This post pulls together all the blog posts for Phil's and my 2016 TGO Challenge, from sending off the application form, training walks for a modicum of fitness (a hopeless cause) and designing our route to the walk itself.
You can click on each post (it’s in chronological order) and the blog post will open in a new window.
I’ve had fun putting this together. I hope you enjoy it as well.
NOTE:If you are thinking of applying for the Challenge for the first time and would like to know a little more about it, or have anything you would like to ask, please feel free to get in touch. You can get hold of me by using the Contact Form at the bottom of this blog's right hand column.
Postscript: This blogpost marks the tenth anniversary of this blog. And it only seems like a lifetime.
In the TGO Magazine and right across the blogosphere, a great deal is written of the fabulous days to be had on a foot journey across Scotland; Indeed, reading my own account back, I have eulogised along with the best, and worst of them. Probably the latter.
This probably sits well with aspiring Challengers; It may be the catalyst that propels them to seize a biro and fill out the TGO Challenge application form, to join the ranks of the stinky and the lame that will make up the Class of 2017 Challengers.
Yes, the walking is good and yes, the views are top drawer and yes, you won't meet a finer band of brothers, anywhere. However, most writing about the Challenge pay nowhere near enough attention to the most visceral of pleasures: The simple act of stopping, flipping up your shelter and lying there in the middle of no-where, staring into space, your body slowly letting go the cumulative aches and pains of the walk.
Whisky flasks shared with a good friend and as you stare into views so vast, you realise that you're not in the middle of no-where at all. You are at the centre of these vast horizons, and this time, right now, is precious and entirely your own. Evening bubbling curlew and as time melts into dusk, snipe drumming, surprisingly close-by. The soft hiss of the stove as you prepare a bedtime drink. Deep, deep indigo skies and the hills softened beneath a billion stars in the colossal swathe of the Milky Way.
This is what draws me back, year after year.
Which brings me nicely back to the here and now. Lying in the morning's warming sunshine, sheltered from the decidedly nippy wind. We both enjoy taking a while readying ourselves from waking to pulling on our shoes. There's no mad rush ~ I take a couple of hours from the realisation that I've made it through another night to the first steps of the day's ghastly slog through bog and barbed wire fences.
And this morning brought with it another lovely day.
THE WAY AHEAD
I've shown two maps for today; The first shows our route, (but not all the way to Brechin) which is a splendid ridge walk and the second is provided by the developer of a proposed wind farm all along today's ridge walk. Happily, between planning our route and the walk iteslf, the wind farm - seventeen truly enormous wind turbines with a massive access road the width of a trunk road - was thrown out.
CLICK TO ENLARGE / RIGHT CLICK TO VIEW IN NEW TAB OR WINDOW
THE PROPOSED NATHRO HILL WIND FARM
With the knowledge that this particular battle had been won and a sunny, if very nippy, morning in prospect we regain the track to a faint and slightly miss-able path and gently find our way to the bealach before sliding over the side of Mount Sned, on a beautiful path, to the ridge walk.
CLIMBING TO THE BEALACH
RAVEN
There are ravens. Well, one raven. This area is quite heavily managed for the shooting industry and the variation in flora & fauna is woefully small. You get the feeling that this is marginal land, but only so because of the industry it supports. Left to its own devices there would be woodland in the valley bottom and sides which would support all manner of wildlife. But the chinless wankers who kill birds for fun rule the roost around these parts and so we are left with a barren, seemingly lifeless upland desert.
PATH AROUND MT SNED, LOOKING TO HILL OF GARBET
You need to keep your wits about you to make sure you're on the correct side of the electrified fences or barbed wire - which could be a little tricky in the cloud, but we are fortunate and have good visibility. Here's a picture of Phil with his Evil Twin just centimetres behind him. You will never know the fight he has with his demons. He's in control. Just.
PHIL, WITH HIS INNER DEMON.
Just after Peat Hill we hunker down for elevenses. It isn't much of a stop as it is bloody cold. You can tell that from the pictures as Phil is wearing just about everything from inside his rucsack. Apart from the dusky pink tutu. That's reserved for evening wear.
