A Fine Horse in New Country

We had a break at Borlum Farm in Drumnadrochit– and hot showers! There was a major Le Trec competition going on at the centre– one of the enthusiastic competitors told me I should have a go at Le Trec, which involves navigation and orienteering on horseback and riding/leading your horse through different obstacles...hmm, must try that sometime...

We had arranged to meet Robin Pape the farrier (hereafter referred to as St Robin the Blessed) for supper and he kindly agreed to bring his hammer and fix Doogs. He arrived brandishing a fine bottle of red wine – why don’t all farriers do that? After affixing a shoe to what remained of the foot, we went for supper and lots of chat – it was excellent to see him again.

After a day lolling about reading up on the papers which were full of credit crunch-itis, we were ready to sally forth again, in spite of warnings of deteriorating weather. To save riding through Drum on the very busy road, I’d picked out a possible route nipping round the back of Lewiston. It was a bit of a ‘Highland’ route, as it took us two hours to end up about 1 km from where we’d started, but hey.

Our ‘Highland’ route was full of surprises , including a sign marked ‘horse trail’ – very rare in Scotland! We followed it which led through the Clunebeg estate, then picked up a road doubling back towards Drum. I had hoped to be able to ford the river much lower down, but a mushrooming of new houses with their gardens stretching down to the river made that impossible – or at least undesirable (for the residents – we wouldn’t have minded).The entrance to Glen Coiltie forest produced another navigation dilemma – the map at the entrance of the forest didn’t match up to the map I had on the horse. What to do? If I followed the forest map, there was a straightforward route – but what if it wasn’t right? Even more backtracking, and the day was wearing on as it was.

Every trip provides its angels at moments of indecision or crisis – enter David, who not only confirmed the forest map was indeed correct, but opened the gate for us too, lowering the mounting/dismounting average (becoming increasingly stiff and undignified!) on this leg by 0.1%. Bless you David.
We set off up the pretty Glen Coiltie track (and she does mean ‘up’ – Doogs) for a couple of miles, before a sharp zigzag led us back up (‘up’ – yep – Doogs) to a viewpoint overlooking Drumnadrochit, but considerably higher. Great views of Loch Ness, but we were very very very wet by now, having ridden in torrential rain for almost three hours.We squelched on through the forest which leads up Glen Urqhuart; the weather cleared at last.. The forest is remarkably pretty, with much birch and other native woodland near the edges, and glimpses of Loch Meikle.

By the time we arrived at the Cannich Campsite, the rain had started hammering down once more. The ponies looked less than thrilled at their ‘bedroom’ – sandwiched between the toolshed and the compost heap – but cheered up considerably when I produced a couple of bags of haylage purchased from Borlum Farm. It didn’t stop them spending most of their stay gazing longingly over the fence at the potential grazing-fest of the Cannich shinty pitch.

Tough luck – they were hardly starving – though I was, so a quick trip to the pub with a cousin who lives locally for a major refuel, before settling down for the night to the tuneful drumming of rain, rain and more rain. ‘Snow’s forecast,’ my cousin had said thoughtfully, when he dropped us back at the campsite.

Were we downhearted? Certainly a bit concerned – having had the most settled weather of the year on the trip so far, it looked as though it was going to deteriorate just as we were about to enter the most lonely and potentially dangerous ground. I was aware just how quickly conditions can change in the west – the biggest problem stemming from rapidly rising river levels, which could easily trap us on the hill. The safety of the ponies (and me!) had to be considered, especially as over the next three days we were due to traverse some stunning but very lonely country – famous for its rivers and bogs!
We were still undecided the next morning, as it was still raining heavily. However, after several cups of coffee at the excellent Bog Cotton Cafe (is the name a sort of clue? - Doogs) served up by the cheerful owner, and an improvement in the weather, we got ready for the next section, which mostly on a minor road up Glen Struy – surely no bogs there?
The road follows the bank of the River Kerrow – obviously a fisherman’s mecca since, while not one of the houses up the glen has a sign, all the fishing beats were VERY clearly labelled! We didn’t meet many people on the road and rode along admiring hundreds of superb black cattle until almost the end, when we ran into the friendly Brendan. “Where are you headed?” he asked. “Glen Strathfarrar”. Long pause, then, “That’s a glen that holds the water – it’s always raining there. Did you hear snow’s forecast?”
Oh, good.
Our slow start in the morning meant we missed the gatekeeper at the bottom of Glen Strathfarrar, so we moseyed up until we found a beautiful camping spot on the banks of the Farrar. The cheerful and efficient gatekeeper soon appeared, and whisked me off to meet the estate owners. They were completely unfazed by the sudden appearance of a dirty hobo with horses, but continued the weather warning theme.
It was definitely becoming colder – and camping that night we were ‘rewarded’ by the sound of stags roaring as they broke out . All night. It’s the most wonderful sound, but really guys, half an hour would have been plenty...! “Like sleeping in the cattle market!” To read the final instalment, click here.