Northern Excursions. The Highland Adventure May 2006. Day 1.

Heading off on the train to Inverness. It was an overcast morning. Excitement and anticipation pulsated through my veins. I felt happy to be sharing the experience with my fellow travellers Tom and Mark. Tom, being a most exceptional friend of mine and Mark, being a most exceptional friend of Tom’s.. Being three attractive strong intelligent guys, we were in for a good time, it was on, damn straight.

We boarded the train at Market Harborough at ten past nine after waiting on the platform in the chilly air laden with our equipment and bikes. I talked with Tom about the excitement of going, we were actually on our way on a truly wondrous adventure of considerable anticipation and preparation into the Scottish Wilderness, a certain life enhancing and possibly changing experience.

Getting our bikes on the first train was easy as pie as far as lugging a huge bag and two bikes could be. The train staff were very friendly and one of them used to work doing the Scotland to Edinburgh train route and therefore exhibited a certain empathy and warmth towards us. I somehow didn’t envy his previous job of spending that long on trains, you would have to be pretty dedicated or mad. I chatted to the guy about the expected length of the train journey, which would get us to Inverness station estimated time of arrival eleven hours and thirty minutes Post Meridian in around fourteen hours time! The trip aimed to be an exercise in leaving behind luxuries such as mobile audio players and such like, with my notepad providing the creative outlay and we would make our own entertainment, a most liberating experience.

We arrived at Derby at ten where we alighted the train and scurried over to the train computers to see when our train was arriving, scanning the train times. The train was going to leave from platform one so we waited there for it with all our stuff. Tom met a friendly fellow cyclist at Derby who turned out to be slightly deranged. I delighted in watching Tom’s reaction and photographing the result as the unnamed random spouted on about greased flanges and his undying love for Sustrans cycle routes and encyclopaedic knowledge of train times and platforms at Derby station. Derby station felt quite cramped, not a very interesting station at all architecturally. It appeared to be under going construction work and was mostly boarded up with plywood. An interesting point, that a train station is a working tool, however, there are many very pretty stations, but as needs changes and higher capacity etc. is needed they often face being ripped down and replaced for something more practical posing the question, should pretty train stations be preserved or ripped down and expanded when needed. Surely, it would be a regrettable act if the latter was always the case.

The train from Derby to Crewe left at eleven hours and forty five minutes Anno Meridian. I sat next to the electronic door equipped loo to my right in the bicycle storage bay and Tom sat opposite me. I took pleasure in shouting obscenities and singing like a silly fool which is fairly normal for me, hidden round the corner so Tom got the evil looks from the random woman sitting in the same carriage, great fun. I fell in an out of the silly mood and reflecting on my true emotions, I felt relaxed, excited, happy, intrigued, observant and driven. As I sat back in my chair I observed the water droplets of rain trickling on the window pane, blown from their dormant state by the wind and vibration of the moving train, each droplet’s destination influenced by fluctuations in the wind, imperfections in the glass. Strangely enough this reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum’s character is doing a demonstration to the other actor with the water droplet travelling over the skin on her hand. I think he was demonstrating chaos or imperfections and channels in the skin’s surface, affect from the light or movement from the T-Rex. It obviously provoked my mind. I remember the film made me think in general the first time I saw it when I was about fifteen. I stayed over at my uncle and auntie’s house and remember vividly dreaming a Velociraptor crashing through the wall into the guest room in their house where I was sleeping. It was such a vivid dream I can remember it clearly now at twenty four years old.

Back to the train. I love trains. I like the reflective mood they put you in and the fact you are travelling and going to end up somewhere different to where you began. For me a train is a place where I can truly relax as there is nothing else to do. I get in my zone.

After a journey of Tom putting up with me being very silly we arrived at Crewe station. We missioned it to quickly find platform eleven and managed to site the earlier train. However, unfortunately we could not take the bikes on it, due to the completely ridiculous state of the train system in the UK! Even though there was space on the train! After calming down from having a grumble to myself, and to Tom and swearing at Richard Branson, we retired to the uncomfortable wooden seats to admire the realisation that we were moving up north, the air smelt fresher, damper and chillier, and where the people were great, and different albeit still British. The thing I love about Northern people is that they don’t want to hear about the everyday shit. They are quite happy to tolerate you if you sit down, shut up, be yourself and order a nice pint of the local ale. I just find myself down south and the Midlands that there is a certain element of competition or unease going on between people which is sort of unspoken of but definitely exists. The reason I say it definitely exists is because I have lived in York, and the feeling didn’t exist there. Anyway, I diverge… The station at Crewe is fantastic. I love the industrial architecture, huge long platforms and the fact that the platform we sat at for about two hours was kind of cut off from the next platform by the buildings separating the platforms. It gave the platform an isolated feel, with its own environment and personality. I also remember the fantastic roof with fairly large shrubs growing in it and lots of birds nesting right up in the rafters. The natural taking back ground on the man-made. Just how a train station should be with loads of character not like the new St. Pancras, which I must admit feels much safer and less grimy but lulls you into a false sense of security in my opinion, masking over something more sinister maybe. They’ve just added another nothingness place, another airport space with escalators, concrete and squeaky floors. Another hospitable, universal, multi-national, androgynous “Welcome to London”.

This is a picture of Crewe station through some archways in the platform opposite ours, directly opposite where we were sitting for two hours. To me it looks like an Escher picture with the steps through the archways encouraging you to look through. Its strange because it looks like its been designed as a functioning space but you cant walk through it because you would have to walk across the tracks to get to it. It is unachievable, out of reach, like looking at a painting of a landscape or through a window.

Observing the Northern people (or at least the people in the station!, they may well have not been all Northern) I felt a certain more of a passion for life, an embracing of life, not being too analytical of the moment or caught up in one’s self. I like that a lot. Its a trait I once discovered and attempt to incorporate it into my own life. Once I did discover it, it was like being born again, which I believe is something which happens a number of times throughout one’s life as one learns new things, reads and so-forth. As one goes through periods of lust, search for satisfaction, achievement of satisfaction, and then the gradual onslaught of lust again, how anyone manages to be married is beyond me. However, this could just be me projecting my currently positive outlook onto everyone around me, perception is projection and all that jazz.