PEAT HILL
The path that drops in a beautiful curve down to Tillyarblet is a gem. Soft underfoot and with sweeping views over the the Black & White hilltop forts all the way to the North Sea.
DROPPING TO TILLYARBLET
We make the minor road, and start the stroll to Brechin, when, framed in a first storey windah of a (non) burning building, appears this 'uman 'ead! (To be spoken in a south London accent. I'll get Croydon to learn this for next year at Lochcallater Lodge)
"Jump into this 'ere net what we are 'olding, and you'll be quite all right!" we don't shout.
In fact it is a rather fine chap, Guthrie, who invites us in to his splendid new home and plies us with tea and cakes. We spend a happy couple of hours in his comfortable sitting room, with views of the Caterthuns and the sea, hearing about his life teaching in the RAF, all over the world. He had also been a keen basketball player. It is with reluctance that we leave to continue our plod to Brechin. Aren't people lovely?
The walk, mostly downhill apart from the climb up to the picnic bench for a second lunch or perhaps afternoon tea, between the Caterthun Forts, to Brechin is all very pleasant and makes a pleasant change to the slog down the Airfield Road to North Water Bridge. Beautiful established trees and well managed farmland. And, as I said before, all wonderfully downhill, and two old blokes are rather grateful for that.
BRECHIN
We fall into the supermarket on the outskirts of Brechin and re-burden ourselves with essential pies, doughnuts, cheeses and bread rolls. There might be chocolate involved. And fruit. And more cake. Whatever, my rucsack is now full to bursting, with less than a day to walk to the coast.
BRECHIN
We can recommend the bar at the Dalhousie Hotel. A nice bunch of locals, with beer on a handle. We tarry here for a few. We also commend to you the excellent Indian restaurant on the High Street. We spend a happy time here as well.
It is a very relaxed brace of hikers who wander through the streets of Brechin to the campsite next to the river. Again, mercifully downhill. You probably didn't know of Brechin's importance in winning the Second World War. Be honest now...
STICK AROUND. YOU LEARN STUFF HERE
It is as I am emptying my rubbish bag into the bins at the campsite that I notice that there is a discarded pair of boots at the bottom of the bin. Perhaps a Challenger is walking to the coast in his camp shoes tomorrow.
CONTENTS OF THE BRECHIN CAMPSITE BIN
DAY FOURTEEN: BRECHIN TO LUNAN BAY (AND A NICE CAFE)
BRECHIN CAMPSITE
Onward! It's a simple enough stroll this morning along quiet roads and paths down to the very smart new cafe on the beach at Lunan Bay.
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However - and this is a big 'However' - there is a glitch, large enough for deep disappointment for the unwary. This is annotated on the map. You'll need to click on it to make it larger. But first, the good bits:
LEAVING BRECHIN
Overall, we were impressed with Brechin. It is a proud, if a little battered around the edges, city. And the roads leaving it to the coast are splendidly lined with wonderful trees. It's undulating peaceful countryside, soothing after a night with a few beers as company. Grand houses behind estate walls abound. There is real money in these parts.
And now, to the glitch: You may wish to enlarge the next map.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: ORDNANCE SURVEY *MASSIVE* GLITCH
We trundle along cheerfully down the track until we arrived at the place of the large blue circle. Here, the track finishes abruptly with a metal five bar gate. Beyond is a gorgeous house and a beautiful garden with a lovely lawn where the Ordnance Survey insists the track should be.
We stand there.
We mill about a bit, studying the map with a forensic eye. There is definitely no way through. To continue would be to walk across someone's beautiful garden and would definitely be encroaching upon the house's curtilage. And that garden is established. It's been that way for many years. Ordnance Survey are clearly years and years behind the reality on the ground. If they spent less money trying to be a business and more money updating their maps life would be better for everyone.
Our alternative will be to turn back to walk on the marked footpaths to rejoin our route. Blast.
