Friday 26th August 2022
Another (annual) walk up Ben Wyvis (9.1 miles).
Charlie and I keep doing this walk. When my children were at school we would do this walk the first Friday back after the summer holiday. It kind of made you feel it was still sort of a holiday. I’m retired now so it doesn’t matter but Charlie is now a teacher in Inverness Royal Academy.
Charlie came down at 2.30 and we headed out to Garve in my old Fusion. It is way down in power since last year and keeps giving a ‘EAC Fail’ message. However we got there.
We started walking at about 3.20 almost as soon as we reached the car park. Just enough time to let my Etrex 20 get a GPS lock. We plodded up till we got clear of the forest and then stopped to eat and drink by the river. The midges were just awful so we hasted on.
We kept going up till we reached the big stone and stopped for a needed rest. I was gasping!
Then we kept going until we reached the first summit – An Cabar. That’s Charlie (David to most people) looking at the way ahead.
Then we kept going till we reached the ‘trig’ station on the summit. This was at nearly 6.00.
Charlie had a laugh as he had bought us Harry Gow’s Dream Rings and they were very squashed after their journey in his rucksack. They still tasted amazing. I was delighted to be here and feeling so good. I have that horrible thing that afflicts a lot of us older males – an inguinal hernia. It has been giving me more discomfort recently but today was good. I think despite what Dr Smith told me it is now needing a bit of attention. His advice was to watch and wait. Well I have.
The evidence of Dream Ring consumption is clearly seen on Charlie’ face.
We then came down. I have to be careful now. My old knees certainly felt it. As we got lower the midges came back. They were OK as long as we kept walking. For most of the time we had the hill to ourselves. We were the only car in the car-park when we got back. We got back at 20:15 so that was 4 hours 55 minutes, a lot slower than what we used to do.
Looking back to Ben Wyvis from the car.
Another lovely walk up Ben Wyvis. What an honour as an old father to be able to do it with my son. I love his company. We are more like very special friends than father and son.