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With a week off work, I thought I might go up to Skye and do a couple of low level routes that had been lurking on the bucket list for a little too long. Weather forecast wasn't completely minging, but there were definitely going to be some damp moments!
So on Sunday I went up to my folks and borrowed the van – quite nice accommodation for one and set off on the journey. In Easter Ross the weather was fine, but after Dingwall it was horrific, the road to Achnasheen, such a joy usually, was a river, and it was like having buckets of water continually being chucked over the car.
No point crawling to Skye in that! So I pulled into the forest car park at Craig where the trees did a lot to shelter me from the storm and spent the night there. The temperature was up and it was cosy
The following morning was cloudy but dry – relatively nice, so I completed the journey, driving straight past the Slig and the usual Glen Brittle turn offs arriving in Orbost at about 11AM. There is a car park marked on the map, which didn't really exist, so I parked up in what looked to be a disused building with a large car park and a sign saying that it was funded by the EU. There was plenty of space so I didn't think I would be in the way. The wind had got up and there were a couple of fierce gusts as I got my kit together.
I walked down the road, passed the farm before I realised I had forgotten to bring any lunch supplies, so I dumped my pack and ran back to the car.
The track followed the coast round, some nice views out to cliffs round the bay. Showers seemed to pass offshore without actually coming in my direction. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day
The track started climbing through the woods and it seemed criminal for ocean views be taken away, but it only made the vistas more impressive when you did get a glimpse.
The track ended at a sheep fold and the path seemed quite good really. A bit damp, but after that rain last night that wasn't surprising. A bit of up and down but all the hilly bits seemed to be of an easy angle. I stopped for a snack at Brandarsaig bay, the ruins of longhouses and sheep pens long overgrown making a nice seat. I watched huge waves completely engulf quite large islands offshore – it was mesmorising to watch...
Rebels wood - not very woody!
The path went through another plantation, and deteriorated into proper bog in a couple of sections, but not as badly as I had expected and progress was good, even if the wind in the face was getting stronger..
The ruins of Idrigill were very interesting indeed, with the usual selection of longhouses and pens, intersected by fainter, and unrelated earlier circular foundations – there had been a settlement here for a very long time indeed.
I noted how grassy and fine the area still was – a haven for bracken in the summer, and a fine spot for pitching a tent. On such a night as this was going to be, a bothy is preferable though, and there was one just a few miles further round the coast..
The path took me over old tattie fields, undulating up and down, the ditches still doing their job of draining the water away.
Then I was round in a glen that really funnelled the wind, I fought to make progress. I thought about how standing at the point and looking down to the maidens was going to be very scary, but also the best time to see them with the full force of the sea battering them.
The ground opened out, and it started raining. Clods of sea foam flew past and my lips were all salty. I was bracing as much as I was walking now, starting to think I wouldn't get to the Maidens, but a glance at the GPS told me that I was very close indeed.
Whether I had the mettle to stand at the top of a cliff in this weather was another story! Sure enough, just 20 yrds from the point, I started getting battered around like a rag doll.. Time to retreat.
I could see the main path up to my right and made for it, but it must of taken 20 mins of getting thrown about and crawling to get there, where the wind strangely dropped.
I paused to regain my senses, and began to think that I could make it out on the point next to the Maidens and see them from there.. Sure enough it wasn't so bad but still a little scary.
They were as impressive as I had imagined but being buffeted about like that killed most of the enjoyment.
I could now see to the stretch of coast round to the bothy. It was a lot higher and the waterfalls there were getting blown right over the peninsula. That hadn't been rain I had encountered a wee while back, that had been the waterfall being blown half a mile or more from its origin!
I made it round past the smaller waterfall, bracing and having to drop to all fours more often than making progress. This was just mad, the bothy jut wasn't reachable today. So what next? I could camp in the ruins at Idrigill, or try and make it back to the van and maybe still get up the Tables tomorrow.. It was almost 3.30, so dark in a little over an hour.
