the affric kintail way with two 4 year olds: day two

we had decided we would try make it to camban bothy for the night, stopping at alltbeithe youth hostel on the way for a break.  6.5 odd miles across an access track on the flattest section, easy, right?  wrong!

it was abundantly clear within about 30 minutes into our hiking day that that would not be happening.  the girls were bickering like old ladies at each other, they both refused to walk at the same time & just weren't up for much because of the sun.  we passed another way marker sign & the girls had a right good joke about making sure we took the right option this time.  we did, but good to know they wouldn't let us live down the accidental detour.

it took us about 2.5 hours to get to the spot where we should've finished the previous night, so that was setting the tone for the day.  no matter what bribes we offered or how much encouragement we gave, they refused.  we stopped here for a break & to see if some food would help the girls out, which thankfully it did.  a little food sorted out their differences & they were back to being best friends again.

we thought we would be flying through this day because it was relatively flat & easy walking but the girls were bored.  it wasn't offering them much in terms of excitement, so much to our delight, they decided that every bug or insect that they seen they would stop to inspect.

after break 200 odd of the day so far, we decided that the bothy probably wasn't a viable option & that we might have to get aim for the hostel instead.  at this point, we were getting a bit nervous as we had picked easy, low milage for the girls to handle but they were struggling a bit with it so we weren't sure how the rest of the days were going to go.

a lovely passing couple told us that the hostel was in fact not that far from us, maybe about a mile, so we had perked up a fair bit at that.  it looked further on our maps so we were pleasantly surprised when they told us this.  gotta say though, longest mile of my life.  it didn't take long for us to realise we were right thinking it was further on the map - it turned out to be about 2.5 miles away so i'm not sure where they were plucking that number from.  i'm sure it was just to make us feel better, but who knows!