A storm, a cyclist, a firth, a postman, and persistence in the unforgiving forest

I have spent the last few days walking in a north westerly direction, but tomorrow  I will head north east again, with more gale force winds due. Many people have commented on my indirect route. I guess I've got this far on a zigzag though. 

Thursday dawned very windy and got windier as Storm Hector made his way through. I had been advised by a cyclist and first aid trainer that there would be midges in Easter Ross, and of the location of a secret bothy. I told him I had survived the West Highland Way campsites, not completely unscathed, but will be grateful for a bothy if I can find it. I headed out into the wind, with 20 miles to walk to Inverness, fortunately on a cycle route all day, as being up in hills would have been impossible. It was the first time in a good while I've worn my waterproof all day, and hat, just to make sure I didn't blow away completely. It came close at times, which is a little exciting when you are walking by the A9. Much of the route only ran parallel to the A9 and the railway, and not next to either, making it strangely quiet. Rainbows heralded Tomatin, and the grand Findhorn bridge and viaduct, before it started to rain hard. The little popular community shop was open and I dived inside for coffee, whilst various workmen came and went, all familiar with the shopkeeper and each other. I went outside between showers and a cyclist pulled in. I advised him of the coffee machine, and he insisted on buying me another one, so we sat outside drinking coffee in the next swathe of rain, eating ginger cake, and talking about things we'd seen on our journeys. He was out doing a thousand mile round trip from his home in Reading in just a week, preparing for a cycle race in the Alps. I asked him where he was heading for the night - he said Edinburgh. I looked at my watch and told him it was already half past ten! Still, he was relaxed and I was too, even with another 16 miles to do. Eventually we reluctantly hit the road again, he south and me north, past the Tomatin Distillery with a convenient but whisky-less rain shelter at the entrance. I passed through gentle lower hills, dark with forestry and the looming clouds, resting in a bus shelter at Craggie. Proper bus shelters are amazing when standards are lowered. A bus came past and I declined his opening door, but he told me of a fallen tree blocking the road from the way I had just come - I must have just missed it. The final two miles into the outskirts of Inverness were along the actual A9. It has a wide verge, but it made me realise how mad it would be to walk all the way up the A9 to John O'Groats, which is what some people do. 

Descending into Inverness the Beauly Firth and the Kessock Bridge were visible below, beyond the urban sprawl, changing colour every second as the rain swept through between sharp shafts of light. Inverness is full of European tourists, as was the backpackers hostel, but my roommate for that night was a young woman called Anna, from Dorset, cycling Land's End to John O'Groats solo, at aged only 19 (I think). She was quiet, focussed and kind, and we both genuinely were as pleased as each other to have crossed paths. It's the first time she's done something like this, and had cut the day short because she was quite small and the wind was way too big. She has raised nearly £2000 for Macmillan, and I heard she finished today. Later on I stood in the hostel garden looking at the blinding evening sun over the city, as the church bells below were being practiced, and the harassed South African duty manager told me of his life in Inverness. He was more of a philosopher than an administrator/cleaner. And later on I couldn't help but listen to a Frenchman talk in great detail of his work in psychiatry. 

Anna left an hour and a half before I did the following morning, making me feel more in admiration of her dedication. The wind was still blowing as I crossed the Kessock Bridge over the Beauly Firth, the views wide of opening out sea to the right, and the long inlet to the left, mountains with little patches of snow far off inland. I walked along the north shore of the Firth, again in my waterproof all day, as I watched rain shower after rain shower sweep over the water and pass through. There were no dolphins, or if there were it was too rough to see them. I arrived into Beauly in sunshine though, remembering our passing through there four years ago after a long rerouted day, again in sunshine. Maybe this is how it gets its name. In the campsite in the evening though I sat outside in four layers of clothes. It is definitely colder up north, but this may just be a universal weather change. 

And with the universal weather change comes persistent rain, which thankfully started after I had packed up the tent in Beauly, and lasted all day. I ascended through little lanes above Beauly and the Muir of Ord, as the views gradually disappeared under cloud. Each level of this long hillside had a tiny hamlet, each with their own long name. Deer darted between forest and freshly mown front lawn. I took what looked like it might be a path between two villages, in order to avoid another six miles on the days walk. It was a path, under huge old trees, the kind you can shelter under and not get wet. And then it wasn't a path. I mean, it's kind of difficult to know unless you know, and I didn't know. So, I found myself throwing my rucksack over a barbed wire fence and contorting myself through it, after nearly sinking in a patch of tree covered mud. The long wet grass downhill then added to the loss of waterproofing integrity, before another barbed wire fence I balanced over, which isn't easy with a large rucksack. And then, then ... gorse and bracken blocked everything so I dragged myself through a dense patch of forest, covering my eyes, and wobbled over another double barbed wire fence with deep cow-trodden mud the other side, to emerge into a farm that I figured would have a track to the road. It did, after which the rain got heavier, and heavier. But I had found the right road, because I persisted. 

At the tiny village of Aultgowrie, deep in Inverness-shire, I saw a postvan pull into a driveway and I thought of the postman I'd met in Innerleithen, lightweight camping the Southern Upland Way. As I passed the postman called over to me. It wasn't the SUW man, but he asked me where I had come from and we got into a deep animated conversation about walking and the hills, he letting in the rain through his open window, and me standing in the rain already wet through. He was originally from Norfolk, and had run the Pennine Way three weeks ago, but got to two hundred miles in four days and gave up as his feet were a state. I asked him about his work and he admitted it was a beautiful place to be, in spite of asking me why I wasn't in the west as it was so much more beautiful, and the fact he only did this particular round on a Saturday as the woman who used to do it had a breakdown a year ago. As I was about to leave him to his work he asked me if I had a blog, and on giving him the title he exclaimed 'I know who you are!'. It turns out that the man I met on the SUW is his friend and colleague and had told him about me. I walked away smiling, despite the rising damp and cold. 

I camped at Contin last night, next to the amazing village shop that announces itself as 'the last shop until Ullapool'. I am now in the North Coast 500 country, full of Dutch and German camper vans and motorbikes. These roads have existed for centuries but two years ago a name was given to the route, and now it is full of tourists. There were midges, but only a few. And red kites, surprisingly - the first since Leicestershire. 

Today was cold again, first on open clear track through deeply quiet forest to Garve, along the Black Water river, which lives up to its name, and over Loch Garve. I took the Drovers Road then over to Aultguish, which turned out to be seven miles of marsh, water, moss and bog. I didn't heed the warnings, but the views West into Wester Ross and the mountains towards Ullapool almost made it enjoyable. The first deer fence, on this signposted public path, marked on the map, had a gate with a length of rope knotted so complexly and so many times, that I doubt even ex-girl guides would have been able to work it out. So, I wrote on the gate in tiny writing, 'This is a public path. (arrow pointing to the left) This is a statement.' And then climbed over the fence. The path only got worse, and I was relieved to see the Aultguish Inn eventually below, under the dam of Loch Glascarnoch, framed by high dark mountains, and looked on from behind by the huge deep green lump of Ben Wyvis. 

I am in the Aultguish bunkhouse tonight. It's a place people pass through - those who have made the effort to come this far and this remote. Which means that all have a story to tell. 

I am really counting down to the end now. I've walked 79 days, and that feels like a long time. It's taking a lot more determination to keep going now, thinking a lot about how to wash my socks when I get home, and what name I would give a cat, and what pyjamas I will wear first. You might think I would be thinking about deep meaning-of-life things, but it really has come to socks and cats. 

Tomorrow another storm is due, and it's a two day walk to the next settlement. I hope I find this bothy. At least the midges won't have a chance.