The morning came round like I’d been on sleeping tablets and put to bed by a touch from Mr Spock. I slept so deeply I think I temporarily left the building. My nightly antics could not be accounted for (no, not those sort), partially because I, and everyone else was asleep (hold on, where am I going with this?). The prospect of the full Scottish breakfast was like I was anticipating any great meal I have ever looked forward to, like an Ethiopian at Christmas dinner. We got our stuff ready and headed into the breakfast area and ate a hearty fully cooked breakfast. I ate a few bowls of cereal and about a gallon of orange juice, soaking my liver and over-dosing on vitamin C. I also stole a number of Weetabix which made me feel like a bit of a Cheltenham average, but it was going to a good cause, the cause of human survival, and you can’t go much greater than that can you, unless you’re obviously the Bush administration in which case you play God every day so it doesn’t matter anyway.
Tom got a photo of the bar and then got molested by a bunch of American tourists. I hate to say this but after talking to a normal person then talking to an American, it is fairly difficult to take the American seriously. Its as if advertising, and popular culture has become so ingrained in their own personality and national identity, that they are both one and the same, manifestations of each other, in a frenzied cyclical orgy of doom. These ones were dressed like nineteen fifties ‘Happy Days’ rejects bouncing along, saying things like “Maaaay God, have you seen sooo many Bourbons”.
Anyway we returned to our rooms, dawned the cycling regalia (lycra underwear), retrieved the bikes, did some minor tweaks and then started making progress down the road. It was a glorious day. The previous day’s terrible weather had blown the clouds temporarily out of the picture. It was brisk with a slight wind and warming morning sun. The road was generally flat with a slight incline, then levelling off and starting to descend skirting the side of the Loch Cluanie with a mountain ridge way over the other side and the valley we had just come through snaking off behind us. The wind blew across the water creating ripples and miniature white horses. The day was life-enforcing and I felt good breathing-in deeply the clean fresh air. We reached the end of the Loch by a huge dam just before a high-speed road descent. We were waiting for Mark then he rolled past shouting ‘don’t stop, I’m in the flow’, grinning a wry smile. Enthused by his efficacious enthusiasm we set off in hot-pursuit. The road descended fast for a few minutes, pedalling flat out. Our destination was to get to a bothy about fifteen miles from Fort William on the edge of Loch Arkaig
We rolled down the road screaming along, tyres spraying water into the air, the landscapes opening up before us into a vast sun drenched, dew-moistened valley. The road snaking ahead traversed the mountain side on the left (Beinn Loinne in excess of 2000 ft) and the amusingly named Bunloinn Forest. We took the right turn here on the road signposted to Fort William. We turned off here hyperactive from the descent and the beautiful morning and stopped in a lay-by next to a group of motorbikers. Tom checked the map but the ideas seemed to flow, it was like an inner sense of direction pointed me that way. I don’t know whether there is anything in that, but it seemed to manifest itself in the other two as well. The hill looked ominous initially although it climbed and swung round about two hundred metres up the tarmac. I clipped into and started cranking away, a slow, meditative process of ascension ensued. Tom and Mark followed at their own pace. We bantered to each other about how we were going to make excellent progress on the road, high off the big road hill we’d just come down and looking back at how far we had come from the hotel since we set off. Making progress up the familiar reassuring surface of the tarmac cut past a large jet black monolithic rock with vegetation on the top to my right with an intense change in altitude and dense pine forest and valley on my left. As I climbed slowly around the corner I was confronted with what lay ahead in the immediate future. It was a good three or four mile climb up the other side of the valley away from where we had just been, it was immense and epic in equal fluctuating quantities. It was at least a thousand feet of climbing. I personally took the mental route of not focussing on the task in hand and instead just continuing as best I could and keeping a positive mindset. I considered this to be the best way to conquer the beast, to try and take it a metre at a time. It must have taken about thirty minutes to ascend this section. It seemed like hours of constant slog. My feet were like dead-weights rising and falling to keep momentum going. I found it difficult not to stop and walk and had to stop myself from doing this. It wasn’t necessarily the difficult nature of the hill but more the boredom of the tarmac, the intense heat and sweat generated from being wrapped in full waterproofs and the driving rain that were the main factors of the challenge. Sweat continuously dripped from my brow and hair into my eyes. I could taste the endorphins as the sweat and fresh rain water dribbled into the sides of my mouth drawing in vast amounts of oxygen to feet my greedy lungs and respiratory system. I occasionally looked up and admired the fantastic views only to be passed by a large 4 x 4 off-road vehicle towing a caravan and splashed by a gallon of muddy, oily water, getting grit in my teeth. I spat down at the ground and rinsed my face and mouth with fresh water, cursing wildly at the apathetic driver. How could they ever get a real taste of adventure staying in a plastic hut on wheels, literally taking the kitchen sink with them. I always wonder why cars think they seem to have right over cyclists on the road when if a cyclist gets hit by a car it is blatantly the cyclist who is going to bite the biscuit, bite the dust, hit the furry biscuit burger, taste the fluff, digest the dirt, brain the bucket, kick the turgid goat, get rigamortis, find themselves in a world of pain with no ladder or comfortable cushion.