In the station there were many people passing through. Northern girls, students, general people. One girl who sat down on the bench next to ours had a familiar perfume on and I found myself catching gusts of it and breathing it in. A fantastic trait of life that, the triggering of the mind by the senses or at its purest the sheer smell of a woman. Although actually they probably smelt like Calvin Klein or something of that nature, not that it bothers me greatly, you get used to it don’t you? She was incessantly using her phone. She was wearing light coloured jeans and a green top. She had dark brown hair and was buxom bodied but not really attractive so to speak. I would say she appeared to have a fun loving aura, a typical northern lass, hitching about to keep warm on the chilly seat, arms crossed, a fairly content expression on her face.

Lunch brought tasty Avocado and salmon sandwiches. Feeling very relaxed I took in the surrounding and sounds, and basked in the prospect of the adventure to come! Funnily enough the girl who’s perfume I was getting high on got up and I noticed she was sporting a healthy hole in her jeans in a most compromising place exposing flesh that definitely offered the promise of something more by her bum, the jeans material fraying around the gape. It was most enjoyable although slightly perturbing and I felt a bit like informing the girl just in case she hadn’t noticed. You never know she might have let me stitch it up for her. Obviously she would have had to take them off for that. Again I diverge terribly! In the end I put it down to Northern Fashion because I noticed it again on another student-esque girl walking around. I passed comment to Tom who unsurprisingly also noticed it. Most humorous.

So I looked to my left and there was a Liverpudlian gangster and a couple of scallywag lads! I guy with the cream logo on his hat reminded me of Creamfields and provided me with plenty of nostalgia having attended the dance music festival a couple of time in my more youthful teenage days.

The weather was overcast, although not especially cold, a slight chill hung in the air, nipping at my nips. The air smelt as sweet as a baby tree breathing its first breath of carbon dioxide… This place really is less polluted than down south. And I’m sitting in a train station where grim and grit manifests itself, sticking to passing people, mixing and being transported to another host!

Crazily enough about twenty five police men and women got on the train at about one thirty. It was strange to assess the atmosphere as they all arrived and then congregated on the train like it was some kind of staff party. To begin with you couldn’t help feeling like it was a terrorist attack or they were about to arrest someone on the train. As you can see in the picture above, it was swarming with police. They looked very strange wearing their uniforms and all looking the same, like a gang, almost alien. Wearing that uniform they become higher than civilian status, and yet, they are still human like the rest of us, cut from the same mould. The uniform, perhaps, attempts to bestow a level of perfection to the imperfect human. Is there any difference between this and a gang?

As I sat on the bench observing the general activity, I caught the eye of an attractive snub nosed girl on the train, stopped at the station. She looked at me, we made eye contact, but immediately she looked away. The eye contact was, I think I could tell, initiated by her. I caught her out looking at me. I kept flicking my eyes a few more times to see if she was still looking, but I think she had learnt her lesson, and with pride tainted, buried her head in her newspaper and discontinued our unspoken communication. Ah, the games we play. What if, that girl acted on her impulse, jumped off the train and flabbergastedly expressed her deepest desires for me? Or I acted on a whim and jumped on the train, proposing that I couldn’t find anyone else for me and she was probably the one for me? Or maybe not.

Tom arrived back from the coffee place within the platform building and handed me a large latte which I had requested from him earlier. It was a very good coffee. I felt I had taken to drinking far too much coffee recently with work and such. However, this was a good coffee not the instant rubbish and it certainly had it’s place and made it’s presence felt. Its bitter taste and strong, smooth milky texture and clarity-inducing properties were well received and it served to further feed my observant and reflective mood I was experiencing. However, I did note to myself that the coffee tasted slightly too good to be true and was a signifier that coffee is indeed addictive. Caffeine is actually part of the coffee plant’s protection system acting as a natural pesticide that paralyses and kills certain insects feeding upon them. So probably good and bad effects of drinking too much of it. It might kill a few parasites and burn a small hole in my stomach. I digress.

Our train for Edinburgh arrived abruptly and snapped me out of my comfortable reflective mood. We flowed our way onto the train after cycling from one end to the other discovering the bikes were at the back of the train which appeared to be the front, either way in the process we managed to not get spleened (verbally condescended upon) for our illicit platform bike riding in this instance. After securing our bikes in the designated compartment of the train we entered the passenger area and met Mark, our other partner in the adventure at exactly one fixty six Post Meridian. Initially we thought we may be going in different directions due to different ticket configurations. However, this turned out not to be the case.

A jovial meeting with Mark was followed by an additional tinny of beer following the cheeky pint consumed in the station bar, not half an hour earlier. Unfortunately I found myself wanting on the money front for purchase of beer concerning cash, a theme of the trip. However, the trusty debit card proved to be most handy in purchasing a tasty Heineken to smoothe the journey. I felt at this stage happy to be making progress, and surprised at how smoothe the journey had proceeded thus far.

The train had left the station but ten minutes ago and I was starting to notice the change in scenery to becoming more hilly. Anecdoting this information to Mark and Tom, the term “trainsition” was bandied around with much joviality.

Preston station – large pumpkins Wallace and gromit’s metallic dog. Caution slippery floor.

Passing through different stations, I believe Preston station was quite modern and Lancaster university was not a pretty place, I had to admit, at least the bit one could see from the train station. As we headed out into the Dales, I felt a pang of nostalgia as I missed being at York university and spending many many a happy hour riding about them with my riding buddies eating whole Christmas cake and drinking black coffee. God bless you all. Additionally, I noticed as we passed through the rolling countryside, the disappearance of any rape seed fields. The distinctive yellow patchwork was absent from the natural tapestry unveiling before us.

