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So pleased to be back in Knoydart.
The last time I was there the day started off really well but soon everything deteriorated, I was so incredibly slow on the hills and spent most of the time at the back of the group and when I tried to keep up I fell and scudded my back. This resulted in me being drookit, sore and pretty much torn faced and so glad to get home. Lesson learned on many levels.
This time however the day started in sunshine and ended in sunshine, can't ask for more than that
Wullie (Quoman) and I took our bikes- his was a Ferrari, mine was a Morris Minor and cycled to the hill on the normal return path. I found it really hard going but I'm sure anyone who has any cycling ability would be absolutely fine.
Dumped the bikes at the bridge at Folach and had a wee look around the ruins. Luckily after the initial boggy start we found a reasonable path and pretty much just went straight up towards An Diollaid. Lots of photo stops and then straight up towards the summit ridge. We were happy bunnies to see the summit trig but we knew there was a good chance that this wasn't the true summit. A quick phonecall to Ron for advice and he suggested what we were going to do anyway and just trot along to the next summit. This was an absolute joy.
The views and weather, although a wee bit windy, were fantastic. A fair amount of posing for photos and then we started to look for a lunch spot. We had reached the trig point at 12.00- exactly 3 hours after landing at Inverie. We knew we would have hunners of time before catching the 5pm ferry. We decided therefore to try to catch the 3pm ferry. This required me to be less of a wimp on the cycle back but I was honestly pathetic at riding my bike compared to Wullie. It was much faster for me to jump off and run along with my bike- and that included the very steep rocky downhill sections
Whatever my technique was it definitely worked because we arrived back in Inverie at 2.30pm!
After some cool drinks at the cafe we headed for the ferry only to discover that it was already full- full of locals taking their kids back from school
No amount of cajolling, pleading and downright lying would convince the boatman to take us on the boat
And so we were gifted with 2 hours to explore and relax in very sunny Knoydart. We cycled along to the bunkhouse where Wullie will be staying next month, fell asleep on some logs down at the beachside campsite and then headed back to the cafe for tea and a rummage about on the rocks and various bits of floatsam and jetsam.
Fortunately the 5pm ferry (with us onboard) left very promptly and we were back in Mallaig in good time and totally relaxed.
Thanks to Wullie for being excellent company, for keeping me right about cycling and for introducing me to the joys of alpine walking
A cracker of a day all round. I would happily go back and repeat Ladhar Bheinn even if it wasn't doing our superfast route!
