Two Thousand and Twenty Two

 

JJ Crossing a wobbly bridge on the 2021 TGO Challenge

I've neglected the Pieblog for a while - apparently, since August. But now, there's a New Year's Resolution to start to write again.All the pictures in this blogpost are from 2021, although this is not to say that no pictures are available from 2022, cos there are - it's just that they're not really very interesting. Today's walk was just this afternoon's doggy walk from Pietowers to Fir Tree and Cold Knott and Kitty's Wood; just six and a bit miles in quite nice weather, nothing too exciting, really, so I probably won't ever mention it again. There's a short walk tomorrow too, just about 5 miles around the River Wear at Durham. It's a Crook Ramblers walk and, I suppose breaks the mileage duck for some people. I'm trying not to get too excited about it and I've not mentioned it to LTD in case he can't sleep for thinking about it. At the moment, (subject to an AGM in February), I'm secretary and also temporary footpaths officer for Crook and Weardale Ramblers and, whilst the power and control is going to my head, I'm quite enjoying it and, as it's coming up to this Group's 50th anniversary, I'm hoping to be able to do some significant stuff to celebrate it. Readers who are still awake and/or not wandered off surfing a bit more web, will now have realised that the point of this blog post is to look forwards, and, maybe, back a bit.

Winter 2021 near Brancepeth

On the subject of Blogger - none of the pictures in this blog post are in the order that they were selected. They appear to have been randomly selected by Blogger itself and trying to move them to where they're supposed to be just makes more of a mess. This may well be one of the reasons I drifted off from Blogger. 

Any road up, what else might happen in 2022, apart from Rambling with Crook and Weardale Ramblers and Rambling on about the Rambles. 

There's also the Long Walks. Me and LTD and Li Yang and Diane and David have managed a long walk , more or less on a monthly basis during 2021. By long, I mean 20 miles at the shortest. Subject to lockdowns etc, we managed nine of these last year. There are no definite plans , though for any in 2022, except to say that most of last year's were designed and arranged at quite short notice and were mainly in the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales. Both me and LTD are in our "senior" years and I'm really very pleased that we're both still up to the job.

Me and JJ (JJ and I) in the beach at Lunan Bay Angus at the end of the 2021 TGO challenge

Then there's the TGO challenge. As I write this rubbish, my route sheet for my proposed walk across Scotland in May 2022 is resting gently in the email in-box in the hostel at Newtonmore, waiting to be sent to a vetter who, once he or she has finished crying and slapping his or her head in disbelief, will come up with some advice or even instructions for me to take head of. Last year's was Covidded into mid June (in order to feed the midgies which had all been having a tough time too) and me and JJ walked from Oban to Lunan Bay on a relatively short easy route which was mainly a result of various circumstances, which, in the end, turned out to be Just The Thing due to JJ just having had a hole drilled in his neck by a neurologist. It was good fun anyway and we camped in some cracking spots and met but a few other TGO challengers. In 2022, my route is a solo effort, and, should I finish it and/or otherwise survive, it will be my 17th TGO challenge. I suspect that JJ's route might coincide with mine at some points. It might be useful for any tyro TGO-ers to follow the progress of my planning and training for this walk. The route is from Dornie (think Eileen Donan Castle on Loch Duich) to Glen Affric to Fort Augustus to Newtonmore to Braemar to Glen Esk to Stonehaven and is about 240 miles in 13 days. I have a couple of backpacking shake-downs planned for the physical and also mental bits of the training - hopefully, one quite soon in the Howgills.