Moving along we passed through the Lake District with huge hills of note, meandering rivers, beautiful stone cottages and steep moorland covered in tip hooving sheep. Meticulous ancient stone walls went on endlessly snaking through the fields, with more quaint industrial terraces and scattered stony outposts.

The breathtaking landscape was incredible to see after being couped up in an office working. Call it cabin fever, call it what you like, I love seeing the world and getting out into the countryside. I felt like I was going the farthest away from home I could go without leaving the country, it was pushing another boundary. The prospect of things to come, the jokes with Mark and Tom and the site and surrounding made me feel almost woozy. The unknown really makes one feel alive, as long as you have money, its the only way to be. Unfortunately, some time has to be spent earning money.

Noticing the Scottish accent for the first time after passing through Carlyle station was music to my ears. The stonework on the buildings was different again at the station, lighter and colder than earlier. We passed through Carlyle station about three. The landscape post-Carlyle is flatlands with hills in the distance, an aperitif for the adventure to come. The travelling of the day caused me to get that furry feeling in my mouth from drinking too much coffee, beer and fast-food. Nevermind though, this was not about having fresh breathe, smelling nice or looking smart, this was about survival goddamnit and a bit of smelly breathe wasn’t going to hold me back! Zooming through uncharted territory on the train, the landscape blended into one long film reel of increasingly impressive countryside. I sat back in the train seat feeling relaxed, looking forward to getting to the next station and making progress from Edinburgh on the final stint to Inverness. Mark distributed his trademark of the trip, Fisherman’s Friends, which, I noted, contain Creosote. Mark, in response to this, conceded that he did not know and reeled off a number of potential ingredients including sugar, and a number of other things I didn’t understand off the back of the packet, none of which included creosote. At this, I was disappointed, due to the fact I was sure they did contain creosote, or had it been some alternative hard-core cold remedy. I settled at this, breathed in the air through my sensually enhanced nostrils and admired the rolling hills, blurring passed the window. The sky contained broken clouds partially concealing the sun. The landscape was less green and a harsher environment as we approached Edinburgh, a closer range of flora and fauna could only survive with more pine trees and less deciduous.

We arrived at Edinburgh station and it was a pretty small, well lit space. The sun was out. There was an air of excitement in it, possibly due to the student-tinted population. Also due to the fact that Edinburgh is a fantastic place where I must spend more time in the future, and I will at the Edinburgh festival in the not-to-distance future. One alighted the train with one’s bikes, with Mark and the effervescent Allen. I perceived that this was the stuff of heroes, what we was gonna take upon ourselves. Party, lets go, why not, move move move, indeed. Shards of lights penetrated the shadows from the lifeless concrete building blocks of the station, rippling colours of indigo and violet danced amongst warm glowing rays upon every object. My eye was wandering about as it does, and spotted some beautiful Scottish women, I noted to Mark and Tom that getting away from home and the local gene pools does tend to give one “stirring loins”, so to speak. An urge to copulate with the locals was indeed experienced. Whilst observed I sighted a sleek bodied blonde with a slightly concave face. She was a stunning example of a free human being and I felt glad that she would go forward in her life armed with high spirits, positivity and a lust for life. It was a momentous thought which benefited from the momentum of the flow of life in its reasoning and potential to become something deeper. However, it did not, and the lateral thought process was nipped in the bud, like a candle put out by two sleek moistened fingers.

Thomas and I were not scheduled to take the very same train as Mark on this portion of our journey, however, rules were meant to be bent, twisted, and slung about like a dog attacking a small mammal, which eventually breaks, e.g. Broken. We thus threw caution to the windy pops and charged like a herd of wilderbeast (beats) wilder beats, chased by a pack of post-winter, early spring (sparse availability to dense availability of food) induced hunger. Our bikes were flung enthusiastically into the vestibule of the train. However, we were soon stopped in our tracks as an official informed us that we just couldn’t take that amount of bikes (e.g. Three, wow!) on a train at once, it would surely collapse and take out a small graded building. Luckily there was a Led Zepellin fanatic named Dave with sunglasses and long hair who growled in a smoke-damaged, bronchitis inhibited voice.

“Get on the train lads, JUST GET ON THE TRAIN, but don’t tell the authorities, Alright, you little trouble makers, I’ll flipping well get you I will, one of these days, by god, darn it, its fruitless, why do i do it, I’m too soft on these young ‘uns’ oh, poop, I’ve soiled m’sen, back in a tick, these company-issued pants wont stand up to the abuse”.

We stood aghast watching the incarcerated gibber-loon as he pilfered the human race of what pitiful pittance was left of it’s pathetic populous of pride. Wiping the acidic dribble from each other’s chins we stood on the train, and grinned and gorped gormlessly at each other, vibrating vibrantly inwardly singing in a chorus of vibrato.

The train reached Innerleithen and I spotted a hot brunette and ripe blonde “forty-something”. The tent which I had brought with me was nine pounds and ninety nine pence from Aldi, I knew I was going have myself a baby wet-one. The realisation of finding somewhere to sleep that night was beginning to dawn on me. I really thought I would be sleeping in a field that night, which would have involved finding our way out of Inverness at about eight hours and thirty minutes in the evening to a suitable plot but hey, if it was going to happen, we would make it work. Living on the edge, the alternative was to fall down the other side into the dewey sea. Speaking of which water is known as god-phlegm in these strange parts. All the questions in my mind, that could not be reasoned out had me turning to other forces of greater enlightenment, I was on the brink of inventing my own god. The trolley person trundled past. A concept of having a debit card installed in his head was conceived because the person’s job consisted of exchanging money for packaged food in an automatic way, normally in westernised countries this has been replaced by vending machines. A little known fact is that a trolley person has an above average IQ, so just think of all the lost ideas and skilled worksmen who turn to the dark art of trolley trundling.

