Rob had ordered up some rafts for us from packrafting.de (cheaper to get them from there rather than Scotland for some reason) and booked tickets on the sleeper so we were definitely on. Lots of discussion over email on what kit we needed and what we were all buying (basically lots) and we finally met up at my office after work on Friday to do our final packing with the rafts.
It was immediately apparent that these bags were pretty heavy and I think we were all surprised / scared just how heavy they were, no going back though… We had dinner at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and then headed to Euston to catch the sleeper to Glasgow. Getting the bags onto the train was not easy and there was just about room for us in our bunk with the packs as well. Special mention here goes to the lounge car on the train and in particular the reasonably priced cheeseboard.
Changed train at Glasgow and on to Corrour. By this stage we were all nervous about stepping off: weather forecast was terrible, the packs were really heavy and we had a fair way to go before dark, but we did step off to be greeted by this fantastic sign at Corrour station:
We walked for about 10-15 min until I noticed that Quiller had had enough of the heavy load and ditched his packraft. This did make the walking easier but would surely make the water-bourne sections more difficult.
Back up to the full flotilla we settled into a decent pace and soon adjusted to the weight. Scenery was fantastic and we were eager to get deeper into the hills. All pictures by the way are courtesy of Rob.
There was some construction work going on at the far end of Loch Ossian, putting in a new hydroelectric plant and we also saw a few people who were staying at the YHA on the loch. The works meant that though our map said that the path went across a river, getting across now actually meant a pretty large detour to get up to a point where it was fordable.
We were probably over cautious due to having just started and also the size of the packs but the river was flowing fast and was coming up to waist level in places. In the end we found a spot where it was a bit slower and shallower and crossing was reasonably straightforward, felt like an achievement though. Most of us kept our clothes on as well, not sure what Quiller’s up to in that photo.
Later on in the day I showed a lot less patience in walking straight through a river, this left me with wet boots for the rest of the trip and was pretty stupid (they would have got wet anyway though). It was a long afternoon of walking and the final stretch down to the bothy seemed to go on forever. We could see exactly where it was but it just didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Finally we reached it at around 7 I think, having walked pretty much solidly since about 11.
We had the bothy to ourselves and the next morning all woke up with aching shoulders and legs. Luckily however the wind was in the right direction and not too strong so we inflated the rafts and set sail for the first time.
It felt a lot better to have the packs on the rafts rather than on our backs and breaking up the journey like this is one of the great things about packrafting. The wind was in the right direction to blow us up Loch Ericht, there was no one else to be seen and we even got some sunshine on occasion.
We hadn’t got used yet to quite how generous Scotland is with its weather – it has a lot of different weather options and likes people to experience all of them, preferably during the same day. So we would think about stopping during a bright patch, only for it to immediately start snowing.
We were planning to wild camp somewhere near the Loch that evening but after we stopped basically at the helipad of Ben Alder Lodge (a very strange place) we realised that with a couple of hours of walking we could stay inside in Dalwhinnie.
This was a pretty tough route march but I was very glad we did it. The Dalwhinnie bunkhouse had clean beds, showers, cold beers and an unbelievable breakfast the next morning. The owner couldn’t have been happier to see us a day early and looked after us very well. Next morning started with a visit of the distillery (would have been rude not to) although tours were booked up due to the arrival of a coachload of welsh indian visitors which we didn’t expect. The bottle of triple distilled Dalwhinnie served us very well on the trip, delicious whisky which I highly recommend. The plan was then to raft along the river Truim to Newtonmore, and this was the first real test of the rafts and our rafting skills…
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