A Fine Horse in New Country

More decisions

The plan from here had been to ride through Glen Strathfarrar, through Pait Estate and Attadale Estate to reach the west coast at Lochcarron. However, we had to consider the encroaching weather (once we’d started, there was no escape route.) A long telephone conversation with the stalker at Pait had left me in no doubt that this was difficult ground with no proper paths (at least, not in the direction I wanted to go ) and it was a question from hopping from peat hag to peat hag, following his careful directions. Hard enough in dry conditions, but if snow started to fall it would make the ground even more difficult to see and treacherous to negotiate.

After much discussion with partner Bill, we decided that it would be best to miss out this section and trailer the ponies round to Torridon and pick up the next track. I had a few other options, but it would be necessary to try and get hold of stalkers on estates to get the ok – not always easy at the last minute when they are out on the hill all day and mobile phone reception is patchy at best.

Within five minutes of loading up the ponies, the heavens opened and it rained - and rained and rained. Driving along the road we could see white jets of water foaming off the hillsides – what had been a trickle yesterday was a torrent today. Rivers we could see from the road looked eminently uncrossable. It seemed like the right decision had been made, although we were disappointed, when we had got so far. A stop at Kinlochewe for a weather forecast was anything but encouraging – more heavy rain forecast for the next 48 hours, with snow on the tops.

Damp, and a little dispirited, we felt we had no option but to trailer the ponies to the (excellent and very welcoming) hotel at Gairloch, where the ponies were soon happily munching their way through their old orchard. We’d made it to the west coast!...sort of! Only a little bit of cheating!

The next day I tried to ride the Torridon to Gairloch track (backwards) to see what we’d missed, accompanied by delightful local rider Sheena to guide us... We got approximately ¾ of a mile before sinking into our first bog – a few more and we reckoned that it was best left for another lifetime – especially as it was still tipping it down in best west coast tradition! We did enjoy having invented the new sport of scuba-riding though. Oh well, back to the bar...