Travelling without moving through Perth and Dunkeld, the surrounding land was still a plateau with some hilly outcrops. Expected arrival in Inverness was eight fifty six Post Meridian. The anxiety and realisation of the situation was beginning to set in and I felt that I wanted to get there and assess the situation. It was most exciting not to have our accommodations arranged and not knowing where we would sleep. Similarly the voids of when, where and how we would eat and drink were to be satisfied which was a tasty morcel of a mental prospect. Bring on the new sites and experiences. On the train to Pitlochry, the scenery looked more like we were approaching a different country. A variety of biodiversity flora and fauna were noted specific to warmer drier climates that offer less nutrients and a harsher environment to the occupants, or an increasingly alpine and scrubland biome. The scenery was reminiscent of Austria or Croatia in the mountainous regions. I observed wide rippling meandering rivers ubiquitous in Scotland and imagined fishermen in waders casting and toiling, tussling with rainbow trout or salmon. The epic scenery made one realise that we were nearing our eight hundred mile from home destination. Moor and dales land strewn with boulders. Snow capped mountains in the distance. I found myself analysing and weighing up the environment, my brain possibly sub-consciously deciphering survival strategies and weighing my abilities against the surrounding. My guestimate on the surrounding high altitude points was six hundred metres above sea level, not too high but overtaking Yorkshire dales scale. There are some big hills in Scotland and they want to play. Rugged, ragged, rustic, rustling, rusty, and hardy deer meandered about the moorland. The deer were incredibly well camouflaged appearing invisible and blending in perfectly with the myriad organic earthy shades in the heath. Deep, dark, greys, reds and browns. One had to feel admiration for any creature which made this terrain it’s home. The only natural predators for these creatures however would normally be wolves, had they not been eradicated (i think) offering gainful reward by poachers, hunters and farmers ridding them of the land to save the livestock. The ground amongst the heath was laced with sharp pointy shards of rock and television-sized bouldered, this is serious terrain, serious bruising time if you came off on that. Palm of hand meeting corner of sharp broken boulder equals head rush, nausea inducing pain, a filthy great gash-wound. In this epic landscape only the hardiest of nature’s plants are able to survive. A shining valley of huge sprawling land masses surrounded by bog posing serious energy sucking potential against bike tyres. Peat and water solution mix filling your freehub like forgetting to put a filter in the coffee machine. The train passed by a rustic sign reading “Drumncular Pass” or something like that. The sun began to break through the ominous cloud which offered a tint of warmth to the cold skies. The bogs all-surrounding were like a giant absorbing grave of decomposition, processing once living to sincerely and deeply dead and recycled.

When we arrived at Inverness, it was quite surreal to be there finally after drifting into a comfortable place whilst travelling on the train. From here on in, it was think fast or die. Well maybe not die, but be cold and wet and possibly die, much later on, after spending a week with no food or shelter or breaking my leg or falling into a ravine full of rabid sheep. We hauled our kit out of the station. I glanced around, and gingerly performed a strange dance involving my clip in shoes and the SPD pedals as my excitement of being there mixed with not quite knowing the next step became apparent. To be more precise this involved clipping in (e.g. Putting my foot into the pedal clip) and clipping out (the reverse) and rambling ideas and next moves to the other guys whilst then bouncing up and down on the suspension of the bike and feeling slightly overdressed for the outdoors amongst the Friday night out populous of Inverness which we were confronted with. Having an aversion to faffing about, the temporary frustration soon built up to making a speedy decision so we decided to head the wrong way down a one way street in the middle of the road, swerving about like a drunken maid? The architecture struck me as being very regal. The museum is located directly ahead of the train station which was the first thing I remember seeing on arrival. However, I could be wrong, please don’t quote me.

Heading towards the river, the atmosphere was excellent. It was a combination of Saturday night out, tantalising adventure, fresh Scottish air, running water, beautiful dramatic topography, and impressive architecture to name a few elements. We were about to embark on an incredible adventure and people were just about to go about their normal Saturday night. The journey here had been so epic all in itself, I half expected a fanfare or a reward of some sort just for overcoming the challenge of getting to Inverness. We turned left at the river and I stopped to put my helmet on, as i wasn’t a fan of riding around in Saturday night traffic with my feet welded to the pedals and the heaviest bag I had attempted to carry on my back whilst riding a bike weaving between traffic and pedestrians. The decision was made to find a Youth hostel as the distance to find a plot out of town with the amount of light we had left was going to be far and didn’t look too promising. Plus, with the atmosphere as it was and the prospect of a beer, meeting some interesting locals and seeing the place a bit became quite alluring. Strangely enough, even with all my gear I didn’t feel like I stuck out like a sore thumb. In my mind, I put it down to the adventurous nature of the Scottish people and the higher probability of such people with tourists and travellers a common occurrence. Our next port of call was the tourist information centre in order to find a youth hostel. However, at this point we didn’t even know where the tourist information centre was so Mark asked a local who directed us up the next street under some scaffolding into the centre. I sat on some steps and looked after the bikes whilst Tom and Mark, investigated cheap hostelry accommodation. Mark returned after finding a hostel telephone number, chatting flirtatiously on the phone to a most promising bubbly girl we later found out was called Kristin and was Canadian. She was the fair inhabitant of the MacBackpackers Youth Hostel. It was located way up yonder by the later to be designated computer generated graphical Inverness Castle (due to it’s eerie lighting giving it an unreal form). We made a meal of finding the place however, and ended up eagerly scaling a couple of steep tarmacked hills in pursuit of Mark, and his interpretation of Kristin’s directions. This gave us the chance to wallow for a short time in the beauty of well prepared bike gears which changed exceptionally smoothly and quickly (a short term luxury, I can report).

Mark came to a halt by a school at the top of the hill as it became quite obvious that we were heading into deepest darkest suburbia rather than to our preferred destination in the bustle of the town. However, a small alteration of our route realised a short cut which lead us directly to the Hostel.