After what seemed like an eternity of completely inertia unaided pedalling, fighting the will to take a rest, willing to conquer the climb, I cranked my way up and round the corner at the summit of the hill. My brain kicked in at the last minute regaining focus from my karmic zone, raised from my meditative state, causing my pain to be highly focussed on those last desperate essential pedal turns to reach my destination. The view however, was worth it, it’s a feeling of seeing beautiful landscape time and time again and being blown away that does it. The vast, epic bowl of the interjecting valleys contained a miniature universe of space, looking like a planet had hit the earth and then bounced off leaving a big semi spherical hole which over millions of years had formulated a lush, temperate ecosystem. In the very distance were huge mountains, Ben Tee and the Glen Garry Forest, behind me the vast Loch and valley I had ascended out of. In the closer vicinity ahead of me, a myriad interconnecting Lochs, and great swathes of forest, all blanketed by a cushioning of hazy fog, water droplets evaporating under the sun’s power. Ahead of me the road disappeared off via a gradual descent traversing alongside the next mountain valley, the ground covered with bracken and scrub either side of the road. I sat on a comfortable tuft of heather leaning against my bag and had a rest. After a short amount of time, Tom arrived. He turned to me, peaty soil dripping from his foaming mouth and screamed with relief and joy of the challenge of reaching the top of the hill and the superb raw view, arms outstretched around him, fists clenched in victory.
“I just kept on pedalling,” Tom said stuttering with excitement. “It was like it was never-ending.”
“I kept getting stupid tunes in my head, that looped round and round.”
“God, that’s the most difficult thing I have ever done.”
I grunted in agreement, Tom was eager to keep on going. He re-mounted the bike and rolled off down the hill, adding that we would wait for Mark further along. I thought we should really wait for Mark seeing as I’d waited for Tom and we both got a rest. Although I was keen to continue so I followed Tom after Tom said Mark wasn’t far behind.
After my slightly longer rest I was full of beans and swung my leg’s like a hamster’s wheel in a hurricane, overtaking Tom on the long swoop flow road downhill through intriguing and exciting forested area with the road cut out in the hillside. I looked around and noticed we were entering an area where there was more managed foresting about in the Glen Garry area as one could see square areas of forest removed at timely intervals in the forested area and across the valley side. The road continued round and I stopped in a lay-by with a couple of cars in it and a monumental sun-dial in the centre showing the distances to the different major mountain summits and altitudes in the near vicinity including Ben Nevis. I propped the bike against the fence at the side and admired the view for a few seconds taking in the atmosphere. I was soaking wet, droplets of water and sweat running off my helmet, I caught them on my tongue and tasted the endorphins soaked mixture, snorting it up my nose. Mark arrived and we passed conversation on the previous monster of a hill, and the general beauty of the area, it was like entering ‘The Land that Time Forgot’, a completely different place. I constantly found it difficult to believe I was still on the same island as I had lived most of my life, and that my parents hadn’t had the state of mind to move there. Due to the fact we had come up on the train it still felt like when one arrives somewhere off a plane. You are in one place, one minute and a different place the next, with nothing in between. No effort was exerted in getting there. There was no intermediary transition, experiencing the environment change apart from looking out of the window but that’s not much different to watching a television. This for me, plays tricks on the mind. The mind can’t fully believe the environment that surrounds you, so it becomes almost dream-like. The mind is tempted to partially dismiss the experience because it can’t justify how it is experiencing it. Its as if it’s easy to rationalise away something that one sees on television because one knows it’s on television, like life has presented one with an image or an experience. The brain processes the input but doesn’t have the longevity to fully understand or appreciate it. There is no time to become one with it in a deeper way. I just float around it on my bike, a piece of metal, taking in information with my eyes. I don’t stop at every new texture, smell, object, plant, or whatever, and smell, feel, even taste it, which possibly one should. I rely on my generalised knowledge which already exists in my mind to formulate the beauty of the surroundings, apart from obviously that, I, know from my previous life experience that the general consensus of people and from what I have previous seen that it would be considered to be beautiful. In life is it the quality of the experience or the coverage? A balanced existence seems the wisest conclusion.