At this point, a lovely lady appears from the house and we discuss our dilemma together. She scrutinizes the map, with an intense scrute. There is nothing for it, she smiles, and opens her gate to let us through, asking that we walk around the lawn and be on our way. It's lucky my husband isn't here, she says.
As we walk around the beautiful lawn, leaving no footprints we have a skull cinema moment.
Clad in his shooting jacket, deerstalker, brogues and breeches, the portly Laird chases after us with his trusty Purdey firing furious clusters of shot at the two serfs who have the temerity to alarm his dear crinoline-clad wife. His bloodshot face purples with rage as he spies the deep footprints in his manicured croquet lawn. Are those baying hounds we can hear?
It does make me wonder though, at the sort of life she leads, that perhaps she feels she shouldn't let her husband know that she let a couple of walkers through her garden. Other people's lives, eh? A nice lady.
And before we know it, we are staring down at the North Sea. The East Coast. Lunan Bay.
LUNAN BAY
Of course, it is still perishingly nippy in the sharp northerlies and so for a while I shelter in the dunes to take pictures and a short video of Phil heading off into the North Sea, with I'm sure, a determination to end it all, so that he never has to do this damn walk again.
LORD ELPUS, STRIDING TO OBLIVION
Finally, I take those last few steps myself. When I say last few steps, I actually mean the bloody long walk down to the water's edge because the tide is out. That's poor planning.
LORD ELPUS, FINISHED, LUNAN BAY. TGO CHALLENGE 2016
LORD ELPUS, FINISHED, LUNAN BAY. TGO CHALLENGE 2016
ALAN SLOMAN, LUNAN BAY. TGO CHALLENGE 2016
With pictures taken we stagger back up the beach to the wonderful cafe, for a delicious light luncheon washed down with Ginger Beers. During our repast, Phil mutters something about 'just going outside and may be some time' and heads out in the direction of the sea.
It does cross my mind that this might finally be it, that he has finally cracked, Titus Oates / Reggie Perrin-like, and to be honest I am relieved he has left his rucksack outside the cafe, as I need only to step through the door to rummage through his kit and snaffle the best bits before the Forensic Team arrives to scour the area looking for clues to his disappearance. And the inevitable police interviews.
But no. He's back within minutes, still fully dressed. He has been out there on top of the dunes in the nithering icy blasts to get a faint phone signal to call a cab.
LUNAN BAY KITE SURFERS
We leave the kite-surfers to their certain deaths as we climb into the luxurious interior of one of Montrose's finest hackney carriages. In a matter of a moment we are deposited at the Park Hotel to stand in line to receive the badge and t-shirt.
So with thirty four Challenges under our belts, Phil turns to me and says "How about a Strathcarron start, Al?".
Bellies full of bacon, we stroll alongside Loch Callater and piece together the events of last night. We are in surprisingly good shape, but we had left the party at just gone one and it had gone on for quite a few more hours after that.
TOLMOUNT REFLECTED IN LOCH CALLATER
We both agree that once again (ex) Doha Jim had excelled himself with an incredible rendition, entirely from memory, of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew."
Waggy was also in fine form. with a perfect rendition of the Universe Song:
All in all, a great night. One for the archives.
***
But you don't want to know about these chaps having a good time do you? No. I thought not.. So, let's march on to more misery! Harrumph! That's more like it, eh?
So, we're done with strolling alongside Loch Callater, and jolly fine it was too. Now then - here's a map of today's walk. This is a classic stroll in Scotland, made slightly more difficult when you lug a rucsack up Jock's Road full of proper food ~ pork pies, pasties, egg custard tarts and replenished whisky ~ bought in the Co-op in Braemar. All that proper food doesn't seem to be such a great idea now as it weighs a ton.
CLICK TO ENLARGE / RIGHT CLICK TO VIEW IN NEW TAB OR WINDOW
Once again I've annotated our map. To start with, I'll let the pictures do the talking until we stop for lunch.
