What a beautiful place this is. Every corner presents a majestical view. And today that was both literal and metaphorical
We’ve learnt a lot in the past 24 hours. Some quite fundamental things. After the handover delays our first leg had to be abandoned, as did the campsite we’d booked months ago, as did the NC500. I mentioned the impressive customer service yesterday. The final gesture meant the most. We’d called several campsites in the Cairngorms and all were fully booked for the bank holiday weekend. We were contemplating the fast road to Inverness (missing out the beauty of the Cairngorms), or wild camping on our first night (hardcore and an against the spirit of the Cairngorms National Park). Some time into our provisions shop, Darren called with a pitch at Loch Morlich campsite. That was exactly what we all needed. We now had a plan.
We were clearly surrounded by pros, one particularly grumpy one. Dom was awesome figuring out how to put the tents up. Before our eyes we’d transformed our wheels into our home.
Thank goodness it wasn’t raining. Every item and every bag open on the surrounding grass. We needed/wanted to reorganise everything once we’d discovered all the bits and bobs in the back of The Beast. No longer did we want a bag of the kids things and a bag for each of our bits. We wanted all the outer layers together, all the sleepwear together, all the shoes together, the snacks and so on. Grab bags that would make all the moments easier.
After an instant dinner it was bed time. I was doing the standard worried mum thing. Would they be too cold? If they woke in the night, would they remember to whisper? I totally chickened out and took my sleeping bag and crept into their tent. Three sardines
A morning of fried bacon and eggs, revised route planning, repacking, freezing ice blocks and charging phones (the lack of signal was chewing through batteries). The guys next to me asked for 2 Is. Iron-Bru. We are in Scotland!
We didn’t have the nerve to say we were tired. Our good friend had just run his first 100km ultra marathon from London to Brighton in THE heat. Congratulations team ‘Raising for Raif’.
Grim (on tour) up North 