Camp by Loch Dochard in the Black Mount, Argyll 2021 TGO

JJ heads off towards Canada - Oban harbour 2021 TGO Challenge

Next thing is the Hill-Bagging. In 2021 I managed to bag 107 hills altogether- and this means hills that I've not climbed previously.  This is not specially remarkable and I'm hoping to improve on this a bit this year. Last year I managed to complete the Nutalls with the exception of Pillar Rock, the prospect of which scares me witless. The TGO challenge should bag a few new ones, but I'll need to do some trips similar to trips I did last year such as the walks/camps around Comrie and Moniaive, hollibobs in Wales and day walks in the Lakes, Cheviots and the Borders and, if I can be arsed with the A19 traffic, North Yorks Moors

LTD in the Howgills

Bagging in Cumbria

There's other stuff too - For the past few years I've been taking part in the North East Skinny Dip, which happens around the equinox  each September and consists of increasing numbers of daft buggers... of people stripping off and running screaming into the waves at Druridge Bay. This is, believe it or not, great fun and it's all proceeds go to Mind, a charity which I've supported on and off on the very blog. In 2021, 850 people did this. That's 1700 buttocks (I'm assuming that almost everybody taking part had two) More people ought to be brave and do this - apart from anything else, it's superb for body confidence and even superberer for the mood. (No comments about the spelling here by the way) So, there'll be more of this sort of thing.  I'm not sure why this isn't titled the "Great North East Skinny Dip" bit there it is. Backslaps for Northumbria County Council for their attitude to this, since they provide space for camping and Druridge Bay is their land anyway. I should add that "some |" people have regular skinny dips in Druridge Bay pretty much all the year round. Local dog walkers seem to be resigned to this.

I trusted that this shot was far enough away from anybody to be sure that no actual bits could be seen and recognition would be very difficult. I should add that anybody trying to spot naughty parts or identify anybody needs to get a life, grow up  and have a serious word with themselves

Some Crook Ramblers in the Lake District

More other stuff - Last year me and Dawn, and, occasionally including JJ and Margaret managed a trip or two away. Dawn's camps are just that - easily accessible "wild" camps which are necessarily discreet and quite good, restful fun. LTD thinks they're great. I had a couple by myself last year. The pic below is a gill at Arncliffe which contains a remarkable, deep pool of sun-warmed water (in summer!) Its a spectacularly beautiful spot. I camped there for 2 nights and one chap and his dog swam in the pool on the first day  and on the second day, a family spent the afternoon sploshing about and exploring the gill. Other than that, me and LTD had the place to ourselves.

Static wild camp at Arncliffe

Galloway with hill-top windfarms

It's on Wales!

Thats about it, folks. I'm hoping to post more regularly with progress, specially around the TGO challenge  preparations. Obviously, this happens in May, so there'll be other stiff too. All I need to do now is survive............. (double jabbed and boosted and LTD has had his worming tablets

TGO back to the Crematorium (for you my lad….)

Today was road walking day. First of all, after a substantial and well cooked full Scottish breakfast and a lovely poo, I walked quiet roads and country lanes to Forfar.
In Forfar, I visited a tea room and was warmly welcomed.  I’ve often found Forfar friendly before on Challenges (This sentences has been provided by the society for sentences with lots of F's in.) and today was going to be no different.
Apparently, the Maggie Hem’s landlady the previous night was one of the customer’s sister and the tea shop owner’s cousin. Its a small world innit?
I pressed on to Lethem. Lethem was supposed to be my destination for the day and I was going to try for a B&B somewhere, but after a couple of beers in Pub A, which closed suddenly, I transferred to Pub B for another cuppla sniftahs and then pressed on, it being early.

I’ve done this before on this route. that night I’d ended up camping in the grounds of the Angus Crematorium – a quiet spot. It was entirely possible that this would be today’s outcome too.
I invaded Friokheim (pronounced Freek’em). Pubs A and B were both closed and it started raining really heavily. I thought of waiting till Pub B opened and , maybe , getting a bed there, but the Crem called from afar and I did what I’d done previously.
I went to the village shop, stocked up on water and beer and sandwiches and beer and beer and trogged off towards the Crem, stopping only for a brief conversation with a friendly cyclist who was intent on taking pictures of a local rainbow.
I didn’t quite make it to the Crem. A forest ride beckoned and I sneaked off into the woods and found a pleasant clearing with flat grass out of sight of the busy road.
I put up the tent and gorged on beer and sandwiches and beer and whisky and bits of cheese and some blue fluff and a spider.