We reached the hostel and I felt very excited to be there, it had been a long journey, and finally we had found shelter to rest our weary legs. It certainly was an unexpected luxury to have the prospect of a comfortable warm bed, ‘possibly’ containing a woman, ‘probably’ not. Staying in the quaint hostel was a great idea. It was a typical local stone building built on the hill above a pub called The Angel, about five hundred yards from the great castle of Inverness in all it’s slightly unbelievable immaculate glory. It was situated on the side of the valley with views from the other side of the building over the river and Tesco. As we entered in there was a door leading down into the dormitories set in the side of the hill in what were previously caves. Then there was the reception containing strange paraphernalia, trophies, the collector’s items of travellers, mascots, bits and bobs, tit bits, little ornamentals, messages of humour and occurrence all in the name of good spirits.

The reception area was a little cubby hole containing a cute Canadian girl called Kristin. Kristin had soft straight mousey brown hair, a rounded face- full of colour, tasty-looking lips and mischievous, but authoritative and slightly innocent eyes. Her figure was not slim, but bouncy, not buxom or flabby, but playful. She had medium sized breasts and was about 5”4. She bounced around, bustled, exclaimed, rambled and tit-bitted in her down-to-earth, matter of fact, slight lack-of-ironic sense of humour, Canadian way. She was wearing a tight Mac Backpackers blue t-shirt and tight fitting jeans. My theory in hindsight it that she teased the guys, knew she could have as many as she wanted but probably shouldn’t because she would get a reputation, she would feel dirty, her grandma wouldn’t like it or some other nonsensical, whimsical reason of illogic fuzziness.

Next to the reception and round the corner was a small kitchen. The kitchen had a yellow colour scheme in that nineteen seventies-had fifteen layers of paint-needs stripping down look, contained a four hob cooker, a microwave, a sink, cutlery and crochery and little cubby-holes to stores people’s food and other culinary wonders. The dining room contained the tools to make free coffee and tea compliments of the establishment. It had a large table with chairs like a school dinner hall adding to the hostel feel. On the wall was a huge map of the world which made my mind wander to lands afar and gave the place an intercontinental feel with pins marking places where previous visitors had come from. There was a cosy living area full of magazines, rugs, two sofas, a bay window looking out over the river, a few chairs, a coffee table with more books and magazines, a computer with internet access and a dreadlock laden lay-about complete with lichen and trousers made from sack. Then on the right was another small living room with a yellow and red, mediterreanen-esque colourscheme with two sofas, three chairs, a fire place and a whole load of books. Once again the wall sported a well-spanning map of die welt (oder milch).

We paid Kristin ten quid each for the rooms although I think Tom may have surprisingly willingly coughed up more and took our stuff downstairs into the dormitories, where our room was number se7en. Initially I jumped on my bed which had a name which was something like fiddler on the roof. Actually it probably wasn’t but it was somehow humorously Scottish and slightly innuendo-laden or kinky. Tom’s bed was called ‘downing whiskey’ and I’m pretty sure one was called sheep-shagger God knows why as that would be Welsh, and don’t hold me to that. I wanted to chill at this point but the other two wanted to fetch some food and have a gandalf for a rucksack bag for Mark. He had brought a couple of panniers which were attached by a dubious looking piece of metal which looked like it could break although it was new, and had evidence of good welding, it just didn’t look practical, thoughtfully-designed or well-engineered. A better design would have been to have a bracketing piece of metal to create a triangle rather than just one free-hanging bit of metal. In order to redistribute some of the weight from the bike which would also improve the handling, Mark intended on buying a modern rucksack designed for biking.

I unpacked a couple of things, retrieved my wallet, and we headed upstairs carrying some dried packet food to eat. I had brought a chunk of pork meat from Aldi, better quality than the tent, with me so we planned to eat that with some bolognese sauce. It was very nicely cooked by Tom and we ate it with a number of refreshing Stella Artois’s which were cracked open and sunk over the duration of the evening. During dinner Kristin came and sat with us and we conversed about a number of things, our respective homes, how long she had been working there, whether she slept with a lot of guys, you know, the usual. We learnt she was from Nova Scotia which was fitting going from New Scotland to Old Scotland, my fuzzy logic seemed to conclude. She had done a few seasons work and been over in Scotland about six months. After we had eaten and become wholly satisfied we moved onto the sitting room. Kristin went off to deal with some new customers in the kiosk. We set down in the first sitting room. After making acquaintances with the room’s present inhabitants I sat on the sofa seat under the bay window at the far end of the room which had an exquisite view across the city and the river. We made some idle chit chat and silly, although highly creative, original, and rhythmically amusing humour. However, the tedium of these childish games soon set in, therefore we hauled ass to the second sitting room, to see if we could get some there. Luckily this room was wholly more socially inviting for a group of like-minded young people who, y’know, just wanted to get along. The conversation was buoyant and the sociable atmosphere attracted some members of the opposite sex including an American from Missouri called Kris and another girl from Latvia called Sarah. We chatted about all sorts of things. The girls enjoyed our sense of humour, well form eye-brows, and quirky but highly educated ways.

The conversation meandered from the surreal to the very surreal. We talked about Pandas, America, badgers and got nicknamed after fruit. I was the apple, Tom was the orange and Mark was the banana. Tom and I were quick to point out that was nothing to do with the size of his mangina. The girls were interested but they were fairly passive apart from laughing a lot and seeming to enjoy themselves. It was interesting actually because it was as though, they found us funny, enjoyed and related to the excitable conversations but really didn’t have much to say, especially the American. I couldn’t help but think secretly that it was down to being American and that she had been brainwashed and trained to talk like a content, buddified, Suburban, automaton monkey. They were like fish in tank who could not get and and had no will to get out, no strength to go from happy apathy in the fish tank to freedom and endless possibility outside the fish tank. Sometimes I feel like I am hanging onto the side of the fishtank gasping for breath and air as I am overwhelmed by the world and my eyes are burnt by the enormity and sheer profundity of everything. My life does not give me enough time to utilise my brains full potential, even working constantly like a crazed rodent building a bed and allowing my subconscious to vegetate in an alpha wave state, e.g. Daydreaming, like inertia of the world. You stop after driving at hundred miles an hour and look around and suddenly you can look at everything that is happening around you. You can pay attention to detail. Contrasting the analogy of the fish in the tank. I / Mark hypothesised that we were like men in stocks who were providing amusement. Who were potentially free, or had been free but had been caught by a ruling class or security measure for committing a foible against the community and put in the stocks to be abused by the villagers. We were free but pinned down by society and then mocked. The fish looking upon us through the fish bowl / fish eye lense of the fish tank glass seeing an even more distorted view of thoughts, fact, opinions, ideas, we came up with which were already vastly distorted, twisted and the product of radiant thinking minds. E.g. They were looking at the sun through a magnifying glass, and they had only just opened their eyes and taken their first look at the world after leaving the womb. After a number of hours of excellent socialising we went to bed.