Hereabouts we carried on riding. We descended at high speed, spinning out in top gear into the lushest valley I had experienced thus far in my life. The bleakest of the highlands soon became ingrained into one’s mind and the contrast of descending into a lower altitude was a stark and incredible contrast. The lush, moist, green vegetation hung around me as I free-wheeled effortlessly along the road. The sun was bursting through the cloud and sparkled on the water-droplet-covered leaves, refracting in every direction. I felt a cushioning feeling of contentedness inside, offset by the pain of soreness in my backside which felt like a lead weight, having worked off the flab, there was no cushioning left, leaving just hard-leather against hard-leather, like a Sherpa or a mountain goat. We reached a flatter section of road following along parallel to another beautiful Loch hiding behind a row of trees. I was flagging at this point, I had pushed it on the climb. The prospect of having to propel myself without gravity-assistance was mildly unsettling. A sense of paranoia crept in, I felt that I may be tired out when the others had plenty of energy left and I was going to slow them up. There comes a point when one draws upon what one thinks one can handle and previous experience in order to anticipate the current state of going forward. Luckily I could draw on deeper reserves although I needed to refuel. Thinking back on it, these pangs of needing to do something such as eat, do present themselves as strong memories, things I had to do at the time, feelings with positive intent. We continued rolling along the road and reached the village of Invergarry which was a small settlement on the banks of a flood-bloated river at the far end of Loch Garry. As we arrived I saw a bench and was glad to sit down and rest. We were planning to each some lunch, however, the huge breakfast meant that my supplies of energy were not low. Mark shared a breakfast bar with me and Tom cycled ahead to see if he could find a shop to buy some more supplies from for the day and evening ahead. It was a beautiful little place with the sun shining through the trees onto the stream beneath, the wind swaying the tall trees blowing the leaves around. The village’s small-size belied its attraction as a tourist magnet with a good base to visit the many surrounding lochs, mountains and forests. The shop was closed, typically. We asked a man walking his dogs, the distance to Fort William. He said it was about twenty five miles. We were spurred on by this, as it seemed like we had made good progress having already done about twenty miles since leaving the hotel, most of which however, was due to the fast downhill section.
Nevertheless we continued on, climbing over the bridge across the river, and out of the village, past a sign which said twenty five miles to Fort William. However, this appeared to be by road. We had agreed that we were going to stick to the road in order to try and make some fast progress. Besides it was a nice day and we had done so, thus far. We stopped at the top of the short hill to remove some layers and then Tom noticed the sign for the Great Glen Cycle Route which was our original plan to follow. Although up to then we hadn’t had any idea where we would get back on the route. Mark was keen on sticking to the road, as was I, because we had made good progress. However, the constant trail of cars passing feet away from our loaded bikes on the busy road was annoying if not downright dangerous and it seemed a waste to continue on the road if we got the chance to get back off into the wilderness again. Mark was dubious. I was easily persuaded to get back off-road again because of the cars on the road. We stood bickering for a while deciding whether the sign was actually to where we thought because it said some other arbitrary place on it. Well it seemed arbitrary at the time because it wasn’t in our itinerary. Tom looked at the map and ensured that it was part of the route and the exact same he had previously planned. I went and asked in a nearby house and I felt sorry for the old lady who answered the door to my drab, soaking, muddy self. However, she was very helpful and didn’t seem surprised. She assured me that the sign was the correct route for the Great Glen Cycle way. I gave the thumbs up to the other two and we trickled down the little access road admiring the copious green tunnel-like foliage around us, amass of deep shimmering greens, shaped by the wind blowing through. We passed a little farm on the right which looked glorious with a small herd of sheep and lambs bounding around playfully at the foot of a broad oak tree. The road crossed a couple of small streams on slippery little bridges and passed a few scattered houses then we reached a turning point in the road and a forestry commission sign. This evidently wasn’t the way because the only choice was to go right and that would be back down into the valley where we had came from. Tom checked the map. Mark and Tom took care of sorting where we were out and I stood idly watching the bikes and nibbling on a bit of Kendal. I phased out for a few minutes whilst the other two asked a man who was cutting some wood what the way was. They returned and the man had said it was half way back along the road where we had come from. It was strange because it didn’t seem like there were any other turn offs and there certainly weren’t any that were signposted (well). One could tell there was a little bit of frustration in the air because we had different ideas of what the best thing to do was. The weather had deteriorated. Mark was considering going alone on the road. I was getting at Tom for the time we appeared to be wasting working out this route and Tom was getting irritated because he was doing a good job of navigating and was very close to throwing the map at us. It was decided that we should go the route which turned off and then back on itself and started climbing into the forest. It was the only way which met the directions of the person earlier who had been in their garden. They had said that the signpost had been removed which I was only just informed of, hence communication breakdown.
