Scotnatrail 39-40. Strath Cuileannach-Ardgay-Inverness -HOME. There and Back Again

Day 39 Strath Cuileannach to Ardgay (Inverness)

In the classic game of my tents soaking inside must be stargazing time I go out in the night. A whole broad sky full of them and on the horizon, the shoulder and torso of Orion- the seasons are turning, the hunter returns to the hills as I depart.

In the morIng the light is soft and magical. Maybe there is something to be said for early rising after all (too late, I’m not changing habits!)

The sun is just about to break over the hill as I leave at 7:20

My trousers soak with morning dew as I cross back to the track then head on down this quiet morning Glen

I hear the scram sound I hear last night, and then see … it’s not birds, it’s deer! One 20m from me schooked by my arrival though he turns and watches as I pass. The mists on the valley side are ethereal, backlit by the sun. Two does stop to watch me with their little one.

I find a haunting tune for ..,

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

It’s ten past nine when the track becomes road at Croick. Meet a mountain biker heading the other way. Birds flit from the stone walls and the sun makes the heather blush warm.

To Croick church for breakfast. It’s churchyard was the place people of Glencavie fleeing eviction of their homes took shelter urging the highland clearances. I try to see if I can see the messages engraved o the window, I can see some but cant read them.

I eat in the steps outside and call dad. It’s a bit of a shock. I was so happy and at ease in a land with no signal. Now I am being reeled back in to civilisation.

I turn my phone back to airplane mode

I set off at 10 for the 16km down to Ardgay along the road.

As I all I process memory after memory that floods to me,

picking up a third charger in fort William,

pancakes in Pitlochry,

the nervous first bus ride from Berwick in tweed,

the table playing cards in Kingussie.

So much has HAPPENED in a life so used to floating by. The images flood my brain one by one pushing out the last.

I make a list

Things I’m looking forward to

• bilberry

• Lie ins

• Being free of devil flies and midges

• Returning to my Brandon Sanderson book

• Wearing a proper bra not a sports bra

• Wearing dresses

• Baking

• Seeeing Stratford

• My Earth friends in Cumbria

Things I will desperately miss

• sunsets

• The extraordinary kindness of people out here, there are kind people everywhere but nothing equals the volumes of it out walking

• Remotness

• Really feeling the value of food as energy and being able to eat lots!

• Sleeping to the sound of rivers

• The Milky Way

• Being uncommitted and untied by expectation

• Open space

• And it’s sort of tempting to add: bog

The walk is really beautiful, the road boarded by native tees, Rowan birch wild rose which are filled with the sound of bird song accompanied by the tumbling river in warm air, the leaves dapple the sun. The river often forms wide pools that would make delightful swimming spots. The trees are rich with lichen and old mans beard. The river widens and slows. Here and there a bench beside the river for the wanderer.

I’m glad I didn’t stop at schoolhouse and make today 32km. I can take it slow and gaze. The land widens too.

Old crumbling farmsteads surrounded by the pure yellow of young dandelions. before the soft purple of the moor covered hills.

It’s such a lovely walk (I told myself you can put in headphones when it’s no longer beautiful so obviously won’t be!) but I am very tired. And walk in a small daze.

All sorts of birds, the piercing cry of birds of prey, woodpecker rattles, song birds

Trees grow from the robes of Ruins.

At 12 I stop in the shade of some Beeches for an early lunch. How did it take me so long to realise a block of cheddar makes the best possible lunch!- perfected with salsa and a peparami. Those tuna pots were such a faf and expensive.

Continuing, it has grown very hot.

But walking this flat road with a gentle breeze it is pleasant.

But the road slog becomes unpleasant in the heat and loss of pretty woods. It becomes fields between drives to house. At the same time the road reaches shade it reaches the edge of the map. I have crossed a map. But I have not yet reached Ardgay. Still 6 hard km to go. Long straight hot flat bland. Headphone time.

Super ripe blackberries.

I take a break on some steps just to try and cool down

I make it

14;:19

I reach the sign to Ardgay and take a selfie like I did those many days back at the border with England. I made it. Unsure whether to smile or cry.

I think about buying some Strathcarron honey being sold outside a house but can hardly spend £8 on honey.

It’s still a walk to the village centre. I am on the edge of tears. Happy exhausted tears.

There it is. The sea. The east coast. The Kyle of sutherland

I buy an ice cream at the shop and cross the rail bridge to wait at my platform. Thank goodness I am not half an hour later and miss the train, and also have just enough time to calm down and prepare. The next one is 7 pm amd I’d rather have time in Inverness to sort things

I call mum crying. ‘I did it’

The public toilets are a little gross so I add a purifying tablet to the water I get from the sink

I sit drinking my ginger beer. I did it.

I stink from the heat and sweat of today’s walk. Thank god for masks and social distance.