In the morning we ate breakfast of porridge with dried fruit which was an excellent starter. Then we retrieved our bikes from the bike shed and did some mechanical fiddling including adding more air to my rear shock in order to counter the heavy weight of the rucksack and stop it bottoming out (e.g. Compressing fully with my fat / highly toned arse aided by 60kg of extra weight, muscle weighs more than fat). I tweaked a muscle in my back from swinging my bag over my shoulder too eagerly. This really irritated me. I felt devastated about this because those sort of injuries tended to bug me for at least a week. I decided to think positively and fix in my mind that from experience it was probably better to ride through the ailment and see if it cleared up. Luckily with the bag on my back because I was tensing the muscle the pain seemed to dull and became unnoticeable. A smooth Mexican guy who also worked at the hostel but had just turned up probably from going down on a Swede throughout the evening, offered for me to do some bike maintenance on our return for a free night. This was a most agreeable deal, that is if we made it. We lubed up our chains, tweaked the gears and the brakes, bid farewell to the fine ladies and rolled off down the hill with the full weight of the packs upon our backs.

Following Mark and Tom down past Inverness castle, our objective was to find, before we set off, a rucksack for Mark to redistribute some of the weight from his rather flimsy looking pannier to his back. Initially we tried Fat Face clothing, however, they didn’t open until thirty of the minutes past ten so we had to wait outside on the bench for a while. I already felt fatigued and slightly hung over and I hadn’t even started on the survival stuff or the hardcore exercise yet. I sat back on the bench outside Fat Face and a new shopping centre behind us which I think housed a Mark’s and Spencer’s. The sun was refreshing and glinted in my eye sending shards of light in every direction, like the sunlight penetrating through foliage. It felt beautiful and warm. It was reassuring and comforting that the weather in Scotland wasn’t always as perilous and bleak as it had looked on the train earlier around Pitlochry and Aviemore. However, it was foolish to think that we would get consistent beautiful weather, and to be honest, where would be the bloody fun in that anyway? I had brought a new waterproof for this journey and I wasn’t going to see it go unused. We were sitting there and this van came along with Sweet Home Alabama blasting out of the window. The van stopped out out jumped a guy who looked like a Guns and Roses reject.

The man came towards me. His hair flowed about his face and behind his ears. He was wearing a bandanna around his head to keep his hair out of his eyes. Whispy bits of hair flew about like medusa’s head. He was wearing a short length leather bomber jacket and jeans ripped at the knees with black leather motorbike boots. His dress sense was stereo-typical rocker and he spoke in a quasi-American/Scottish accent although don’t quote me on that.

He ambled over to us gently and enthusiastically gesturing towards my bike, complimenting me on it. His body language was way cool surfer dude. I never really thought my bike possessed a great deal of personality but at this moment I realised I had moved on from my last bike which I loved and had a new baby. My bike was no longer a product, but it was my own. A product of my imagination, customised to my needs. For me, it would be difficult to top this bike for a “do all” bike. With the seat up and clipless (e.g. SPD) type pedals it was a marathon cross country epic trail bike e.g. The type of journey we were about to engage upon. With the seat down, the suspension tuned and flat pedals, preferably DMR V12 magnesiums, this bike was a capable jumping and light downhill machine with Z1 Bomber forks and bombproof Sunn Mammoth Rims purchased at a bargain price, which weighed a tonne but which I always think that just gives you bigger calf muscles and makes you fitter. Once you’ve ridden a heavy bike (although it really is not that heavy) and then go back to a light weight machine, that extra power is like putting a V12 engine in a Mini.

The complement from the rocker guy gave me a feeling of satisfaction that I had put a great deal of effort into my machine and received praise from a fellow mountain biker. It also gave me a feeling of reassurance that my equipment was well prepared for the journey ahead. The guy was called Paul. He was up for the mountain bike world cup at Fort William next weekend and intended to do some biking at the Black Isle in the mean time. He showed us he was the proud owner of a Speshy (Specialised) Enduro, the new 2005/6 version with the beefed frame, fat wheels and Saint drivetrain, aimed at a more Freeride end user. The wheels were clad with some seriously fat tyres. The sort that could kill a rabbit from thirty paces just by looking at it. The guy was just getting into doing some jumping and was loving it. He had a full face helmet and body armour so was properly kitted out for the job. His day job was selling jewellery out of the back of the van, which consisted of bead type things and other bohemian arrangements which evidently sold to the natives and tourist alike, possibly. Or potentially it concealed a darker underbelly of business possibly a trade in cornflakes, maple syrup or crispy badger skins sold as a beef jerky substitute.

We bid farewell to our hairy friend and hauled ass out of there as Mark realised that Millett’s, his all time favourite shop (queue the drums), was about to open.

The first leg of the journey would intentionally cover 36.6 km and navigate the Great Glen way about half way, then break off into the Wilderness, taking in a large hill of about four hundred and fifty metres above sea level before rejoining it and then camping in a la foret of the wooded nature with much jovial campfire making, potentially some campfire ditties, eat some local wild boar barbecued to perfection chewy meat and generally get a great all-round feel of well-being. Well that was the idea. Whether it turns out like that, folks, remains to be seen doesn’t it? Please tune in to the next episode of dangerous things to do before you’re thirty without taking your clothes off. Nah, but seriously.

