We woke to sunshine and a clear blue sky, a welcome contrast to the overcast damp afternoon which robbed us from the views during the previous two days, and during our traipse over Mt Keen. I woke especially early and spent a good hour reading, enjoying the lack of movement of my limbs with the leg seemingly behaving today. As the early morning went on the forest of tents occupying Tarfside began to stir, the early starters making breakfast as I lay there with the flysheet open, contemplating something one of the other Challengers had said yesterday: “You’ve done it now, just need to get the east coast without any drama, congratulations”. Well, we had certainly had our drama up-front for this trip, but the advice still remained true and I was conscious of taking it relatively easy.
With that in mind, today would put that advice in to practice, and we set off for a relatively leisurely day over the tops and in to an adjacent glen – with the intention of getting to Charr Bothy and deciding whether we had the inclination to keep pushing on to the Fetteresso forest to the east. This was a fairly leisurely 16km, and with all day to do it, we felt we could amble as much as we wished.
Our original route plan was to head north from Tarfside and curve around towards Craig Soales in order to tackle Mount Battock and a succession of six hills – something we had been told was extremely rough ground, but has since been turned in to an access track by the landowner. We considered this, the views tempting us, but ultimately the uncertainty of exactly what they had turned in to road and the need to hike around 18km over unknown ground and six hills to complete this made us opt for the much easier option.
After a leisurely breakfast, we wished as we could find a good trip and set off. We expected to not see many of these people again, and it surprised me how genuinely I wished them well, people who were strangers barely two days ago. Some of the crowd had left early, mentioning wanting to head straight to Montrose and presumably wanting long days of river walking to make a good time, but we still felt there was enough in the tank to enjoy the rolling hills and the Fetteresso forest the day after.
Heading east to Blackcraigs and Milden Lodge made for a gentle start with the rolling hills providing us with leisurely walking as we made use of the easy contours. Milden Lodge seemed to be a gathering point for a hiking group who had appeared for the day and we sauntered past as they were getting their boots on, in a fine mood with the blazing sun on our backs and the knowledge of not many miles to go.
A sturdy, recently made track headed to the north-east up the fell and we were struck by the familiarity with the Monadhliath commercial paths. These were less large but compacted in the same way, and made for a speedy couple of kilometres gaining height. The views were Not At All Bad and we were admiring it as a hiker stormed past us with barely breath to spare to say “hi!”. This proved a pretty lovely spot, with a fine view to the west of the hills, yet we were both discouraged by the huge bloody road going up the hillside, and two more huge lines reaching their way up adjacent hills. Yes, it made life significantly easier, but like our experience in the Monadhliath, they detracted from the wildness of the place.
Fortanately, the ‘road’ came to an end and we set off over rough ground to take us over the saddle, between Stobie Hillock and Hill of Saughs. Cloud and a little rain ended up drawing in and this proved one of those situations where the ground was not ‘as advertised’ on the 50k, but we made adjustments, ended up jumping over a fence, descending the gully to the north side and joining a rather worn track to take us to Charr through Glen Dye, once again basking in sunshine.
When originally planning the route this little section was almost an afterthought, yet we spent a few glorious hours ambling along the track enjoying the countryside, the sound of trickling burns accompanying our progress to Charr Bothy. Strangely, this was the first bothy stop of our trip, strange because when we planned our route we aimed to use bothy stops almost entirely, eventually ditching the idea in favour of more remote wild camps.
Arriving at Charr, having heard some bothy horror stories in the past, we were pleased to see it functional, clean and cosy – in addition to seeming pretty draught-proof with double entrance doors. We got settled, intending to stop for a late lunch, rest a little and make a few hours progress in to the forest.
Firing up the stoves, we swapped lunches for variety and ended up pulling the chairs outside to enjoy the fine weather. Whilst waiting for it to hydrate properly, the landowner pulled up to grab some materials from the restricted, ‘estate owned’ part of the building and we got talking about our trip. He seemed interested and wished us well, driving off as we were left to our own devices and our warm lunch. I pulled the map out, and pondered the best way to use our next two days. Did we really need to continue tonight? By 4pm the decision was made to stay – and we looked forward to a leisurely evening and a night on a raised bed, with proper walls.
At this point the landowner returned, stopped and greeted us, generously handing us £40 to add to our charity fund and regaling us with a story of him trapped up a mountain. Apparently he was hypothermic after having a severe fall, and would have likely not been here today were it not for the local Mountain Rescue team, so he obviously had a personal affinity with our cause. We bid him farewell and had several hours of enjoying the afternoon with precisely nothing to do; we had no phone signal, so it was purely the outdoors and us. Towards early evening the weather started to turn, with the clear day turning in to rain and high winds – we were pretty pleased to be out of it and snug inside.
We lit the bothy candle, cooked dinner, and just relaxed. Unlike the previous evening there was no arriving late somewhere, it was wonderfully relaxing and felt like turning down our whirlwind trip to a gentle pace as we savoured the experience, the feeling of being in the middle of nature as we heard owls hooting outside. It rapidly started to cool as it approached evening and we decided on an early night, both in the main room as the side ‘bedrooms’ were much colder. We did notice a note on the visitor’s book from an American Challenger we met the night before, and added our own entry. Overall well worth a stop, and we looked forward to tomorrow’s trip through the forest as we drifted off, storm battering the bothy with rain lashing against the windows.
L|ve the Outdoors 