Tom and Mark went ahead up the climb. The great part about this bit of the trip was I was starting to feel freedom. My body felt clean inside having done so much exercise and just eating enough calories to continue on. I felt a little sore and aching but in a good way, as if my muscles were well warmed up. The track was land-rover sized and rutted. Riding was fairly easy and made good progress. It was satisfying to get back into the lush wilderness. I could smell the moisture and greenery in the air. I could taste the salty sweat dripping down my face mixed with fresh rain water, cooling against my skin. I caught up with Tom and Mark. The track climbed back round on itself as it reached the summit of the hill. Almost immediately the previous negative feelings were gone. I think due to a shared unspoken consensus of wanting to get along and keep moving. Such small quibbles were so insignificant, they disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
On the left I could see Loch Oich running down through the valley (as above in photo). Up above the road and the bottom of the valley I felt very safe and protected. One couldn’t even notice the road below. We continued on and came to a fork in the track by a huge ancient lichen encrusted pine tree. The route on the map was not obvious. There were many fire roads going through the forest. Apparently this section of the route was previously maintained by the Forestry Commission, but no longer was, and they had taken down all the route signposts. “Which way Tom?” Mark said. “I don’t know, these fire roads aren’t on the map.” Tom replied. Acting very sprightly he jumped on his bike and disappeared up the right fork shouting back. “If I don’t come back in ten minutes, follow on.” So we retired to a seat on the cold ground to have a rest, laying the bikes down. I talked to Mark and we decided which route either of us would take if we had to guess. I said I would rather climb because then at least we can descend back down and we have gained ground adding that with climbing we would go a shorter distance in the wrong direction because we would be going more slowly. However, Mark commented that the downhill did look tempting and I was inclined to agree with him. We completely forgot about following Tom and he turned up saying it was in fact the right direction. We zipped up the track but after a fairly nice gradual downhill through little streams running off the hillside on gravel fire road with the views of the valley peeping over the top of the tree-tops on the left, we came to a fence across the track. A waterfall ran down what looked like a man-made diversion and this evidently wasn’t the way. We could hear the road below and so decided to follow the lower fork and hope to get our bearing on joining the road after deciding against attempting to descend the insanely steep hillside through densely packed trees. The downhill to the road was really fast on loose gravel covered, wide, rutted fire road, with small streams flowing down. Our tyres tore across the surface, splashing through the puddles, spraying grit and mud. At the bottom of the descent, there was a signpost and what looked like a path diverting off into a hedge. Mark and Tom followed the road down to the right after seeing a sign to Fort William, although we were fairly hopeful of rejoining the cycle route as planned. I emerged a about thirty seconds later riding out of another hedge with a sign indicating that we were on the cycle route. Mark confirmed this by asking one of the locals who he befriended and bartered with for some supplies. Having looked back at the map it is notable that the route is labelled through the forest but not obviously on any particular track. Tom briefed us on the next section which would involve four more miles on the road, and four more through the forest next to the Caledonian Canal and Loch Lochy and then about one more mile round Loch Arkaig after that to our destination, the wondrous, mythical, stupendous bothy of unimaginable earthy treasures.
The next section was testing. It was a situation where I knew what lay ahead, I knew there was a distance which had to be covered, there was no chance of the destination being ‘just round the next corner’. There was no kidding myself in this way, fooling myself into happily pushing forward. I was just a case of slogging it out. The route followed along a road which flowed up and down as if the road had been built particularly for that purpose hypnotically travelling up, and then back down for what seemed like a mind numbingly long time. After pounding the tarmac along the valley side dodging sheep and tractors we reached the start of the forest track next to the Loch and I was becoming tired and hungry. We had done about thirty three miles so far on varied terrain. We hadn’t been able to pick up any extra snack-fuel I was extracting the last of the calorific value from my full-Scottish. I sat there waiting for the other two in a state of waking sleep, a dreamlike place, with a cushion of white all around me. After a few minutes I got rather cold and the wind started to bite so I stood up and hotched around on the spot to warm up. Mark and Tom turned up and Mark revealed some fruit gums he had been saving for such a situation as this. He handed me one of the translucent globdules which my body gladly accepted, thoroughly stimulating the taste buds of my my oral cavity and providing much needed sugar for my internal engine. We were quite jovial as we’d made good progress and knew the bothy wasn’t far which was a positive aspect of knowing the route.
