Knipe's TGO Challenge 2019 - another few days

 OK So it isn't JJ's tenth Challenge next year. So, no snogs for JJ. then. Also - JJ's tenth was my excuse for completely discharging any involvement by me in route design or logistics, thereby distancing myself from anything at all which might go wrong. But clearly, JJ's revelation in the comments on the previous blog post mean that I might have to get more involved.  A light touch is probably called for though, as befits a veteran like me wot can just let the less experienced team members learn the lessons which require to be learned. Innit? [Koff] I'll be keeping an eye on things just for safety reasons, obviously.

 Meanwhile, back in Strathfarrar, The Lad had adopted quite a few new pets. Most of these were wandering about on his legs and , for some reason, they didn't like me at all. I was tickless, in fact. As well as dateless, clueless and trouserless. We progressed up over the hill into Glen Cannich , where, after a substantial and very warm trek we arrived in time for a late and substantial lunch at the pub, after which we wandered (read "staggered") over to the campsite where there were lots of challengers putting up tents.

 We returned later on for another go at the food and beer at the hotel and retired to bed tired but cheerful quite a bit later on. Tonight, I wasn't too bothered about the radio not working as I was too emotional to concentrate on trying to tune it in.
In the morning, we shopped, breakfasted at the campsite café and plodded off on a road walk up the A834 (not much fun), then forest roads to Drumnadrochit where the sun was hot and where there were multiple challengers sitting outside a pub and chip van. So we joined them. We had a few hours to go before we had to catch Mr Menzie's ferry to Inverfarigaig on the far side of Loch Ness.

 It had been the pattern so far on this walk to keep coming across the same TGO challengers. They just kept turning up. In particular, we seemed to be on the same routes as Bernie on his 23rd Challenge (I have checked this fact this time by the way) and Willem Fox on his 6th, along with his partners Hinne and a small fox.....  We camped several times very close to Bernie and it became hard to tell who was following whom - but the pattern continued almost to the end of the walk.

 After crossing Loch Ness we made for the steading at Allt na Goire, a couple of steamy miles up the road. Here was another large group of challengers in their tents. Some had booked a meal whereas we hadn't, being a few miles ahead of ourselves.  But we got copious tea on arrival and a warm welcome. And we had our own food supply, having shopped, beered and chipped at Drumnadrochit. My rum supply had been replaced by cheap whisky and thus, as the radio was not working at all, my in-tent entertainment was fixed for the night - a lovely, clear and starlit one as it happened.

 And in the morning; a hot morning which had to become hotter, we launched into the Monadhliath Mountains - getting a bit lost in the unmapped tracks of the wind farms. We lunched and brewed with Bernie and left him for a bit, only for him to catch up in the broad and beautiful dale of the River Findhorn, where we camped together near the river a mile or so down the glen. There was no radio signal here and instead of white noise, I listened to the burn nearby.

 So far we were still a bit ahead of where we were supposed to be according to our route plan and we were going at a rate of 17 or 18 miles a day, which was all very fine. The weather was getting hotter. This, I think was my longest spell of hot  and dry weather on a TGO challenge, out of the fourteen previous ones.  We were 72 miles and 5 days into the walk. That's quite a gentle pace as it happens. Sometimes on a TGO I worry a bit that we're not making enough progress. This sometimes makes me get up and set off walking stupidly early, which means finishing early or ahead of schedule after which I calm down a bit.  So far, it's always turned out right in the end. Each time I learn another lesson. 2019's lesson was that my radio was too heavy for this kind of thing and not much use unless I could speak Bulgarian or Cantonese on shortwave.