GNT - Day 8 - Loch Ossian to Torgoyle - 19/08/21

I guess it won’t come as a big surprise that this thing isn’t getting any easier. Today was a relatively short day, mileage-wise, but there were many of the particularly Scottish challenges as well as the particularly Scottish treasures. 

My vain attempts to wake my travelling companions with cups of tea meant we weren’t quick out of the blocks. When we did finally move, it was time for breakfast, only we were the breakfast. The damp, low cloud beside the Loch meant the little bastard midges were out in their billions. In the frenzied panic to load my bike, I almost left half my stuff behind, as clouds of the nibbling little sods closed in.

One mile to the Carrour Station café, (The station is the highest one in the UK - remember the one in the film Trainspotting?) where we were to eat breakfast. If there is a nicer café and better breakfast with friendlier staff anywhere in the world, I’ve not been there yet. An absolute delight. From there we rode down through the Corrour estate along the lakeside and the onto the neighbours’ place at Ardverikie. Whereas Corrour have been moving away from Deer stalking being a thing, the owners of this place have gone the other way, though they are both still into forests too. 

Another odd coincidence in that I started thinking about a tv show about a Scottish Laird. I could hardly remember a detail other that that I had once met the lead actor. Gradually, we pieced it together. Alastair Mackenzie was the returning son, his ailing father, Richard Briers. Anyway, by a strange coincidence, the rather grand castle, just happened to be the one that played the part of Glen Bogle in Monarch of the Glen. 

We stopped to eat snacks with a view of the house and there seemed to be lots of posh people being ferried around in Range Rovers. I may even have spotted a certain prince but you can’t be sure. The riding, to this point, had been easy, with plenty of chat and no real haste. We were all still ruined from yesterday and the knowledge that we faced one of the toughest obstacles of the trip looming ahead of us seemed to drain our energy. Even the small ups seemed testing and General Wade, who built them, started to become our nemesis. Much of today’s route followed a series of old military roads which tended to follow the shortest path from a to b but not always the easiest. 

After a few false starts, we were heading for the Corrieyairack Pass. One of the reasons we approached it with some trepidation was that fellow Penge rider and long distance bikepacking legend (not to mention tyre guru) Claudio, had confessed to being utterly exhausted after his 3-hour epic crossing last year. It actually started ok, easier than many of the climbs we had done before. It was a hard packed gravel track with a mostly manageable incline and even the odd stretch of flat. The trouble was, it seemed to be heading up a cul-de-sac, being more and more closely hemmed in by unspeakably steep hillsides in all directions. 

Suddenly the route lay before us, a wickedly steep set of switchbacks that would have been a challenge on tarmac, on a lightweight road bike, but we had rocks and gravel. I’m convinced it would give even a gnarly mountain biker a wobbly lower lip. For goodness sake, it was hard even to walk up the damn thing and would have been without a heavily laden bike to push. I tried guile, I tried power and I more than dabbled with rage, but there was no way to do this other than just get up it any way you can. Like all tough things though - if you just keep doing them, eventually they finish. And we did. 

The top was cold and wet in the clouds, so down we went and the down was mostly much easier going than the ascent. All the way down to Fort Augustus, on the tip of Loch Ness. Somehow, it was 5.00pm and we hadn’t had lunch, so we sat in a pub garden with loads of other tourists and had some soup and chips as we watched some boats coming down through the locks on the Caledonian canal and out onto the Loch. Then we raided Londis for vital supplies. Wine, chocolate, more snacks and even some fruit. We then had the choice of 13 miles on road or 8 off. After my route shame yesterday, I was staying out of this - so I take no blame for the choice of the infernal general’s route over the hill to Torgoyle. 

 A ‘short’ day, still saw us finishing not long before 7.00pm after another 10 hours in the saddle. We quickly found a 'wild' campsite. A bit tricky finding somewhere flat around here! Tents up pretty smartly as the wretched midges found us and invited billions of their little bastard mates around for dinner. I was on cooking duty because I had come equipped with proper anti-midge headgear and took a perverse pleasure in sitting out amongst the blood-hungry little sods knowing they couldn’t get to me. We dined royally on some dehydrated vegetarian meals where you just pour boiling water in the bag.

It’s fuel I suppose, but I was glad of the cheeky Chilean Cabernet we’d liberated from Londis. And I ate the tin of tuna I’d carted all the way from Derbyshire. It made me think. We’ve come a long way now and every day has been so different and each an adventure in its own way. We have laughed a lot, I don’t think any of us has cried, though my eyes did water as I tested my socks this evening. We haven’t fallen out, though I probably need to ease off on the piss taking a bit. It’s mutual though - for Kate’s suggestion that midges might eat grass, to me being ridiculed for pointing out a submarine (rock) in a Loch, you can’t pretend when you’re this close in a small group for so long. And there is so much that is good about what we are doing. It’s just so free.