10 April - Rosehall (Achness Hotel) to near Duchally Lodge

Day 3:      10 April 2011

Rosehall (Achness Hotel) to near Duchally Lodge (wild camping

(12 miles          7 hours walking)

I got up at 7.00 (after more than 10 hours’ blissful sleep!), packed, and then had a lovely breakfast at Achness Hotel. I was quite restrained and avoided the cooked breakfast. I had some grapefruit and prunes, a small bowl of porridge with honey, and some brown toast and marmite. This seemed like a good breakfast to march on and I knew I wouldn’t see any toast and marmite for a while….

I had breakfast in exalted company that day; “Sir Henry”, an assortment of armed forces veterans and two young veterinary surgeons were dining at an adjacent table, wearing very expensive fishing gear. I felt completely out-of-place in my ‘rohans’ and ‘crocs’. Their conversation, which concerned employing Somalis to do students’ dhobi (“They’ll be glad of something to do”) was extremely un-politically correct and I enjoyed it hugely.

The weather was great, sunny, calm and clear. I felt I had the beginnings of a mouth ulcer, and after some embarrassingly blatant hints, the manager of the hotel very kindly gave me a tube of bonjela. The hypochondriac in me was strong that morning.

I followed the beautiful river Cassley north for a while, and saw my first (and only) otter on a rock in the middle of the river, fishing for salmon perhaps. There were lots of unidentifiable birds, high up and flying in formation, heading NW along Glen Cassley. I saw many lizards, hundreds of red deer, and no other humans whatsoever for most of the day.

Looking towards Ben More Assynt from the south with a Highland cow

I was planning to camp near Duchally lodge, but on approaching I was surprised to see a naked man standing pinkly in the doorway, completely oblivious to my presence and enjoying the fabulous weather. I altered my plans and crossed the Cassley River via a convenient bridge.

Then I had to find a sensible place to camp, away from naturists. This was surprisingly difficult (not, unfortunately, due to an abundance of naturists) as the ground was soaked from previous rains. In many places the path was a fast-flowing stream, and the ground was extremely boggy.

However, I soon found a lovely spot to 'plot up' near a stream, just past some woodland. It was just before the beginnings of the climb towards Ben More Assynt. As I was feeling rather hot and grubby I had a wash in a stream. The fact of seeing no people all day was very liberating, and over the coming days I got to depend upon nobody surprising my solitude in the wilderness (and became a bit of a naturist myself!).

I had a nutritious supper of soup and couscous, which I really enjoyed. I had seen Ben More Assynt and Conival getting larger and more ominous as the day approached, so had no illusions that the next day was going to be easy. But having experienced two days’ fabulous weather my spirits were high and I felt really positive about the climb. I had no phone reception but that was only temporary I realised.

My Vargo hexagonal stove was ace…really my favourite bit of kit!

I should mention that today was my first experience of tics in Scotland. I went through a patch of long grass and brushed off a small cloud of them onto my legs. That afternoon I had to remove about 7, the size of grains of dust, from my legs. The number of deer prints around convinced me they were deer tics and I increased my vigilance w.r.t. tics from this day onwards. Lyme disease no thanks!