Later, in the half an hour of darkness that descends on Scotland at this time of year, an owl hooted very close by, and deer barked at my tent and a fox did screachy fox noises for a bit. It was the noisiest night I’d had since Spean bridge.
I don’t think Kylie would have had much chance of finding me in  there anyway.  Even if she’d been bothered to try.
Damn that gamekeeper with his off-road driving skills….

Todays pictures are courtesy of Adrian Fortune,  Mike and Marion Parsons and an old one of mine that I found from 2007. Same route at this point…

TGO day the next – Callater

After much messing around, shopping, breakfasting, snoozing and so on, I packed up the tent and wandered off in the general direction of Callater. At Callater Lodge I was given a cup of tea, which was nice.
After this, I erected the akto and had a bit of a snooze in the warm sunshine  and then , sans pack or anything much, I wandered off over the moors and up the nearest Corbett – one Creag nan Gabhar (My grandmother’s talkative cliff)

It was a lovely clear evening and I could clearly spot the lights of Stokholm from the top. I hung around a bit on the top, noting the erratic progress of an arctic hare doing a bit of late grazing, and then retraced back to Callater where celebrations were just beginning.
Another boozy night ensued. There was singing and Lancashire monologues. I was the music man and I came from down your way. When , after a substantial while, it started to become a bit maudlin, I crawled off to bed.

I failed to find the main entrance to my sleeping bag and eventually gave up and slept underneath it.
I awoke at 4:00 am in a pool of my own whisky (the bottle had leaked)
I strongly suspect that I’d had quite a good time.

Thanks for todays pictures go to Shirley (Peewiglet) Worrall. Bless 'er

TGO Chips and Boozing

Eventually, having learned icy water shrivels yer bits lesson (one again), I filled up the primus kettley thing, warmed the water up a bit and attacked meself with a pack towl and some hotel shower gel. This worked a treat, as it happens, thanks for asking. I even managed another shower later on. I’ll have to be careful of me natural oils….
I crossed the Geldie and wandered up a bit of moorland to find the path to the Linn of Dee and then blasted Eastwards in the TGO migratorial drift towards the Braemar chips and beer establishments.

I met the Parsons once again and had a brief discussion with some old folks who told me that the night before the town of Ballater had received a bit of a pasting from an energetic thunderstorm. The water had been up to the old chap’s chest. Almost as high as the top of his trousers, in fact. I continued Eastwards – calling in at Mar Lodge which appeared to be occupied by surly people in tweeds with a marquee and deerburgers. Yes, it was the British Deer Society, dressed to kill deer despite the fact they were having a picnic.

The kitchen of Mar Lodge was occupied by multiple Challengers, swigging tea and scoffing biccies. I joined in with Gusto (he’s one of the Italian TGO-ers….)

Soon, I was in Braemar where I had some pints and some enormous fish and chips at the Hungry Highlander, and then up to the campsite where I recognised, off a walking forum, the diminutive figure of Fight Club Hiker walkingirl aka buzzingirly aka Gill Mott. And with her was Ukmase aka Paul Mason. We greeted each other like people who had only ever met on a walkingforum and I went and put up me tent and had a little whisky party with some TGO-ers I vaguely knew.

Later, I met up with the full complement of FCH-ers, now including Titaniumdude aka Patrick Burrows and Peter Crawford aka Peter Crawford. They seem to have been enjoying themselves and we had a bit of a boozy-do.
Bingowings played and Sloman and the Wiglet jived.
We all got rat-arsed.
Thats what you do in Braemar.

Today’s pictures have been generously provided by Andrew Walker, Mike and Marion Parsons and Shirley Worrall.
Thanks ever-so, peeps.

During the night, during a short bladder emergency I thought I recognised Kylie's distinctive snoring coming from another tent. Nah....  

TGO Off we go - Up the Minigaig

TGO Campers by the Geldie- courtesy of Andrew Walker

Having spent a quiet night with the wrong kind of spirits, I started following the beck or burn upstream. The idea was to find a certain re-entrant and follow this uphill to where it was crossed by the Minigaig path.

