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A pleasant day was forecast, but pleasant weather was not had.
I had a few hours spare, and a desire to get into the hills. I'm going away with work for 5 months or so, and wanted one last quick blast up a Scottish hill! Seeing as I only live 30 minutes away from Ben Rinnes, it seemed the natural candidate.
The car park was relatively deserted, indicative of the weather situation, and I soon set on my way.
The track is so simple to follow you don't even need a map.
The start point:
The dog (Wilson) and I soon entered the cloud, hoping that it would clear in 30 minutes or so. How wrong were we! The weather was pretty strong, with horizontal rain for most of the walk - and the holes in my worn out boots soon let the water in and turned my feet to mush. I knew this would probably be my last walk in these boots, and this walk confirmed it. They have firmly been consigned to local dog walks from now on!
I could tell that the views would be wonderful, despite the fact that I couldn't see much more than twenty feet for the whole walk. (I think Wilson felt pretty battered by the wind for most of the walk!)
I bumped into another walker on the hill, and exclaimed 'I don't know what is good about this morning'; only for the retort to be 'at least we are out and about'.
That's the lesson really isn't it - be grateful for life and health, enjoy the hill despite the rain and plod on!
The top was reached much sooner than expected - my intuition told me I had another km to go, but there were no complaints from either me or Wilson! Time for a quick windy Polish ham and bavarian cheese sandwich on the summit (under the watchful eye of the pooch), before literally jogging down to get back to the car and home to dry out.
A great way to spend my few free hours!
