Walking 7.30am to 5.30pm
Distance walked 13 miles (plus a couple faffing about)Distance remaining 137 miles
A peaceful night and the forecast for today was good. After a short distance was a sign and steps up to a viewpoint giving a great view across the forest and loch with the mountains beyond and, fortunately, a 4G signal so I was able to call Amanda who was mightily relieved to hear from me. There'd been no signal at all yesterday.
I overshot the path I was to take at NH299278. I went back and at first I didn't see it but inside the forest I made out a strip of green and made my way to it. It was very poor underfoot and eventually petered out so I returned to the forest road. This was to have been my shorter route to Tomich. As I progressed, I could see the parallel road I wanted down below but how to get to it? The forest road would lead me to it but only a mile further on. I tried cutting through a belt of forest but was met with a barbed wire-topped fence so returned again to the forest road and plodded on. I eventually reached the road leading back towards Tomich. I had thoughts of stopping at the hotel there for coffee. I stopped there on my Lands End to John o'Groats walk in 2009.
However, I espied a bridge that didn't appear on the map at NH289257 and this took me over the river sooner than the bridge in Tomich. In the field the other side of the bridge, I turned left to climb over a locked gate fifty yards away into another field. I was then able to reach the vehicle track also leading to Tomich. Here, there was a steep bank up to the track with a fence at the top, just too difficult to get over but then just a few yards away was an overgrown tree stump at the top of the bank which enabled me to get over the fence. Phew!
A little way along the track was Sue's Cake Shed with an honesty box. I needed cheering up with cake.
I reached the forest tracks which took me up to enter Guisachan Forest (probably many years since it was aforested) which is a vast open moorland. The track was clear and I followed it for the rest of the day, wide ranging views all the way.
Two cyclists went by during my leisurely lunch stop but I saw no-one else. After rejecting several possible camp spots, I eventually settled at NH298151, right next to the track. A farmer went by earlier on a quad bike and waved but all is quiet apart from the odd sheep and I saw and heard some capercaillie a while ago.
Geoff, how are you able to compose all these long journal entries on your phone while you're hiking? Do you have a portable keyboard?
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