I should explain to those who don’t know, that The Minigaig is a very old route which goes from Blair Atholl to Kingussie – bypassed in 1728 by the military road over Drumochter and, at 26 miles, is ten miles shorter. Basically, its now a narrow path, but it does lead to just over 2700 feet which is not much lower than my first target of the day – Leathad an Taobhain – a Corbett just a few feet short of 3000 feet.

But first, considering that I’d last had a shower at Spean Bridge, some echty-blob miles away, (plughole bunged up), I was smelling a bit like a Yak Herder’s Jock Strap after a particularly hot summer in the Gobi, and , coming across a deep, green and inviting pool in the burn, I thought what a ripping idea it would be to have a dip.

Luckily, it was just before I’d got down to getting some fresh air to the naughty parts that Mike and Marion Parsons turned up. A few minutes later and there could have been ribaldry and rude jokes at least. They soon passed on their way, though and I tiptoed breathlessly in ever so gingerly a little bit at a time till the pain got too intense, then I scrambled out again using some quite rude words, I’m ashamed to say.

So I didn’t stay in very long. In fact, I hardly got wet at all. I thought I’d resolved not to do this kind of thing. There must be a better way. The best option would probably be to wait till August when the water might have warmed up a bit.

The Minigaig took me easily up to it’s high point, crossing just the one snow bridge, and off-path, the going was fairly easy on short heather and I was soon perched on the trig point of Leathad an Toenail. A fine viewpoint.

Onwards and sideways, I crossed the moors and by doing a bit of contouring, I avoided climbing up anything which wasn’t a Corbett and after a brew and an unplanned snooze, I came to the head of Coire nan Cisteachan (The pass of the chesty cough) which had a large party of German DofE expeditionists and their English trainers. (People who train, not shoes. Trainers are all chinese nowadays anyway. I mean shoes…) Anyway, we had a bit of a chat then I marched off to dump my pack at the bottom of Beinn Bhreac – another just-short-of-3000-feet Corbett – which I bagged easily (without the pack). The walking up here is remarkably easy underfoot on short, dry heather with few peat hags or boggy bits.

I headed down Coire Creagach and found the River Feshie, where it began to rain on and off. I followed the Feshie which, for the information of future TGO-ers, has many cracking camping spots – and, where that river turns North, I turned East across a short boggy bit to find the Geldie Burn.

The Geldie also has many grand camping spots and, after a while and in an incipient thunderstorm, I finally gave up, put up the akto and had me tea. I was about 3km short of Geldie Lodge where more TGO-ers were camped, and I could see a couple of tents on the sides of the Allt Chaorainn. People were heading for Braemar. We would all arrive tomorrow afternoon.

The thunderstorm developed nastily somewhere else. It was all quiet up the Geldie.

Apart from the snoring of a dozen or so noses and the windypops of those who had managed to consume vegetables…

Zzzzzzz

Beep.

As Jeff Chaucer used to say, when in doubt, resort to fart jokes.

More pictures will be added to this post as soon as I, or Jean Turner find any. If anybody has pictures of the Minigaig, Leathad an Taobhain or Beinn Bhreac………

Thanks to Andrew Walker for the couple used here.

And another thing - You might notice that the style of this posting is different from the others. This is because my windows livewriter seems to be broken. It can't find the server or something. I might try again tomorrow, in which case ignore this note....

TGO Challenge nearing the end (of the pictures)

Day N. (fill in the number as appropriate. Please use black ink) It was driech and drab and not a time for wandering about in the mizzle, so I opted for the shoreline path to Dalwhinnie. My vetter said that this was a little exposed for a few steps.
Hah!
The path starts off well enough and then gradually becomes more tilted till there are heather patches with nothing much underneath. Luckily I noticed these. As the slabs encroached, i formed the view that if I was going to fall off anything, I could make it a lot less painful by traversing along at the actual shore level, thus reducing any impacts and bounces considerably, as well as the size of the splash.