LOOKING UP TOWARDS LOCH KANDER
LOOKING BACK DOWN GLEN CALLATER
LOOKING BACK TO LOCH CALLATER
LOOKING BACK TO LOCH CALLATER
We decide to have lunch at the high point of this year's walk, Crow Craigies, over three thousand feet up in the rarified Scottish Atmosphere. But with a very stiff cold westerly, that Scottish atmosphere is very shortly to be a Norwegian one. Only a day or so ago it was probably somewhere over Labrador. Flighty buggers, atmospheres.
Well, no sooner have we sat down in the lee of the cairn, than this bloody atmosphere decides it's now going to drizzle and blow much harder and much, much colder. (NB. That's a three 'much' sentence. There should be a blogger award for that) But, we're stoical Brits and we brazen it out, donning our thermal vests, the skin of a few found caribou and setting fire to our boots for warmth. Pies, pasties, cold cuts and puddings are consumed with stiff upper lips and even stiffer fingers as frostnip creeps upwards.
Bloody Scotland, ruining our luncheon like this!
Lord Elpus and I are perfectly happy strolling along in our little half-worlds and often find that we are separated by quite some distance. Then, generally speaking, the chap in front mooches about for a little while until the laggard catches up. A querying eyebrow met with a nod and all's generally well. That's how it works. Today, feeling bloody cold, needing a pee, and faffing about finding gloves and hats buried beneath snacks in hip pockets and then an adjustment to the shreddies, saw me quite some way into the laggard territory, so much so that the gazelle that is the Modern Lambert was quite concerned and had given up mooching about and had indeed retraced his hard-won steps. Lord knows what he was expecting to find; A bag of bones crumpled beneath a gargantuan rucsack, crows flapping over the corpse? Happily he was disappointed, this time around.
Upon expressing gratitude for his exemplary actions, he replies that he had been looking forward to salvaging some of my kit that he has had his eye on.
CRAIGS OF LOCH ESK
We saunter onwards, now in close convoy and I make a mental note to take a greater interest in the bounder's own kit, just in case.
As you approach Davy's Bourach ~ the Emergency Shelter ~ the views down into Glen Doll are magnificent, which means that you will now be treated a few gratuitous pictures of the same, with varying bits of foreground clutter for photographic interest.
CRAIG MAUD ABOVE GLEN DOLL
APPROACHING GLEN DOLL
PHIL'S PICTURE
DAVY'S BOURACH
MAGNIFICENT GLEN DOLL
I won't bore you with our tedious descent down the path through the woods to the valley bottom, but it is not how Phil or I remember it. It used to be a gloriously pine needle-cushioned velvety loveliness of a creature. Now it's a washed out, rocky stumbly shit of a path. Pity, really, as the woods and the sound of rushing cascades to our right is fabulous.
The walk along the road to the hotel is, well, a road and it seems far longer than is decent. And it's drizzly to boot. However, the Clova Hotel is wonderful and there is time for baths, the washing of socks and pants and dinner in the restaurant. We take pity on Mr Walker who has been denied dinner in the bar and invite him to join us for a course or two and another bottle of very reasonable plonk.
A good day. Done.
DAY 12: CLOVA HOTEL TO JUST PAST WATERHEAD
We are congratulating ourselves on being the just about the last Challengers to leave the hotel and are beginning the delightful climb directly up the side of the valley when a sprightly elderly gent lopes by effortlessly. We catch him again as he's tapping away a blog post to his numerous sponsors as he's walking for Alzheimer's research. He's a thoroughly nice bloke who started the walk days behind us and looks set to finish way before us with consummate ease. It's his first Challenge, but we both think he's been around the Scottish Hills for quite a while.
So, to the map:
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Phil designed this section of the walk, and I have to say, he did a very fine job of it. Rather than make the usual dash over to Tarfside, by whatever route, he decided to take the hills to the coastal plain. However, he had omitted to realise that one of the hills on the route is in fact a Corbett, known as Ben Tirran. This could be because the map says it is "The Goet." Awkward buggers, Corbetts.
