Day 2 — TGOC 2026 — Inverinate Estate to Affric Estate 

As nice as yesterday was as dreadful was today. Raining all day long and much heavier than forecasted. I was soaking wet by the time I made it to my campsite magic happened … and my fancy new backpack promised to be waterproof … it ain‘t … sleeping bag is wet and many other things 🤬.

And, I did not make it up the Carn Eighe range – for the second time already – last year I was not fit enough and this year the weather was too bad … all day 5 degrees (which felt like 0), blistery winds at times and rainy. Up there 👆 who knows … could not see the peaks and likely significant sub-zero temperatures and snow fall.

Oh well – no Carn Eighe

I circumvented the range, which ended up over 34km and almost 10 hours of walking time.

Great waterfall on the first 5km
Wildlife — don‘t know what it is though — and easily 250 deer that I saw
The path from the Falls of Gromach – I came up here last year
Cooking in the rain — Reindeer soup! Was delicious!
Along Loch Affric – lots of quite old trees
Affric Lodge – belongs to the Middletons – beautiful setup
… and the new pedestrian bridge … unfortunately not open to the normal walker like me … is this actually allowed under Scotish legislation?

I sincerely hope that tomorrow is a better day and that I can get some of my stuff dried.

It was around 0 degrees yesterday and I woke up a couple of times freezing.

But my overall sleep score (OURA) was 85, Resilience 80 and Activity 95 — not too bad!

Tomorrow is another camping 🏕️ day and another day without any village. But Tuesday!

🚶‍♂️ : 0

🦌 : >250

Learnings:

About half of today’s path I walked before, but just because you do it again does not mean it’s the same. This analogy is of course also true for start-ups or business ventures.

Magic moments:

You will laugh … but I am on a long streak learning Ghailig on DUOLINGO … and no connection all day … but at my campsite magic happened and I was connected. Juhu 🍾

Leave a Comment