This worked well for about fifty metres till I was faced with what can only be described as a crag. It was a crag. i could go back and brave the tilted slabs and bottomless heathery bits, and probably fall to a horrible death, or I could take the diretisssima and risk a backwards fall onto my gas supply which should explode in a ball of flames and attract the attention of any passing walkers. At least that might make the papers.
So I climbed up. the holds were reassuringly big and, generally speaking, roughly in the right places. There was the odd moment of doubt and reflection on a life wasted wandering the hills and not drinking beer all the time. But in the end, I made it and carried on, shaking a bit in the leg department.

After a while I was caught up by John Enoch, who later admitted to watching me climb the climb and decided on a very high level alternative where a plummet to a horrible dismemberment and subsequent helpless drowning whilst freezing to death and completely sober to boot, was less likely.
We occasionally coincided along the path, which, after the excitements was quite pleasant.

Soon, I came to Neverland. – Ben Alder Lodge – an unlikely collection of fairy towers and pretty buildings. Clearly the architect was no older than age 6. One house had its own garden stag.
After that the road is dull and just goes on and on till the industrial village of Dalwhinnie is reached. very nice pylons they have and a rather interesting dam wall.

The bunkhouse/cafe by the station was an oasis full of grazing Challengers – Russ, John, Maggie. I had tea and beer and beef stew. It was all rather good.
Later, I camped at the hotel and had a bit of a boozy night.
It was all right.

Last episode as told by the photos will appear quite shortly, after a short interval during which I will be paying a short visit to Crook’s renowned boozerama….
I’m trying to forget Kylie after that naughty video…..

TGO Challenge Day 4 The day after day 3

Pausing only briefly at the Spean Bridge village shop to forget to buy any whisky, I stormed off with a slight blisterlimp up the road to Correchoille and onwards and upwards towards the Lairig Leacach.

Many bloggers and TGO photographers have recorded the looming and ever so sinister figure of “The Minister” up this pass. It right put the willies up me I can tell you and I took a picture of it. Two day walkers on a day walk were passing, so i asked them to take my picture standing next to the figure. The lass took the camera and must have pressed the picture replay button because she looked at the screen, then looked at me, then did another double-take and said, in a nervous, trembly kind of voice - “You – you’re not on the s-screen”
And she smiled in the same way that you do to a traffic policeman.
Her partner said words to the effect “This is freaking me out” and took off at speed up the pass. I managed to explain to the lass about how to operate the camera just before she too high-tailed it.

And so, I pressed on to the Lairig Leacach bothy where two Welsh lads (they were speaking Welsh, so its a fair guess) were having their own jolly in the hills and were intent on camping next to Stob Ban. Stob Ban is  a gaelic name which means “You can’t put out your cigarette here” Good plan anyway, I thought.

Onwards and downwards to Loch treig where I found a small patch of relatively flat grass, put my tent up on it and fell asleep.
Kylie turned up. She was running across the sands in her little pants struggling with something behind her back. “Are you a challenger?” she called……  I woke up. It wasn't Kylie.

Maggie put her tent up close by and we were soon joined by Russ Manion (when did he stop playing the piano?) along with Herman and his two Canadian Hermits.
We all woke up next morning feeling fine.  Something told us we were into something good.
The campsite was cosy. Guy lines were intertwined.

During the afternoon, I discovered a beanie hat and a towel and inside these were a packet of mugshit thingy (significantly, only half eaten by mice), a pasta thing and two large packs of nescafe instant coffee with milk. I distributed most of these amongst the party and buried the cadavers of three field mice and a juvenile rat.
During the night the snoring was like a choir of freshly-faced sopranos sawing up logs.
At least it kept the bears away.
And Kylie too…..
Never mind - Here's a video of Herman

TGO Challenge 2010 More Rescued Photies

Here’s a few more – basically this is the second day during which, despite early morning sunshine, I decided to go forth Eastwardsly instead of too much in the Upwardsly direction.
Strangely strange and a bit odd to say that this time I was proved right and it rained.
I walked to Loch Arkaig, put the tent up in another shower and dozed off.
There was little excitement apart from the energetic nature of some of the showers and some right lazy cows sitting on the path. Luckily these were docile despite being heavily armed in the horn department. Beats being heavily horny in the arm department as its important to be well focused on the job in hand on a long walk like this.
I wonder what I’m talking about sometimes….