We got ourselves quickly down to the river and made like a leaf and got out of there. One of them had eyes like jolly ranchers. She was a beautiful girl, a beautiful girl, hum. We rode at a fast pace down the side of the River Ness. At this pace, I thought, it was going to be hard to keep up. However, it wasn’t a race and my mutated upper legs could cope with it after hours of stress hardening in similar environments. So we eventually broke away from the river crossing over and climbed up into Scottish suburbia, a most frightening place, looking like anywhere else in the country, and that’s what was frightening. I felt like, every hill I saw was the opportunity to really get my teeth into this adventure. It was the chance to make it no longer a pipe dream but a living, visceral experience of pain, sweat and pleasure, just like good sex. It was this sort of attitude that found us stopping at the foot of the first large looking hill will was a crowded public walkway heading directly up to nowhere and us considering it with rabid enthusiasm. The fact was there was no need to make it difficult on ourselves. It turned out that the Great Glen way continued to traverse from this point rather than going up. It was a strange one really because there was no indication of the Great Glen way climbing at this point, but we felt inclined to do it anyway. It was like we were a bunch of masochists or something taking any opportunity to inflict pain upon ourselves. Mind you that is the British way, never taking the easy or sensible route and just hoping to get hardcore in the process of acting stupid instead of cheating like the Portugese (a la world cup).

Anyway, after looking at the map we started to traverse a lovely bit of singletrack which went behind some typical new suburban houses. Then we joined a road which we followed a bit and eventually tweaked off and started to make progress away from the urbanised area. The climb was fairly solid along a tarmacked narrow path between beautiful spiky yellow bushes often native the area and to similar environments. I felt inclined to keep up with Tom, as we had been doing a lot of biking together to train for it and this was the generally ethos. I think we also shared a similar level of fitness. Mark at this point struggled behind a bit. He had done a hour of training for our epic journey apart from trials unicycling which luckily you had to be as fit as a fiddle to do and sinuous like a Velociraptor. So due to this, Mark was never far behind. We stopped for a rest just by a new development which looked like a military research unit up on the hill but was probably a college department, which i think it was. Anyway, after re-adjusting my betty swolls and taking a pistol pete we carried on up the proverbial ladder. We past some sort of stately home which looked like it had been turned into an outdoor centre of some description. We became slightly lost at this point because the Great Glen Way was badly signposted and we were shying away from the fact that there was a massive hill in front of us and it was inevitable that we would have to go up it one way or another and there wasn’t a Stanna stair-lift in sight, boyakasha. So we asked some of the local homeboys who were sipping on some Remy Martin and chilling with some old bitches who happened to be long term wives. These mothers knew the way around their block and directed us down a graffiti soaked alleyway into oblivion, e.g. On the way, which was actually fairly obvious and I had noticed it previously, but it was rather conspicuous and not especially user-friendly. Hence we followed the route slapping our homes some skin before leaving them to having their way with their women.

We came across a gate (terrible habit), hauled our bikes over and then started to climb the route which was not a one hundred percent mountain bike route but more aimed at walkers. The conversation was bandied around to decipher where the actually Great Glen Cycle route was, but I don’t think this was it. The Great Glen Cycle route is not longer maintained by the Forestry commission and as far as I know from research the mountain bike route doesn’t actually exist in a maintained state. Anyway the route we were on consisted of switchback firetrack subsected by gates meant to keep livestock in, walkers amused and mountain bikers in supply of get out of jail free cards e.g. Multiple rests and bike hurling duty. We continued to climb up away from Inverness and as I looked around it felt amazing to be leaving civilisation. I’m not a civilised person normally so why would I want to be there anyway. God knows.

We stopped off at the top by a small reservoir next to Chambered Cairn and took some photos.

This is Inverness from our viewpoint by the reservoir. The big building next to the bunch of trees to the right is either the development from earlier or the stately home / outdoor centre I was talking about. Needless to say it was a glorious day. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, damn straight. The yellow bush is the spiky plant I was talking about.

We steamed on into the beautiful forest. It loomed up and felt like entering another world. I commented to Tom and Mark that is like Lord of the Rings country. It was vast, with huge ancient trees covered in lichen in greys, greens and yellows with plethora intertwining vines weaving through the foliage and about the buttresses. Apparently the presence of lichen means the air is exceptionally clean.

We took a turn at a gate right along a fast fireroad. I did my best to help and use my guide skills. At least I tried to keep that on my mind. I felt I had a lot to contribute to the trip from my previous biking and adventuring experience. I helped with some mechanical tweaking and we were away again, riding hell for leather down the fireroad, entirely enclosed by ancient foliage canopy and dusk threatening to descend upon us with a considerable distance to the camping site. I followed Mark. He was pelting it along. I was weary of the pace that was too be set because half of me wanted to see whether I would keep up and the other half whether the others would hack it. I had no idea of Mark’s biking experience apart from a fanaticism with unicycling. I knew more of Tom’s experience but that was really fairly little. I knew Tom had done a lot of riding whilst at Exeter Uni with Mark, which I myself had also sampled. It is very good forest riding and technical. However, I wasn’t aware of Tom’s endurance fitness. My only knowledge was of doing some rides round my home in Leicestershire which are not particularly taxing. Although, with Tom’s ski instructor season and OTC (Officer Training Corp) and tales of biking adventures from uni and general interest in fitness I was pretty confident. I think Tom believed that the trip would enhance his fitness and resilience and improve biking and survival skills, as it would for all of us. This was a good feeling to be adding value to my life once again instead of just sleepwalking my way through.

We reached a clearing in the forest and I slid my bag from my shoulders to the floor with a satisfying thud. We had at least made some progress. The spirits between the group were high. We all sat down and Tom handed out the first batch of the soon to become legendary flapjack. Now this Flapjack is not like any other whatsoever. Its a bit like the texture of eating a piece of rotten but crunchy wood filled with woodlouse but tastes like the greatest fuel packed sugar filled thing you’ve ever tasted. It was incredibly chewy and seemed to survive intact any condition, packaging or transit. It was the sort of stuff one could probably build a shelter out of or start a fire if one needed therefore it had more than just nutritional potential. This stuff was probably getting up there somewhere with gaffer tape for pure versatility in our survival tool-kit. It also had embedded bits of greaseproof paper for extra fibre and to ensure a gradual release of energy.