We continued on through stunning, epic geomorphology. A fire road followed the side of the Loch surrounded by lush foliage, gradually climbing into the forest. The track undulated and flowed along. It was a tough task pushing myself forward. My feet turned round the cranks whilst my head sat in a permanent daze in awe of my surrounding. I stopped a couple of times to refill my water from the mountain streams coming down the hillside. Each time the others would catch up and Mark would hand out his sacred, precious fruit gums. We were running on pure E-Numbers and whatever was in the highland water. After riding for about twenty minutes more we came to a gate and a forestry commission sign next to it, under which, was a sign stating that the water in the area should not be consumed due to a blue-green algae build up. This was moderately unsettling considering I had drank about three litres of the stuff constantly sucking it in whilst pedalling to keep hydrated. I panicked slightly but there was nothing I could do about it. Tom and Mark hadn’t drank much of the water luckily due to prevalence of earlier supplies.
We were unsure of the route to the bothy and needed to refill our water containers with safe water and therefore decided to ask at one of the houses in a small village called Clunes we had reached at the edge and southern end of the Loch. Mark pottered around composing himself then strolled up the door and got our water refilled and directions to the bothy, which wasn’t too far away. We looked pretty scruffy, probably enough to scare anyone, however, I considered these to be hardy Scottish folk, and partially didn’t care anyway. It felt as though we had almost reached our destination and the next section was pretty amazing. I felt a slightly depressed feeling as the realisation dawned that we were nearing the end of our journey. We rolled down the road through ancient forest on either side. Silver coloured tree bark contrasted against rich green and autumnal oranges, rich browns and sepia. Whole tree trunks from trees unable to cling to the steep hillside had literally fallen loose and lay as if some sort of disease had spread causing the weak to be felled and the ones with strong roots to remain. Each tree looked gloriously old and had immense character with twisted, knobbly, intertwining branches creating a plethora of different shapes almost animal like, or rippling muscle, or the wrinkled surface of old skin. We bantered amongst ourselves rolling leisurely one minute then pedalling forward the next eager to reach the magical bothy. I wanted to feel that same truimph and relief I felt when I found the last bothy. Although from experience I thought it couldn’t feel as good as seeing it for the first time. We stopped at a sprawling waterfall and plunge pool that at another time would have beckoned me into its watery depths. However, the cold temperature and getting dry again with the unknown of what creature comforts the bothy would provide after the situation with the last one I held back.
As you can see the waterfall above. The ground in the foreground you can see would have been easy to walk on into the water and it did look very tempting in its lush surroundings. I convinced myself that I would be able to jump in the river or loch when we reached the bothy anyway. Tom took some photos of the waterfall and we passed a fairly young, happy-looking couple walking their dog, looking slightly dubious of us, dirty, sweaty, uncouth individuals.
A feeling of collective excitement seemed to become established between us. We pedalled more frantically on and came to the turn off the road crossing over the the other side of the now Loch Arkaig over a bridge over a marshland. The surrounding peaks in the area reached an impressive eight hundred metres and gave the environment a safe, enclosed ambience. I expected the distance to the bothy from there to be fairly short. The track ran alongside the loch above a short steep embankment densely covered in trees. The ground was very slippery, covered in wet leaves over moist, moss-covered rocks. A damp soil, organic smell lingered in the air dancing on the senses. The going was unnerving due to the combination of tiredness and unpredictable traction but we made good progress speeding along enjoying the flowing off-road. The ground was more varied than a typical man-made fire road with some fairly big jutting sharp rocks. It hadn’t been resurfaced in a while by the look of things. Nature had started to take over again eroding away the surface due to years of run-off from the hillside percolating through the rock removing the cementing, coagulate. A few small boats could be seen out on the Loch to the right which was eerily calm with glassy water reflecting rippling images from surrounding objects. Across in the distance another highland hillside reared up retreating into descending fog. The track crossed a part which had recently been resurfaced with large hard-pan rubble, often as big as footballs. I kept well in the crux of the path and hillside to avoid slipping and hurling myself off the embankment side to a watery, bark-eating world of pain. Steaming along at this point, Tom and I got ourselves into a frantic, subtly competitive race. We shot along running on pure adrenalin and anticipation of what we were to find and where we would be sleeping that night, whether there would be supplies, inhabitants, firewood, hunting and fishing opportunities. Would we even find it at all? Bombing along I saw a couple of small leisure boats moored up on the side in the distance ahead and a clearing in the trees next to the Loch. As I continued a small hut emerged into my sight.
