Knipe and Knipe's TGO Challenge 2019 - Kilts Over Scotland !st 2 days

Its that time of year when people are applying for next year's TGO Challenge - I know this because I've just applied and, if successful and everything goes to plan, next year's team will be JJ, Margaret (aka Beryl) and Me. We've not gone into any detail about routes etc. except that it will be JJ's tenth crossing and that's a special one where you get a bottle of plonk and a snog off the editor of TGO magazine. I was lucky to have Cameron McNeish on my tenth. Not carnally, just a manly embrace, a meeting of beards in fact all pure and clean - we never intertwined.... 

With this fact in mind (the timing thingy) I thought I'd commit an act of blatent reader recruitment by posting an account of Me and The Lad's kilted crossing of Caledonia 2019 as an example of the sort of thing that can go wrong.

 This post is only about the first two days - there being lots of pictures and I have to edit them and shrink them a bit and it's an effort, see? So, to spread it out I thought I'd write the account in easy-to-absorb chunks, specially for those with short ...er... where was  I.... something about attention spans.

 Anyway, we began our crossing at Inverness Travelodge and got an early(ish) train to Strathcarron, thus neatly avoiding any issues about the small number of available beds at Strathcarron whilst taking advantage of a huge and cheap buffet breakfast in Inverness. A few other challengers had had similar ideas

 So, eventually, we set off in an approximate Easterly direction. For those navigationally challenged , the East Coast of Scotland, which was to be our ultimate destination is, almost by definition, in an Easterly direction from the West Coast. Try to remember this key fact if you're intending to apply, you may need to demonstrate this piece of knowledge to your vetter.

 No great excitements happened during the forst day. We bashed Eastwards to Bendronaig Lodge, meeting a couple of other challengers on the way and famiss blogger Philip Werner going West (on the Cape Wrath Trail). Lunch was had at Bendronaig out of the snowy showers and nithering wind, and then we progressed a bit further, camping just a bit West of  Loch Calavie by the Allt an Ban - a few hundred metres beyond our target spot which had been pinched by somebody else. We'd done about 10 miles. I like to do shortish distances on the first couple of days of a TGO Challenge. Happily, I discovered a sigg bottle almost full of rum in my pack, which formed the night's in-tent entertainment since there was no signal on my little radio.

 I should point out at this point that me and The Lad, as members of Clan Ribblesdale, were entitled to wear frocks, or, as they're called higher up towards the arctic, beyond Hadrian's Wall and even further than Kielder Reservoir, "Kilts"  This is by way of explanation of the figure who appears in some of the pictures. It's The Lad. He walks faster than me. Everybody walks faster than me, though.

 It had been a cold night, the tents well iced in the morning, and the cold theme continued during the next day with more squally snow showers - but, late in the afternoon, after we'd crossed a bealach or pass (or hause if you're in the Lake District) - the sun came out and it all turned quite pretty.

 And so, we passed into Strathfarrer, a green and sunny and beautiful dale - a bit wild in appearance, but actually quite tamed with hydro schemes and sheep.  We found a spot  a little further on than planned and camped with some ticks. I got none, The Lad was infested.

Night fell, as well as it can in Scotland in May, which is not really very well, and my little radio played some white noise  whilst I entertained myself with another third of the rum.  Yo ho ho and keelhaul the mizzen whilst I belay this scurvy dog. The effect on dialect can be the main  problem with rum........ just a tip... 
Today's health and safety advice concerns not drinking the rum until after you've finished cooking and brewing up and don't put your towel on the roof of the tent to dry cos it will blow away and you won't be able to find it in the morning and when you do it will be frozen stiff.