The climb up that hill was just about the most miserable experience I had on the Challenge this year. It wasn't a particuarly difficult hill, but at the same time it wasn't easy to spot a path, and I knew from Bob and Lee that it was important to get to the right place on the top as the path down the other side was easily missed. I'd been so cold at the bothy that I'd put on my down smock, but very soon I was sweltering inside it and feeing very uncomfortable indeed. Towards the top I struck out to the right a bit, and it was with enormous relief that I came to a broad track, extending both right and left. When I looked round I noticed that the others were some distance to my left, though, and so I took off my smock, put on my Fuera and followed them at a bit of a trot, to catch up.
When I reached them Bob and Lee were just checking the map again to make sure of the location of the path down, and I told them how worried I was getting about reaching House of Mark in time. As I'd ascended the hill I'd been going over likely dinner times in my mind, and whereas it had initially seemed likely that it would be late enough to allow delayed Challengers to get there in time for a shower, I was now thinking it might be early - perhaps 6pm! - because everyone was likely to be starving. The process reminded me of my journey on the train to London to collect my final exam results, when my expectations changed from the faint hope of a decent grade to the certainty of total failure, all within the space of 3 hours :)
Bob had the brilliant idea of ringing Challenge Control for the phone number! Doh... :) I did, Control provided the info (thanks, Robin!), Bob keyed the number into his mobile as I relayed it from Robin and I was almost sorted. I then rang the House of Mark, where it turned out that I was expected and that dinner wasn't until 8pm. What an enormous relief!! and after that I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the walk.
The path down to Tarfside was located where it had always been - I took a GPS reading for future reference - and we set off down it. There were snowy hills back in the direction from which we had come...
...and it began to strike me with some force that the best of the hills were behind me now. I think Mount Keen was the only Munro remaining between us and the east coast, and that wasn't on my route. Still, there was Mount Battock to look forward to the following day.
The weather was as changeable as ever, and a flurry of wet snow assailed us as we made our way along Glen Lee.
We passed another small bothy-like building, and stopped there for a bit of a breather.
I spent some time trying to get a good picture of a little caterpillar on the stone window ledge, but somehow I couldn't get my camera to focus properly...
...and I didn't have much more luck with a sprinkling of pretty little flowers in a grassy bank.
I eventually managed to get a picture of two little toadstools half hidden in the grass at the foot of the wall, though: it looked to me almost as though they were engaged in some sort of secret conversation :)
The path down to Loch Lee continued to descend gradually down an attractive valley...
...and Lee and I walked ahead and spoke about various things, including the nightmare he'd had actually getting to the start in time, due to problems with his flight. It turned out that we had a common interest in guitar music, though, and I was quite envious to hear that he'd been to an Eric Clapton gig in Birmingham the night before setting off!
I kept thinking that Loch Lee must surely appear at any moment, but it took a little longer than I'd expected - because I'd not been looking at the map properly, as usual!
We eventually reached the end of it, though, and we sat down to relax for a bit and gaze at a lovely old building nestled securely into the base of the crags near the Shank of Inchgrundle.
What a great address that must be, and what a wonderful place to live!
I was tired and Bob's feet were hurting, and so we hung back a bit and took things a little easier when we resumed our walk along the path.
Photography is another of Bob's accomplishments, and as we walked he gave me some very helpful tips on how to get the best out of my camera without using the 'auto' setting. Our cameras are similar (both Canons - mine's the Canon Powershot A95) - and he'd already set up the focussing and several other options for me. I'd like to go on a basic camera course at some stage, because I know there's much more that I should be able to do, if I had even a basic smattering of familiarity with some of the fundamental principles.
Looking again at the map, I could see that we'd soon be arriving at Kirkton, and it would then be time for me to keep a look out for the House of Mark. It's not identified under that name on the map, and although I'd worked it all out about 7 months earlier I'd managed to forget which building it was, along with the name of the owner, the need to send a deposit and the time at which dinner was served... I remembered it as an imposing building, though, and so when some time later I saw a very imposing building up on the hillside to my left I wondered whether that might be it.
There was no sign, but on the other hand I didn't want to walk past and then find, half a mile down the road, that I'd missed it. In those circumstances I decided I'd better walk up to the big house and check, and so I said goodbye to Rose, Bob and Lee, who were aiming for Tarfside, with its bacon butties, friendly camping spot and alcoholic refreshments :) By now it was about 6.15pm, and although time wasn't exactly pressing I was still keen to get to the end of the day in time to relax, have a bath or take a shower, and generally settle back to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury that I knew I was going to encounter at the House of Mark. The walk up to the big house seemed to take forever, and when I got up it wasn't obvious whether I should go to the back or the front. I tried the back first, but there was no way in and so I went round to the front. It gradually became obvious that I was in the wrong place, though, as the windows seemed to be boarded shut in places and there was no sign of life. I decided to walk down the very imposing hedge-flanked steps that led from the front door to a track at the bottom of the lawn, partly to save a bit of time but also because I wondered what it must have been like for former occupants to leave the house by such an imposing route in days gone by.