The train journey…. What a relief. Just to be sitting and watching beautiful scenes fly by. And not need to do anything. And know I’ve an hour and a half of this wonderfulness before I am obliged to do anything. Flying south. Flying homeward.

And the sea. The Great North Sea. There she is. Wide and broad and bright. Not the western sea I should have been camping by in a few days time if plan A had been obeyed. But a thankful sight none the less.

I am back racing by an agricultural land such that I haven’t seen in what feels like an incredibly long while. Balls of hay gathered up

A road runs beside us and I see a sign saying NC500. I wonder if the father and son who’s hire car was busted when I hitchhiked continued their adventure.

It is a land so flat and human and different to all I’ve seen this last months.

It is also an industrial land. With big sites on stilts in the glistening sea and factory towers along the shore

As I pass to the land north of Inverness I feel familiarity returning. I know this land, north of the great Glen, river with little steep hills.

I’ cross the Caladenian. Canal. It feels so long since I reached Fort Augustus and had a bacon sandwich in a cafe beside a very similar looking lock.

The train arrives.. Inverness. I get tickets for tomorrow then walk through town across the river and to my b&b - Tay Villa.

I am so thankful to have a room to myself and a bed and telly where I can just lie back and chill! I buy lots of food at Aldi and eat in my room - curry ready meal, pepper and hummus, lots of ‘wonky’ little apples.

DAY 40

I find it hard to sleep, maybe because the air is too warm.

Another beautiful shower then flip flops and hiking socks down to breakfast (always make me smile putting on my slippers after ‘the dutchies’ did a little video about them

Breakfast is lovely- lots of fruit, fresh meats and cheeses and fresh coffee and then a big cooked breakfast. Everything you could eat - even fried gf bread! And Liam the owner is so lovely - a wonderfully caring person, who calls you ‘pet’ in a soft Irish accent. He insists I take toast and bananas and cheese and ham for a packed lunch on the train - he said no one ever leaves hungry and this place is like a home from home, it is!

The weather forecast claims it is ‘the hottest September in 115 years’

Liam is increadible, didn’t even charge me for breakfast, ‘ah it’s on me your a student’

I underestimate the drizzle as I head to the station and it soaks my puffa - shows how extraordinary my experience has been if I underestimate Scottish weather after 41 days

I get the train. It’s quite full so i am anxious as I have to leave my bag in the door shelves

The weather has turned. Low clouds and drizzle and storms predicted (Liam at the b&b was telling me to be carful). I hope Billy Nicole and Laurens will be okay

As we head towards Edinburgh we reach the sea. Mist hides the horizon and the beaches are empty. A warm Italian beach may be an incredible thing but there is little like the British coast on a grey day.

Finally: the Fourth bridge. So so long it seems since I crested the Pentland hills and looked down on these bridges.

I change at Haymarket and chat to a nice guy who's also been walking, studying ‘watchmaking’ at Birmingham city which sounds pretty cool - he asked where I got my bag from. On this train I move to a seat saying reserved from Birmingham as my seat has no window just a bit of wall! All trains with reserved seats & classes are always unpleasant trains, particularly with smaller windows. I feel odd. Yesterday I was so happy to be on the train as it was such a lovely journey. Now a feel a touch of fear. What am I heading to? What am I loosing?

As approach Kendal I watch the countryside passing. This is definitely England. Wonky fields, oak trees. The highlands are incredible and I have seen things I would never have dreamed of. But patchwork fields and hedgerows will always be at the centre of my heart.

Some people come and take my seat which seems pretty rude (they say it’s theirs even though the sign above says reserved only for Birmingham) as there are other double seats but they don’t have windows so they make me move to those but I really don’t like it so I go further on

I read the final section of The Midnight Library. It is incredibly moving, incredibly beautiful, incredibly in tune with everything I’ve been feeling this last week about why LIVING is so important. The extraordinariness of everyday life. I am close to tears reading the ending (if not for the quite contrasting tone of a gaggle of welsh ladies out on a girls holiday all about , that makes it quite possible to feel emotional or somber!) It’s a really quick easy read - I’ve done it in three sessions - and I really recommend it.

She would accept the darkness of life in a way she never had, not as failure but as part of a totality… Where there was uncertainty there was also possibility … and that gave her hope

She wasn’t a black hole she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano she couldn’t run away from herself. She’s have to stay there and tend to that wasteland. She could plant a forest inside herself.

I take a picture of rain on the train windows, exactly recalling the photo I took two years and ten days ago, on my way north, to walk Hadrian’s wall. What a lifetime I have lived.

A Union Jack looks strikingly odd. Not something I’ve seen since I was in the borders. So many maskless people :(

Mum and dad pick me up at Leamington. In the car I have little to say. Too much has happened. It isn’t for a damp dusk on roads I drove in more unhappy times.

Are we nearly there yet?

And we were. We were home.