Day 7 - Culra Bothy to Dalwhinnie

As we have grown to expect, some days on the trail are wonderful, and some are terrible. Today was wonderful!!

With the events of last night fresh in our minds we all wanted to get up early and get out of our latest tick infestation. I set an alarm for 6:30, and we hoped to be hiking by 7:30. With all the hard work we did yesterday, we left ourselves a relatively easy 15 km walk into Dalwhinnie all on well defined, dry trail and forest track. We enjoyed the views all the way up Loch Ericht, through the Ben Alder Estate.

Wild Horses?

View Back Up Loch Ericht

With a couple of very short breaks we arrived at The Old School Hostel in Dalwhinnie at around 11:30, way too early to check in.  Lee agreed to let us in at 13:30 so off to The Apiary Cafe we headed for a snack and some relaxing.  This felt so nice.  We headed back to the hostel for showers, clothes washing, and re-supply parcel opening.  Thank you so much to our very special Scottish friend, Joyce, who hand delivered our parcel just to be sure it would be here when we arrived!!!  You are amazing, Joyce!!!!

Re-Supply Goodies!!!

After some more relaxing, tea drinking, chatting, and catching up we headed back to The Apiary for dinner - mac and cheese. I don’t know how to describe it, but am confident in saying that we North Americans don’t understand mac and cheese yet. Scottish mac and cheese is out of this world!!!

After dinner we returned to the hostel and visited with some of the challengers that started showing up. Stuart and Alec were the first two. They are from Hamilton, UK not Ontario! They were expecting two of their friends, who were bringing dinner, drinks, dessert, and clean clothes. Nice!
After chatting with them I was very lucky to receive a video call from Joyce, which was such an amazing treat!!

Next, the boys and I sat around, had another hot beverage, while Ben and I played our second game of chess of the trip. It was such a calm and relaxing evening and I know it did the boys and me so much good.

Relaxing In The Hostel’s 

To cap it all off before bed we ended spending an hour trading questions with Stuart and Alec, and their two friends Gordon and Marie-Claire.  It was a true Challenge experience and we were all thankful for it.

The three of us are now in our bunks at the hostel listening to different styles  of snores and other interesting sounds…🤪 We have modified our route for tomorrow to remove a little path uncertainty and to keep it a bit more manageable than what we have been doing the past seven days.  I am so proud of the boys, and how they have coped with this wild trip so far!!!

Next post should be in three days from Braemar if everything goes according to plan…🤞🏻. Thanks everybody!!

Best Moment So Far:

Sam - Bothy night

Ben - Walking the Tarbet Ridge

JM - Cona Glen

Worst Moment So Far:

Sam - Boggy spots😠

Ben - Ticks!!🤮

JM - Ticks!! 🤬

Please note that we plan on adding some of Ben’s amazing photos once we get home.  It has been too difficult to do it on the go here.  Stay tuned!!!

Day 7 Route - 16.5 km, 183 m ascent