Ok, so that was the view that greeted us when we got off the train at Corrour Station, Scotland's most isolated train stations. There are no roads to it. They only open one door of the train to let people on and off. There is no ticket office, and no ticket barriers. There is however a small restaurant that does a very good bacon sandwich, and a good venison burger. And also, surprisingly, in 2005, 19,000 people got off trains at Corrour. That's quite a lot of people I would say.
So Sandy and I got there, went for a quick bite to eat in the restaurant, and then met Chris off his train from Fort William. We only had two options now; wimp out, and wait three hours for the next train back to civilisation, or walk for three days to get back to anywhere resembling a town. We, of course, went for the second option.
So once we had our backpacks packed, repacked, and then waterproofed, and once we were all waterproofed, we set off. And just since we had all put on waterproofs, the rain stopped as soon as we left. Hoorah! It was a nice walk the first day, down to a nice loch, saw some diggers, and then up by a river. It would have been even better if the rain hadn't started again. Actually, even that would have been ok if the boots I had been wearing were actually waterproof. However, they weren't, so my feet were very, VERY wet by the time we reached the bothy we stayed in that night.
It was a nice bothy, and there a nice couple in the other half of it that Chris had been talking to on the train. They were also heading in our general direction, but not going up the big hills like us on day two. Had a fun night in the bothy, playing cards, and trying to light a fire with no dry wood, just a slightly damp newspaper.
So, day two. Due to the large amount of rain the day before, and through the night, the river we were walking along was rather swollen. We of course then had to cross this river after not to long. It proved to be quite difficult. In fact, the couple from the bothy, who had left like ten minutes before us in the morning, were still there when we got there. We looked up and down it for like ten minutes, then concluded that we would have to wade. But we didn't. Instead, we just jumped and threw our packs across to each other. We helped the other couple get across too. It went well for a while, then we got to yet another river we had to cross. This one wasn't really jump-able, so we had to wade. And it was well cold. Rest of the day was pretty uneventful. If uneventful by any chance means going up large hills, climbing very steep bits on all fours, and being scared of falling off the cliff next to us. Then having to go down a very large hill (which is harder than it sounds with a full pack), and seeing a herd of deer. That's right, a proper herd, on the side of a hill. Then we climed another big hill up by a waterfall to camp that night. In a nice saddle between two hills, at about 750 metres above sea level, where it rained for about 14 hours non-stop, and we fell asleep at 8pm. Apart from Sandy who was out for the count from 7pm. Ha.
The next morning we awoke to it still raining. But it soon stopped luckily, and it was nice for us having breakfast. We even got some nice pictures of the tent actually up in the clouds, as it was all night I'm pretty sure. After we finally got the tent all packed away and all our stuff on, it was time for some more walking downhill, which was fun again. Except this time it was even steeper than the day before, so it took us a very long time. And at the bottom, we were greeted by yet another fun river crossing, which was aided by my walking pole, and getting our feet slightly wet. Slightly. Ha.
Once we had crossed this river though, we were pretty much set. Not that much after that, we saw people. That's right, other people! It was so weird, seeing them on the Nevis tourist trail with their small day-packs and puny waterproofs. How we mocked them. And as we kept going, we kept seeing more and more people. Then we got to another river. Tsch.
This one wasn't to bad luckily, well, not compared to some of the others. We made it across relatively quickly, then got to the wire bridge which goes across the river. It looks something like this.
In fact, it looked a lot like that. Three nice thick pieces of wire which swung nicely as you walked across them. Great fun. We sat at the other side and enjoyed lunch, eating pretty much all the food we had left, which made the packs quite light for the afternoon. After this we were surrounded by people, as we were on the proper Nevis Tourist Trail, but somehow even though we all had full packs, and had been walking three days, we were still passing pretty much everyone. And making many a sarcastic comment as we went. Some that deserved special mentions are the man in proper leather work shoes that would go with a suit, the man with the black day-sack, which was so new/unused that you could still see the folds from it being in it's bag, and also the lady who was wearing walking boots, but was still tip-toeing on the rocks for some reason. Not that there were very many rocks.
So we soon made it past everyone and onto the road up Glen Nevis. We also saw a very inconsiderately parked car, which someone had left an angry note on since it was so badly parked. We had slight problems walking along the road, as it was very sore on our legs. Marshes we could do, rivers we had by this time mastered, but a nice tarmac road had us defeated. So what do you do when you don't want to walk? That's right, hitch-hike!
It didn't go well at first, but eventually a very friendly man in a Volvo stopped and picked us up. All three of us, having not washed for a few days, and with all our stuff. We were very, very happy. He took us right to the campsite where we planned to stay that night, and we said our goodbyes to him as he headed back off the London where he lived. Weird.
So after getting the tent up, we headed into Fort William to end our adventure with a proper pub meal, and that's exactly what we got. A nice meal, followed by a trip to a pub where Sandy knew someone, and that meant only one thing; a free round of drinks. I like campsites too I might like to add. Very peaceful compared to the top of a big hill in the wind and rain. Very peaceful.
So the next day we just came home, pretty much. A quick wander around Fort William saw a couple of purchases, and then Morrisons to buy stuff for lunch on the train. A very big lunch. Very. Sandy left us in Crainlarich to go to Mull for a couple of days, while Chris and I just travelled home with lots of luggage, but we did have his car to come down in from Glasgow.
So, that pretty much is most of what happened while I was away. There are a couple of other funny stories that may be told at some point if I can remember them, but we shall see.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed that and it wasn't to long.
