Today I changed plans again. Originally, I had intended to walk all the way to Laggan and camp in the grounds of the Monadhliath Hotel. But this was a long day, with a tarmac stretch at the end. After finishing on metalled road the day before I didn't really fancy it. Bernie Marshall suggested it was just too long a day; Garva Bridge was a good spot to camp. I had two days to get to Kingussie where I had booked a night in the Silverfjord Hotel. I'd already rung the hotel to bring the booking forward a day. Bernie seemed to have a point. I had two days to get there - easily enough time.
It rained heavily during the night but by 9.00, when I started walking, the weather was reasonably sunny, if a little cold. From the campsite you quickly reach the start of General Wade's Military Road. A sign announces that the road is now listed as a National Monument. Huge stones at the entrance suggested there had once been a problem with trail bikes or four wheel drives tearing up the surface.
A glorious day on Wade's Road!
The climb up the Corrieyairack Pass is not particularly difficult for hill or mountain walkers, but it is long and unrelenting. As I climbed the weather deteriorated quite a bit. It seemed that not only was the pass a route through to another landscape but also to a colder weather system. I had passed a couple of walkers - both resident at the campsite - on the way up. One of them appeared behind me every now and then, disappeared and came back again. Eventually we started walking together and had a great time.
Malcolm Griffiths was on his second Challenge although he had abandoned the first, a couple of years before, because of bad blisters. He'd joined the backpacking club and started backpacking at weekends and had really begun to enjoy it. We quickly found we shared a similar sense of humour. It definitely helped having somebody else to trudge through the cold rain with; we helped pace each other over the top.
At the top of the pass Malcolm stopped to take a photograph, "... because I won't be coming back here, ever again!" One of our themes of conversation was whether we would ever do this again. Neither of use were convinced at all. we'd both enjoyed the west and reckoned that you could have a much better time backpacking there for a couple of weeks. The Challenge had become something of a slog. It wasn't just the finishing at Montrose, by a set time, that was the problem; the regular reports to Challenge Control meant that you had to been in a certain place (find a phone) on a certain day, and this certainly added to the pressure to move on and to not improvise too much.
Malcolm; Melgarve Bothy
Our other main focus of conversation was food. It is quite amazing how much you fantasise about food. Real food, that is, not the dehydrated stuff we'd been living on. Although I'd been in Fort Augustus the day before I had still eaten my own stuff; at least Malcolm had been bright enough to eat a fish supper there. We set our sights on the Monadhliath Arms, for brunch, the next day. Pasties - or the desire to find a pastie shop looming out of the mist, dominated our conversation.
If the climb was long but not too arduous, the descent was a killer. The path deteriorated quite badly and was covered in loose rock. The elements clearly tore up the road surface on this side of the path. Now and then you came across bits of road that were probably a little protected and unchanged from the original surface; you could see what a great feat of engineering this road was. We reflected on the lives of those who built it and debated just how many might have died in the process. And we both agreed that there is something special about walking a route that you knew so many had walked before you; there seemed to be a strange feeling of continuity about it all.
As we descended we caught sight of two small figures coming down behind us. Every time we looked back they seemed to be moving at a hell of a speed. Soon they caught us; it was Bernie Marshall and his mate Keith. Bernie was an awesome sight, a huge frame of a man, walking like a rocket (poles stashed firmly in his sack). Malcolm thought he looked like Desperate Dan; he must live on a diet of cow pies. We tried to keep up with Bernie for a while but found that we couldn't walk and talk at the same time. We let him go.
"Do you know what they call people who've completed ten challenges?"
"No", I replied.
"Legends"
"What, not fucking barmy?"
As Bernie was striding away into the distance we decided that he was worthy of the title, "Super Legend". And it stuck. I was convinced that he must live in the hills somewhere and was rather relieved when Pauline told us later that they lived in the Yorkshire Dales.
Super Legend and his mate nipped into the Melgarve Bothy, no doubt for a chat and a brew; Malcolm and I kept walking. At Melgarve the track suddenly becomes a tarmac road; I was rather glad, now, that I wasn't walking on to Laggan.
The end was in sight. Who should we see in the distance but Super Legend's Pauline and McGregor the dog. Pauline had set up camp at the bridge. Looking over our shoulder we could see Super Legend and Keith coming at us at a rate of knots. Surely they wouldn't pass us right at the end? McGregor came racing up. Pauline - and I swear this is true - was shouting to Bernie, "Where have you been, you said you'd be here an hour ago." Our hearts sank. Super Legend had only been running on half power.
Garva Bridge is a pretty good place to stop. There are good, grassy areas to pitch your tent on both sides of the bridge. As soon as the tents were up the rain came. I went to the river to get some water, along with Keith. Does Bernie always walk so fast? "The bastard", came the reply. "When we started we did three Munros; he told me we'd be finished by half one - we got down from the third at twelve." But Keith had a cunning plan. He was a masseur. Later that afternoon he got his own back "massaging the bugger's calf muscles".
Back at the tent the rain came down in sheets. It was six in the evening and I didn't leave the tent again. After an hour or so a number of other Challengers pitched their tents very close to mine, or so it seemed. They kept me entertained for an hour so with the kind of campsite conversation that goes:
"What's for dinner tonight Tom?"
"What's the weather like over near you?"
It was a little like camping in the middle of a piece of Monty Python dialogue.