I made a loop to get back to the path, somehow getting on top of a ridge with a rocky steep drop to get back to the path when I encountered a deer fence.
I saw a really good camp spot, sheltered within a ruin at Idrigil, but even though it was almost 4, I was sure I could make the track before dark if I didn't faff around taking photos like I had done on the way.
With decision taken, I got my stomp on, and with the wind behind me I made excellent progress, even stopping for another snack in Brandarsaig. The dusk was coming in as I went over the final crest and caught sight of the track. A fine grassy section, when I felt something go in my ankle and heard a crunch.
My leg made a really funny movement, which wasnt sore, and I took another step but it just didn't feel right. I looked down to see that my foot was rotated 180 degrees and my toes were pointing behind me. I instinctively pushed it round the right way with my walking pole, but my foot still wouldn't work.
It was then that it dawned on me that my ankle was broken. I lifted my leg, and the whole lower section, from above the boot, lurched to the side alarmingly – boy that looked crazy.
My next thought was phoning mountain rescue. I still could not understand why it wasn't sore.
I was delighted to find that I had the thinnest sliver of signal imaginable, and I was surprised when the 999 operator answered instantly and asked what service. Thats when the pain hit, and I screamed police at the poor lassie. Then there was a guy on the line who I rather directly informed, that he had to get the mountain rescue out. The pain was seething now, and I dropped to the ground. He asked me lots of questions which I think managed to answer, but it is all a bit of a blur. I got my map out for a grid reference, losing my map case in the wind in my quest to find the right numbers. Why I didnt get my GPS out of my pocket and simply read the numbers on the screen I will never know.
All too soon the call was over and I was there alone on the windy hillside. A local number tried to phone, but got cut off straight away and the signal never returned...
So in the windy silence I suddenly felt cold. I had a lot of layers on, but I knew I would be here a while, so I got out my sit mat and put on my snuggy belay jacket to wait. I looked at my ankle, it was twisted horribly to the left, but there was nothing I could do about it and it wasn't too uncomfortable if I didnt try to move it. The dusk quickly turned to gloaming and I got out my headtorch – disappointingly low batteries, but my camping lantern was in top form so I could definitely be seen with that.
I sat awkwardly, having to use my tummy muscles constantly to stay still, waiting in a pain filled trance. The bit of path I was on, was really quite steep for sitting on so I tried to shimmy down a bit, but quickly realised I was 100% stranded.
It is a very humbling experience to be out on a dark blustery night completely relying on strangers leaving their fires to come out and help. Every now and then I would come to, shivering uncontrollably, and I would try and find something else in my pack to help, my sleeping bag, waterproof troos - until it was almost empty. I eventually plucked up the courage to lift my bad leg up and put my rucksack underneath my legs – that helped a lot.
Time passed, and eventually I thought I saw some light and sure enough a couple of minutes later, a landrover came down the track. Less than 2 hours since I phoned – what service!
I was overjoyed to see that, and pretty soon two chaps were with me. They took the boot off my bad leg and confirmed it was definitely broken before putting my leg in a splint. Another vehicle turned up with gas and air and I was humphed unceremoniously down the hill. The gas doesn't kill the pain, just makes your head too crazy for screaming..
Then I was in the back of the landrover being taken back to Orbost where there was supposedly going to be an ambulance, but there was a delay in their arrival. I felt horrible for having made such a fuss but everyone involved was so kind and concerned for me – really special people.
I was pretty gone by this point and memories are hazy. I got x-rays and the break manipulated that night in Broadford and a further operation involving fixing a 194mm metal plate to my tibia in the hospital here in Edinburgh.. It is broken at the ankle, and above my boot so a real mess which apparently could have been far worse without the excellent prompt treatment I received. The MRT guys said that I had just been unlucky, but I'm feeling like a very lucky girl – I had signal, I will walk again and thats enough for me.