That turned out not to have been a particularly brilliant idea, though, because the little gate at the bottom of the steps was locked. I couldn't bear to retrace my steps all the way back to the point at which I'd parted from the others, and so I managed to climb over, but I had to pick my way through some rather fetid and festering tall grasses and nettles on the other side in order to get back onto the path. Eventually I was back on track, though, and since it was now approaching 6.45pm I hurried on with renewed urgency.
Still, though, I couldn't help stopping a few times to take a closer look at some of the interesting things along the side of the path...
...but I was very relieved when, about 10 minutes later, I saw a sign to my left pointing to my destination, and I arrived there just before 7pm.
The welcome turned out to be all I'd been told about, and Bea came out with a big smile, invited me to put down my things in the porch and brought me a tray with a large pot of tea and some extremely delicious looking scones, sliced and spread with jam through the middle. I was keen to eat the lot, but managed to restrain myself in view of the fact that I'd be eating dinner in an hour. I ate one scone, though, and it was just as good as it looked.
After that, Bea showed me up to my room. It's possible to have a room to oneself, but it's also possible to share, and I was happy to find that I was sharing with Joy, whom I'd not met before. I felt a bit guilty when we went in because she was sneaking a quick snooze in her enormous and very comfortable looking bed, but she woke up and said she didn't mind, and I began to unpack my sack and dig out my wash kit and semi-respectable clothing.
The room was quite amazing, with loads of space, two enormous beds, a fantastic view from the window and a collection of attractive period furniture. I love old houses, and so I felt at home there immediately.
I went off to the bathroom where I enjoyed a very relaxing shower, and felt properly clean for the first time in a couple of days.
After that it was almost time for dinner, and I went downstairs to sit for a while in a room with a large group of Challengers chatting about this and that. There was a great collection of books under the coffee tables, and I took advantage of the opportunity to look up some of the wild flowers I'd been passing. When dinner was ready we all trooped along to the dining room, which adjoins the kitchen, and the sight of the large wooden table all gleaming with glasses and sparkling with cutlery brought joy to my heart, and almost a tear to my eye :)
There were 13 of us at dinner - 11 Challengers, and two blokes who were restoring an old cottage a mile or so away across the hills - and we soon fell into hungry conversation. I sat next to Joy, and we decided to share a bottle of red wine. Mmmmm.... :-)
Bea is renowned for her amazing cooking, and that's a large part of why I'd wanted to stay there, since eating great food is one of my favourite pastimes :) I had to set my veggie principles on one side for the evening, but I was soon tucking happily into venison soup with vegetables, and that was soon followed by roast beef with dauphinoise potatoes, and enormous bowls of vegetables, which included broad beans, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, cauliflower and a sweet and lovely mixture of turnips and squash. The wine was delicious - Joy and I had no trouble finishing it off between us - and after the main course came a sublime strawberry cheesecake with mint cream. The mint cream was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, and Bea was kind enough to give me the recipe later on, heh hehe :) All of that was followed by coffee, and then we continued to sit around the table for some time afterwards just talking, and basking in the afterglow of a great meal accompanied by great wine and great company.
I didn't know many of the Challengers there, but I was very pleased to see Colin again, having last seen him at Derry Lodge. I also saw John and Mary Allcock, whom I'd not previously met but whose names I recognised as those of long-established Challengers. There are so many regular Challengers that I think it must take several crossings to begin to have met even a significant proportion of them.
Despite the luxury of my surroundings, and the magnificence of the coffee, I was pretty tired and quite keen to get an early night. It therefore wasn't much after 10pm when I went upstairs and began to think about washing out some of my kit. Bea had offered to spin dry it for me, and so I washed some socks and knickers and took them downstairs, where after subjecting them to a quick spin Bea hung them up with other people's kit, to dry overnight. Joy had also pointed out that I might be able to dry off my tent if I put it by the big radiator in our room - if I'd arrived earlier I'd have been able to dry it on the line, as some other people did - but I forgot about that in my anxiety to get into bed, and instead I settled down in great comfort with my book, for an early sleep.
Return to Home page -- Previous page -- Next page