It was painted completely in an earthy dark green, like a military hut. It had a tin roof and flat tin side-walls. There were two windows at the front and a big green panelled door with the paint peeling off. It was a solid hard-wood door. There was a chimney on the left side. Looking round the back, the hut was cut out of the embankment with a small walkway mostly full of wet leaves and other organic matter. Along the right side was another small outbuilding which on closer inspection contained coal with a small darkened coal shovel resting upon the stack. Seeing the building caused a feeling of dreamlike euphoria. I had been taken from this world and planted in my dreams existing in a parallel universe with all the beauty of the world at my disposal to play with. It was right out by itself along this track, with it’s own little jetty and couple of fishing boats, looking out over the stunning, serene and misty Loch. The weather over the Loch was ethereal and strange. It seemed to be evolving and changing every time I glanced at it. In one moment, it was still as if a penny, dropped into it, would cause a tidal wave, such was it’s seemingly momentous potential energy. The water shimmered slightly with the movement of fish underneath it’s surface. The trees cast reflections onto the water dispersing a palette of organic colours, greys, browns and ochres. The air was moist with a slight chill, and a slightly smoky smell. Perhaps this was my mind playing tricks on me of daydreams of an open-fire to warm myself by.
Tom and Mark arrived very shortly after me. I tried the door on the hut, slightly delirious and convincing myself it was the bothy. It was locked, and after frantically searching of a way to get in, or evidence that it was the bothy, I tried the front door again with some force and it turned out not to be locked. The door shuddered open, catching on some small stones on the floor, revealing a messy but well stocked place. However, it was becoming increasingly evident that this wasn’t the bothy. It even had beer in it, but it was also full of people’s clothes and possessions. I thought maybe it was the bothy but people were staying in it, however after some cogitation, we decided not to risk it. It was probably the summer fishing hut of the landowner and we didn’t want to upset him, it would be impolite and ungrateful. After some deliberation over the map, Mark and Tom went ahead to see if the map location of the bothy correlated better with the terrain further up the track. I turned to pick up my bike to follow and swore as I noticed I had picked up a pinch flat. This was unbelievably annoying. I was tired, I had been brought up to heights of excitement and euphoria, thinking this hut was the bothy when it wasn’t. We had cycled thirty seven miles with little to eat since breakfast. I was hot, sticky and uncomfortable, my feet were wet and I wanted to sit down, dry my clothes, have something to eat and chill out. I didn’t want to be mending a puncture in a mosquito infested area. The mosquitoes love my blood, don’t ask why its just a delicacy on their menu, I swear. I soon was being attacked from all sides. I decided to run for a couple of hundred metres pushing the bike round the next corner to see if I could see the other guys, or the bothy. However, this just made me more frustrated, hot and sweaty. My blood boiled as I threw my bike down then frantically fiddled about in my tool kit for my puncture repair stuff. It took me an age to find it, and I eventually it surfaced in my rucksack because I had previously lent it to Tom and not put it back in the normal place. As this was going on I was getting increasingly set-upon by my new buzzing friends, the mozzys. I decided to put my full waterproofs on and my balaclava and gloves to stop getting bitten. This took a while in itself, and made me even hotter. It was a race against time now otherwise I would surely turn into a raisin inside this flaming suit. I looked like an extra from a Hollywood ninja film. I fumbled the small fiddly plastic puncture repair box with ungainly, unwieldy gloves and the patches went all over the floor. I cursed wildly, scrambling around to find one, find the puncture and pump the tyre partially up to find the air hissing our. The air came out as quickly as I tried to pump it in. I found two large snake-bike holes (caused by the rim squeezing the inner-tube against the ground). I got the glue and found it was dried up. Tom had the glue with him. I attempted to botch up a patch and the air seemed to be staying in. I pumped it up like a man possessed swinging my arm back and forth like I was scribbling with a huge marker pen on an invisible pad. It must have been quite an amusing sight. To make matters worse I could see the bothy about a kilometre across a marsh land next to me with Tom and Mark just arriving. I replaced the wheel and all the kit and got back on the bike pedalling along. However, I soon had that sinking feeling and, in dismay, knew it was going down again. As I was riding along the bike was starting to handle poorly and the rear wheel snaked from left to right. I made it to within two hundred metres of the bothy, dismounted and pushed the bike through a stream and achingly slowly over to the bothy, propping it against the wall under a wood cutting shelter. We had made it.
