Day 11 – Disappointments
I was up at six for once. Sunshine seemed to inspire me more than cold rain, although there was a frost on the tent. Despite getting up early I didn’t start walking until eight. The plan for today was to follow the River Gairn down to a couple of miles north of Ballater, then, resisting the temptations of the Ballater Co-op, head north onto Morven and drop down to a convenient camping spot.
The walk down the river Gairn was pleasant enough with several rest and photo stops.
Eventually I came to a dusty road and followed it down towards Gairnshiel Lodge. A phone box marked on the map came into view. I could see from a distance that it was in good condition and had recently been painted.
Obviously it was that rare thing, a working telephone box. As I walked towards it I thought of the numerous other phone boxes I’d come across which had once been lifelines to the outside world but had now died and were no longer in use. There were a few cottages scattered around this one and somehow the phone box brought the hamlet to life. In the past this phone box had been a central part of the community’s life – boys phoned girls in Ballater whilst smoking Woodbines, and women rushed to the phone in their slippers and headscarfs to call for the doctor. I decided that despite having a mobile phone with a charged battery and plenty of credit, I too would use the phone box; I would phone a girl in Somerset and I would phone a Challenge Controller in Montrose. Reaching it I put my rucksack down, got out some money and swung the door open. It wasn’t a lifeline, it wasn’t that rare thing a working phone box, it was an empty cast iron and glass shell painted red. I walked round to the river and made my phone calls whilst sitting on the river bank watching vehicles negotiate the superb hump backed bridge.
I now followed the river down on its left bank. The farmstead of Tomnavey was chaotic and muddy. A dog barked and a man came out and joined in; I waved back. Nearing Balno I met two Challengers in a wood having lunch. I would have joined them (you don’t ask on the Challenge) but I had no water.
A little further on, staggering up a south facing slope between Inverenzie and Lary the heat brought me to a stop. I still had no water and was gasping, and a few oatcakes didn’t help much. Iain and Roni McDonald (I think) caught me up, chatted and moved on.
At Lary I noticed a young man sitting self-consciously beside a parked car. Perhaps it was the England team shirt he was wearing. I turned onto a track which followed the Lary Burn northwards. About a mile up the glen I met an agitated man walking towards me.
“Have you seen me son on the track?” in a Midlands accent.
“I don’t think so. Sorry.”
“He’s wearing a Red-Injun shirt”
This remarkable information didn’t jog my memory, so he told me that his son was autistic and liked looking at old ruins. They’d been up the glen looking at the ruins and the father had left the son at a ruin and gone on for a longer walk. The son had gone when he’d got back.
“It should be okay, he usually goes back to the car when he’s had enough”.
“There was someone sitting outside a car at Lary, he was wearing a red England ……..” but the father was hurrying off down the glen.
Shortly before Morven Lodge I turned off to the right and stopped beside the river for some water and a break. Setting off again I followed the track skirting the south side of Morven. I came to the place where it would be best to turn off for the summit and took a few paces up the hill then stopped. It was getting on for the end of the day, what if I got up there and my leg started playing up again? There wouldn’t be anywhere to camp up there. I decided not to risk it, especially as I didn’t really know where to camp as it was without throwing an injured leg into the mix. Instead I decided to follow the path to a burn which looked to be in reasonably flat ground on the map. When I got there I found the ground to be reasonably flat but terribly rough, boggy and tussocky. I spent some time poking around for a decent area big enough to pitch on and then pushed on again.
At the Rashy Burn I nearly camped as a little further on I’d be on the steep ground descending to the east where it’d be impossible to camp, but it was such a miserable spot, even in the evening sunshine, that I carried on, but I did think it was good enough to come back to if I had too. On the map I could see an east flowing burn just before the ground fell away steeply to the east and I decided to make for there and see what it was like. I could always come back.
Pulling uphill slightly I came to the crest of the slight ridge between Morven and Culblean Hill and suddenly a whole new vista opened up before me. I followed the track downhill and as I neared the stream I noticed that there was a hut beside it. This was no doubt for the use of grouse shooting parties. I’d come across huts like this before and sometimes they were unlocked and had tables and chairs inside. If this one was unlocked my camping problem would be solved; I’d drag a chair out onto the veranda and eat my dinner looking out over the panoramic view, then go inside and sleep on the wonderfully flat floor – the moorland around was a slope of thick heather and looked very uncomfortable. Imagine my dismay when on reaching the hut I looked through the window, and as if by a conjuring trick I found the hut to be full of white doves. For a minute or so I felt totally confused, it seemed such an absurd thing, but at least there was a stream of sorts to get water from if I could find somewhere to pitch the tent, so I carried on along the track feeling totally baffled. What was a hut full of white doves doing up here a mile from and 1000’ above the nearest house? Then, as well as feeling baffled I started to feel resentment; why should doves have a nice hut to spend the night in when I had nowhere to go?
A couple of hundred metres further on, just I was about to give up hope and either join the doves or return to the unfortunately named Rashy Burn I found a patch of ground that had been cleared of heather and wasn’t too bumpy or on too steep a slope. It was five thirty. To go on would mean leaving the lonely hills and entering the world of people – that could wait until tomorrow. I pitched the tent, went back to the hut to get water and unsuccessfully try and figure out why the doves were there, and then made a meal - Mountain House Potato with salmon and dill sauce (excellent). A full stomach took away any curiosity about doves and I started to realise what an excellent spot I’d camped in. In front of me the hills suddenly and abrubtly stopped and made way to rolling agricultural land with woods and villages dotted here and there in a picturesque fashion. From my tent looking down on this bucolic scene I was reminded of the Bestall endpapers. I scanned the landscape trying to match villages and woods to the map, but try as I might there was no sign of Edward Trunk.
A pick-up truck came lumbering up the track at about 7:30. It was warm enough that I was still sat outside in my baselayer top. We waved to each other. It was past nine when he came back down, but I was tucked up in my sleeping bag.
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