Not much distance was covered yet oddly odd and a bit strangely, I was now about half a day ahead of myself.

I think there must have been a time/space continuum problem during the night or something.

The pictures are roughly in sequence.

Despite the lack of effort, I said hello to my first blister.
During the night I arrived at Queen Street Station without my backpack which I must have left in the kitchen at home. The train driver said he’d wait but I’d have to be quick, so I went back for it. No sign of Kylie. Surely she knows how important this walk is…..?

TGO Challenge – First day Piccies

These are some of the saved pictures from the first day of my TGO Challenge (Did I mention that this was my tenth and that I’m a Leg End now and that you need permission  to even gaze upon my beautiful shadow?
No?

Anyway – I went on the boat from Mallaig to Inverie, had a brief pint and a temporary carrot soup and wandered along for a bit with Laura who has that blog that mainly comes from France.
Then she got fed up of the fart jokes and went off towards Barrisdale shaking her head and muttering something about finding a way of getting away from this set of nutters….

Then I went up a big pass, meeting Gordon Green going the other way in search of beer (he wasn’t on the Challenge) and down the other side which was very squiggly and had views of scary places.

Then  over a wobbly bridge (my kids would have been interested in this at one point in their careers as apprentice Knipes.)


Then me and another lad and his partner who was scoffing pear drops got a bit damp in the trousers in a bog. You have to think very light thoughts in a bog.
And then I had a brew at Sourlies and went up the Bealach a Mhaim pass, meeting Cameron McNeish on the way. It grew late. Everybody else was camping by this time.

Eventually, as the rain started, I put up the akto, had a wee and settled down for “dinner” (important inverted commas here…)
Then I ate some rehydrated gunge which was reasonably tasty, drank some scotch and dozed off for about 14 hours.
This was a typical TGO day for me. I won’t go on about it in future blog posts.
Failed to re-engineer Kylie’s lingerie during the night but I did meet Yasser Arafat who was playing base guitar to my strident power chords. Was it The scotch or the Thai Green Curry?
Attentive readers will have noticed that I put the pictures in between the text in a fairly random and illogical manner.
More later – probably tomorrow if it rains. If it doesn’t rain, I’m going to destroy the big elderberry bush in my Mum’s back yard. (Note that the preceding sentence isn’t any kind of code or cipher, I am really going to cut up a bush.  However you say that, though, it will always sound bad, I suppose.)

TGO Challenge Route Planning

Frosty morning in Glen Lyon 2007

Just spent pretty much the whole morning, a part of the lunchtime and some of the afternoon drawing lines on electronic maps and measuring distances and I think I’ve finally cracked it – a joined up route across Scotland.

This year, unusually for me, and, possibly living in cloud cuckoo land cos the weather will probably spoil it – I’ve managed to work in a static camp in Knoydart for the relaxed bagging of Sgurr na Ciche and other delights – so my tent on Day 2 will move precisely nil miles and nil contours of ascent. (Although, hopefully, I’ll be doing a bit more)

A day or so later, however, does include lots of tarmac beside Loch Arkaig, so that’s the price.

I’ll then be moving South ish for Ben Alder Lodge (never been), Ben Bheoil (missed that one somehow) and then through the bumpy it in the middle with a couple more Munros and the odd Corbett for a boozerama at Braemar.

I’m also determined to do the ridge next to Glen Prosen which ends at Cat Law.

The finishing end is at Scurdie Ness.

Landing at Inverie

The total distance excluding the day’s static Munro bagging thing is 313 km, or about 196 miles. The longest day is 30 km and the shortest is 15 and the average is 24km or about 15 miles. I orta be able to do that….