Reaching the bothy, first I had a feeling of slight embarrassment of my just passed tantrum whilst trying to mend a puncture. I was frustrated and somewhat selfishly annoyed that neither Tom or Mark came back to me to see what was wrong. These feelings soon subsided turning instead to excitement at having reached this dreamlike place in the middle of nowhere which we were allowed to stay in. The feeling was akin to stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia. The arrival at the bothy was a transition from riding the bike and travelling to a feeling of child-like exploration, curiousity and playfulness.
Mark and Tom were unpacking their things and investigating the inside of the building. Tom called to me “you’re never going to believe this”. “Come and check this out.” Entering into the bothy there was a porch then a sitting room to the left and to the right. Ahead was the stairs to the first floor and below the stairs a pantry and another small room where I stored my bike later on. Tom was in the sitting room to the right. The interior didn’t have the same pure rustic appeal as the previous bothy. It had a different character. It was decorated with peeling nineteen seventies style and colours, a combination of gloss green skirting boards and orange wallpaper and green painted floorboards. The paint was peeling off considerably. Tom pointed out to me the abundant supplies the bothy contained, including baked beans, a variety of packet flavoured rice, dried milk, and brown sauce. There was also abundant supplies of spare gas, plenty of firewood for the open-fire, candles, chairs and a table. All were very humble and simplistic in hindsight, but complete luxuries, especially compared to the last bothy, with it’s smoke stained stone interior and exposed framework. There was something about the bothy that made me yearn for the simplicity of the previous one.
I was exhausted. We spent a good amount of time initially hanging up wet clothes to air on handily placed clothes hooks, and organising things. Organising, had a meditative effect. I once read a Chinese proverb about the ‘meditation of labour’. There is a certain truth to this but some people are half-asleep or plain apathetic selling the hours of life for a pitiful amount of money. There is definitely an element of the human spirit that appreciates labour of some description, working with others. I suppose this relates to early-settlement living to survive, strength in numbers. Through the ages this has evolved into the Marxist-esque Proletariat working for the Bourgeoisie in a class system. As there is no longer a greater good to work for as such, the Bourgeoisie creates a quasi-greater-good and the neo-Proletariat accept this partly because it is easy. The elasticity of this would depend on a myriad variable but especially the state of the government. To begin with everyone has dreams, ideals and passions. Over time the weak have these broken down through social conditioning, and self-fulfilling-prophesying eventually creating a complex self-image paradigm to conform to of which they think is their identity. However true authentic identity comes from dreams and from those child-like ideas. These ideas are likely to sound mad. There are paths in life. Its knowing where to turn and when.(Edit this if necessary)
I delved through my rucksack, got into dry clothes and got out my head torch. There was a small pile of firewood next to the fireplace. I ventured outside to look for some kindling to light the fire. I collected a handful of dry grass and small pieces of wood chip. With abundant dry fuel for the fire it was easy to get it lit. I pulled up one of the chairs and sat absorbing the heat, mesmerised by the dancing flames. Tom started to cook the dinner on the small gas stove.
Tom suggested we should do some fishing. I had some basic fishing kit and Mark knew how to knock up a makeshift fishing line. As it grew dark I sat and watched as Mark skilfully tied little knots in seemingly-invisible fishing line, partly using his teeth, attaching hooks periodically along it. Tom gleefully went about creating some taste-bud tantalising gastronomic creation out of the mostly bland ingredients. We sat and chatted about the day. I handed Mark a knife or hook when he needed it. All I could think about though was food. My eyes glazed over and words and sounds became dulled, my concentration focussed on the meal ahead. I didn’t make very good company I don’t think. I would occasionally be snapped out of my trance by Tom giving asking me to pass a plate or a knife or condiment. To which, I would grudgingly come to life, feeling like a selfish brat being asked by a parent to do a chore, and, fighting this feeling, put on a smile and hand Tom the requested item, grunting with impatience. Mark finished the fishing contraption, although I have no idea how he managed to tie those little knots to tiny hooks in the dark. Then it was announced that we would go out and look for worms and slugs as bait. I felt like a part of me was sulking about something. We traipsed around in the dark, fondled amongst moist fresh smelling dock leaves for slimy slugs and squirming worms. Mark was carrying around a mess tin and filling it with little critters. Tom was bounding about in his long-johns meaningfully scratching about like a hen picking corn from the ground. I tried to help, but I just wanted to eat, although a side of me was incredibly intrigued by the fishing.
