the affric kintail way with two 4 year olds:
day 1 trail notes | glen affric to loch affric
stats
weather:
sunny & windy
accommodation:
wild camp
planned mileage:
6.5 miles
actual mileage:
10.5 miles
up bright & early to head into glen affric to meet nikki, jamie & their daughter to attempt our version of the affric kintail way - the halfric kintail. 20 miles starting at the end of glen affric into kintail, then finishing at morvich campsite.
both girls weren't impressed with how long it was taking us to get all of our gear ready so they grew quite impatient & apparently the cold got to them. after demanding they got all their layers & cold weather kit on, we were ready to go! we said goodbye to jamie who was staying behind to pack up their car & meet us later on in the morning & headed onto the trail.
we reached the first sign post of our walk 10 minutes in & felt good about things. the girls were in good spirits; they were chatting away together, walking at a good pace & looking forward to camping tonight. i was determined to enjoy this hike without being stressed about our pace or how much milage we had done like i was on the first part of the west highland way, so i decided to trust that we would get to our end point whenever the girls got us there & that would be that.
about 2 hours into our day i had a bad feeling about the path we were on. we were both a bit confused at how jamie hadn't yet caught up to us, especially with us walking at kids pace, but we put it down to him just taking his time packing up. however, we were wrong. with the new mindset i was in, i wasn't paying attention to our route as much as i should've been to avoid tracking the milage done which meant it took us 2 miles in to notice the loch was on the wrong side of us. it should've been on our left, but it was on our right. crap. that will be why jamie hadn't caught up to us yet.
we had taken the wrong turning at the sign post & walked 2 miles in the wrong direction.
nikki & i both couldn't believe that we had wasted 2 hours walking the wrong way & would have to not only walk that back, but would still have the original 6.5 miles to do on top of that.
doesn't sound too bad really, but when you're hiking with kids & they've essentially just wasted 4 miles on nothing - it's make or break. there wasn't really much we could do about it now but turn around & hope the girls would keep their energy up for the rest of the day.
we managed to get back to the sign post an hour later, just 3 hours after first seeing it, seeing our mistake straight away. we had turned right at the sign without looking at it closer, but on further inspection there was a sign pointing straight ahead which we should've followed. oops.
thankfully the path was on an easy access track, nothing too difficult & we could walk at a good speed to try find jamie. we eventually found him about 2 hours later, after bumping into numerous people going the other direction who had told us they'd passed him looking for us. he wasn't best pleased, obviously.
after explaining what had happened & a short break later, we were off again. we had decided to just try make it to the bottom of the loch as i knew there was a potential spot for camping, so we would aim for there instead of a few miles later. the path was lovely - scots pines, lochs & rolling hills all surrounding us.
about 4 oclock the girls started to flag a bit, which wasn't surprising considering they'd been walking for hours now in the hot, sunny conditions. we could see the end of the loch & decided we would at least stop there to give the girls a rest, make dinner & make a new plan for camping if it was too windy to stop here for the night.
turns out this was the perfect place to stop. it was somewhat sheltered by little grass dunes, it had hut with a covered porch for cooking dinner & of course the sand beach. both girls were delighted to get to have a play here & we decided we would just deal with the wind & pitch up here. we were 2 miles away from our original planned stop for the night but after 10.5 miles it was enough. pushing the girls wouldn't be fair & we wouldn't get another spot like this to suit everyone. the extra 2 miles was just tomorrows issue.
the beach was great at distracting my little. it meant i could get everything in the tent set up for the night & make dinner while she was kept busy making sand angels. shame it meant half the beach ended up in the tent with us at bed time, half from her, half from cooper, but at least she had fun.
the sun disappeared behind the nearby hills shortly after which meant the temperatures dropped a fair bit, especially with the winds still coming through the glen. that was my call for getting into the tent for the night & ready for bed.
cooper fully on crashed as soon as he was in the tent, shame my little didn't follow suit as quickly. the moon was very bright which kept her up for a bit, but eventually the long day got to her & off to bed we both went.
iphone shots
a selection of shots taken on my phone during the day.
