Highlands - Best Day
by Hamish Cameron (Ayr)
The letter from Frank Croll [in the RSF Journal] about a "best day" and the article by Ian Curphey on "Rough Road to the Isles" sparked off memories, as one of my best days was a journey from Glen Affric Youth Hostel to Ratagan Youth Hostel via Camban, Gleann Lichd and Dornie (I kid you not). I was, for my sins, in the early sixties a member of the SYHA North West Management Committee and Convenor of Lonbain, Glenelg, and Glen Affric Hostels, which involved two visits a year by bike to those hostels.
My best day was the day I left Glen Affric after three glorious days climbing Mam Sodhail, Beinn Fhadda and several minor walks. I left Glen Affric because I had no food left and, in this, I was not alone as three girls from Aberdeen ate their last breakfast of porridge lubricated by coffee, which they declared disgusting - but they had nothing else.
I left reasonably early and made good progress to Camban, even though I forded the Alt Beithe Garbh rather than risk falling in from the rather rickety oneplank bridge which was there at the time. The day was extremely hot and at Camban (then a ruin) I thought of having my sole remaining food (an orange) but wiser council prevailed and I saved it till later. Like Ian Curphey, I was a bit staggered by the track along Beinn Fhadda and I decided to save my orange until I was in Gleann Lichd.
In those days there were no cafes or other sources of sustenance except the hotel on the shores of Loch Duich, and to eat in the hotel was beyond my means. The barman at the hotel was very helpful and told me about a cottage where I could get a bite. The lady was very kind and asked for an hour to prepare something, so I cycled back to the hotel where I sank two half pints of lager on an empty stomach (unusual for me but I had a raging thirst and felt an obligation to the barman). I regretted this as I wobbled my way back to the cottage, where I was given a lovely ham salad and lashings of tea for a very modest cost.
Now I had a problem, I had no food so I had to decide whether I should take my chance at Ratagan hostel store or cycle over the hill to Dornie (this was long before the excellent modern coast road). I chose the latter despite the double climb involved (wisely as it turned out, because the Ratagan hostel store had nothing but tinned scotch eggs). At Hanks Stores in Dornie I stocked up on food and had the primus topped up with paraffin, then cycled back to Ratagan where I got a warm welcome from the 'laird Himself', the famous warden Dom Capaldi.
I was pretty well exhausted but that warm evening, sitting in the Ratagan garden watching the sun go down over Skye, I thought what a wonderful day I'd had. I have had many fine days since, but I still look back on that one as one of the best.