We returned to the bothy, got the fishing line and gingerly carried it out to the side of the river which ran adjacent to the bothy and propped it in a little alcove onto a branch. Then Mark lay on the grass a few metres upstream and tied another one between two jutting branches with the bait laying just below the surface. Both positions were in “eddies” were the water was running slowly and the fish would hopefully rest there and get interested in the fast (slow)-food. We returned back inside feeling a sense of achievement and anticipation. The food was ready. I placed another log on the roaring fire and lit the candles on the mantelpiece. Our first eating-fest of the evening culminated in the wilful devouring of spaghetti with tomato purée, brown sauce, cheese sauce, and oregano. It sounds wrong but it was so tasty that it was like eating mouthful after mouthful of some divine substance replenishing the body and spirit. Once I had finished I felt I could easily eat another three plates, so we decided another couple of meals were in order. Tom, happy to cook, prepared our second meal whilst we all chatted warming up next to the fire, drinking hot coffee. Our second meal was equally delicious of green beans and rice with more brown sauce (although I must admit in hindsight it sounds fowl). Its amazing how the body changes the perception of the mind when it needs fuel (no discredit to Tom). We went outside to check the line, but no bites. Tom was starting to suffer with a really nasty cold. He was blowing his nose about every minute. Soon after having our third meal of the night by the way of beans with more brown sauce, and philosophising in front of the smouldering embers of the fire, we headed in for the night. The room where we slept was upstairs located directly above the kitchen. The upstairs was quite creepy in terms of the interior decoration. It was evidently decorated once for inhabitation, however, it was now long abandoned but still retained that once lived in sense of personality combined with the decline caused by neglect from people moved on elsewhere or not finding a regular use. My guess is that it was once a hunter’s or ranger’s lodge. I felt more like I was intruding in that bothy that the other one, as though I had to be on my best behaviour and not get too settled in. Perhaps there was a supernatural presence there, a restless spirit. The other bothy had more of a sense of homeliness as a shelter from the elements whereas this was a ramshackle neglected old house. The room we slept in was akin in some respects to a “Quaker” puritan nineteen fifties American house. It was painted light blue with a humble fireplace and mantelpiece. It was completely bare, with stripped, unvarnished floorboards. It was the kind of room that messed with my head. It was like a blank canvas for the mind to play games. We lay our sleeping stuff out and hunkered down for the night. Tom blew his nose profusely. I was full of food, happy and content and slept like Seville in the afternoon. The night passed and in the morning I learnt that Tom had arisen at about four thirty, unable to sleep because of his cold and decided to check the fishing line and get some fresh air to alleviate his blocked head. Lo and behold on the other end of one of the lines was a twisting, writhing, albeit small, Scottish Salmon with shimmering, rainbow coloured scales. Tom managed harvest the fish from the water and rescue the line in the dark. So arose in the morning to find an albeit small fish lying in the pan. Yes, I said to myself, this was what it was all about. In the farthest reaches of the Scottish Highlands, living off the land, or the water, as the case may be with shelter, fuel and our wits. Tom delicately gutted the small, slithery fish with a pen-knife freeing the fresh fillets from their silvery cocoon and cooked them in the pan with a little fat and herb. I swear I have never tasted a mouthful of fish so good, and it really was a mouthful, sharing the fish between the three of us.
After further breakfast of Weetabix, Mark and I retrieved the other fishing line which was bare and found another place further upstream to lodge it and see if anything else could be caught. On return to the bothy I took my washing stuff and walked upstream, stripped down and had a wash in the cool, fresh water, with a small block of soap and a sponge. It was a very refreshing experience and I felt energised afterwards. I didn’t manage to jump into the water, as I had planned, but I did stand in the river and duck down into it, fully submerged, which was good enough for me at the time. This had the added benefit of leaving that particularly ambition, of running naked into a freezing mountain lake, for another time. I had the opportunity to stand and take in some of the scenery around the bothy and it was truly spectacular, a complete feast for the visual senses, and a serene sense of calm.
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