CLIMBING OUT OF GLEN DOLL, ABOVE LOCH BRANDY
MOUNT KEEN
MT KEEN
CRAIGS OF LOCH WHARRAL
THE GOET / BEN TIRRAN - A CORBETT, DONCHA KNOW! 896m C/O PHIL
So. it appears we have done a Corbett, by mistake. It's a fine hill, and well worth it, Corbett or not.
MT KEEN (AGAIN) SHE *IS* VERY PHOTOGENIC
GUESS THAT HILL! CRACKERJACK PENCILS FOR THE CORRECT ANSWER
The stroll, mostly downhill to Black Shank is achieved in blissful ignorance of our astonishing Corbett Conquest. It is also done in a bloody freezing wind that has us in hats and hoods and looking for the vaguest of shelter for lunch, as we have understandably built up an appetite, being as we are, Corbetteers of the Utmost Quality. And shelter is found in the lee of a few friendly peat hags. Pies with the last of the English Mustard, and a Danish for pudding.
A QUIET LUNCH SPOT ON BLACK SHANK
It really is a wonderful walk down Black Shank - soft earth beneath our feet and views in every direction, until we make the Shieling of Saughs. We chat to a young keeper in his very smart Land Rover as we watch a Heron fly over. He says that he has met an older chap, not twenty minutes before who had told him that two blokes had wandered off in completely the wrong direction and that he may well bump into them looking lost and forlorn!
Well I never! I repeat: Well I never! Our elderly gent obviously has not encountered Lord Elpus' magnificent Corbett-Bagging Route Designing Skills before! We shall gloss over this slight. It means nothing! Pah! Water off a duck's back, indeed. Harrumph. We leave the keeper to continue his grouse-counting, along with quite a few other keepers engaged in the same activity.
SHIELING OF SAUGHS
THE PIGS HAVE ESCAPED!!!
It's then an airy stroll along a well made track down the Water of Saughs. Quite effortless and delightful.
WATER OF SAUGHS
'S NICE HERE, INNIT?
We arrive at a point on the Rover Road where a path branches off, taking a zigzag line down the nose of a slight ridge heading down to the lower Glen Lethnot. We decide to take a look and have a second lunch at the same time. Perhaps it is afternoon tea? Whatever, it's pies, (minus mustard) fruit cake and whisky. It's not our route, but I persuade the reluctant Lord Elpus to take the plunge. The whisky helped here.
LOOKING DOWN THE STALKERS PATH INTO GLEN LETHNOT
By Golly, it's a cracker of a path! Beautifully maintained and a gentle gradient all the way to the bottom. Wonderbra! as I'm sure Markus would say.
AS ABOVE, WITH MODEL FOR SCALE [C/O PHIL]
LOOKING BACK UP TO THE STALKERS PATH FROM THE BRIDGE OVER WEST BURN
ZOOMY ZOOMY TO THE STALKERS PATH
As we rejoin the Rover Road we bump into our Young Keeper again, on his way back to his tea. He explains that the old path is kept in such excellent condition because the landowner's wife likes to walk back down from the shoot this particular way. Good on her! Not for the nasty shooty shit; No. That's all rather horrid, but for keeping this excellent path in good order.
We arrive at Waterhead where we bump into our sprightly elderly Challenger again, camped up and with a brew on, right next to the gravelly car park. We explain what a wonderful walk we've had today clambering over the Goet, and make no mention of us hearing of his remarks to the Young Keeper. And nor shall we make any fuss about it. Quite unnecessary. Beneath us, entirely.
At this point, we find ourselves in remarkably good form and decide to continue with our route in what is now quite a pleasant evening. We turn right and up the valley for half a mile or so. The clamber up the other side of the stream is particularly boggy and so we head down a very steep hillside and through a few unhelpful fences to make a lumpy camp in a bend in the river..
CAMPED ALONGSIDE BURN OF CORSCARIE
This was a cracking day. Highly recommended. And The Goet's actually Ben Tirran - a Corbett, you know!