We sat satisfyingly chewing on the flapjack, grinning and commenting on how awesome it was and the potential of starting a business selling it. To be honest though, Tom seemed unflinching, like he knew perfectly well the quality of the flapjack and would not stand anything less. It was the Linford Christie’s Package of flapjacks. One of Tom’s flapjack would equal at least a thousand Tracker bars. Come to think of it, it could be useful in solving world famine problems because it would sit in your gut and keep you going for about 3 weeks and then it has to be surgically extracted because by this time it has started to eat you and cause gas of a refined-uranium-intensity which is definitely a problem because you end up looking like Krang out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Just a few kilometres more and we the point where we would leave the Great Glen Way and make our first venture into the “wilderness-proper”. The temperature had begun to drop, I changed into a more heavyweight fleece and put on my waterproof for protection from the wind. The weather was starting to bite. The realisation really started to dawn that I was on my own in Scotland for 9 days with these guys and my wits. I mean technically it wasn’t as dangerous as a more ambitious mission but once we were out away from the beaten track it was not hard to feel isolation dawning upon us. Tom and Mark added some more layers and then we consulted the map to make sure we were taking the correct turn. We considered whether to continue on the Great Glen Way rather than take a detour but my feeling was of eagerness to get away from the designated tourist route and I felt Tom and were the same. Our situation in the beginning with regards to the route was that we had over estimated what we would cover each day, so by the map the detour looked pretty manageable. It was just down here, round there, up then down and back on the Great Glen Way again. Really, so simple. It was almost like we had never heard of the saying “The map is not the territory”.

The prospect of some downhill was a satisfying thing to behold and we eagerly threw ourselves into it. I went ahead, I think because I felt the most confident with my bike set up and I wanted to see how I could manage some technical riding with the bag’s weight. Tom came next and Mark followed behind. His pace was quite slow. I think he was either taking it cautiously or weary of the pannier rack snapping. The trail was a very rutted dry old Land rover track with dense dark foliage overhead and multiple puddles masking deep holes. The route was quite fast with a couple of switchback corners. Spirits were high and we grinned at each other. We assessed that we had made it in once piece emerging from the forest onto a hardpack fireroad track. Tom consulted the map, and although his sureness of the route wasn’t especially confidence instilling, we were fresh from the downhill and more downhill seemed like a great idea, so on we went. Tom and Mark rushed ahead and I followed behind. The route rocketed straight down and then round a rooty switchback to the left and down to a fantastic bridge solidly built from huge timbers.

Tom immediately jumped into the role of photographer and climbed down into the river bed in order to take a photo of Mark and I crossing the bridge. After crossing the bridge Mark complained that his brakes were making a rather unfortunate noise of the scraping variety. On closer inspection the brake blocks were worn through to the metal. Mark looked rather sheepish as we began to harvest the fruits of the unserviced bike. I felt as though I could fix the brakes the quickest. Tom handed me the brake blocks and everyone stuck a finger here and there to help secure them into place and we were ready to rock again. Tom commented that we would have to try and find somewhere to pick up some more bike supplies if we could, otherwise basically we were going to have to wing it somehow or another with a piece of roadkill which we could then chew afterwards. Although it always works out alright in the end, so I didn’t mind, just go with the flow.

We continued on a sweeping traversing fireroad that lead to a short climb. The track was worn and poorly maintained, the foliage, dense and fresh smelling. I had overtaken Tom and Mark and ascended to the summit of the hill.. At the top of the hill I noticed two deer that had been quietly grazing there. I stood and looked at them for a second before they noticed up and darted off with incredible speed, agility and precision down worn routes down the hill and into the undergrowth. It was incredible to be so close to these creatures of privacy and it gave me a feeling of being away from civilisation and being out on our own. Mark had also noticed the deer. We shared a moment, looking at each other in impressed amazement before moving on.

We exited the dense undergrowth onto the side of the hill. The view across the valley was breathtaking with Loch Ness lazily drifting its way along the bottom. The landscape was densely covered in bracken of myriad green, brown and red and tall, dense ancient forest. A couple of boats chugged along on the water. All around us were many interwining networked tracks that had been worn into the ground by the deer. They looked like ideal mountain bike tracks. Mark commented to me that I should ride one as I stood considering the rideability one of the trails and admiring the deer’s trail building ability.

“Check this out, look at that drop, I reckon that’s ridable. Mark what do you think?”

“Here give me your bike and try it out.” Mark responded.

In the end I decided to conserve my energy and leave the hardcore downhill to the deers. Evidently it would have been incredibly exciting and impressive to see a deer gap our trail and half expected one to fly over our heads as we carried on (and make pull a backflip, but that’s really taking it a bit far. Or possibly a one-hoofer (queue heckling and rotten vegetable flinging).

The old Landrover track meandered and traversed it’s way around the hillside as we started to descend into the forested area ahead. A number of times I had anecdoted the fact that I had read in the SAS survival guide that it was possible to eat the small twirly green shoots on the ends of baby brackens as a salad and they were called fiddleheads. However, even to myself this seemed a bit far-fetched and Mark was adamant that bracken was poisonous which was why the animals didn’t chow down on it. I felt he may have a point there although I was determined to try a bit to test my memory from reading the book. For some reason it did ring a bell in my head that the old shoots contained a poisonous substance similar to cyanide or something. After some post-trip research I came up with some information. Bracken poisoning causes depression of bone-marrow activity which leads to severe leukopenia – a form of white blood cell anaemia, – thrombocytopenia – an abnormally low blood platelet count – and hemorrhagic syndrome. In addition, the uncooked plant contains the enzyme thiaminase, which can destroy thiamine (vitamin B1) and cause a possibly fatal disease similar to beri-beri in non-ruminants such as horses.

Not very pleasant. But, in addition to nasty effects on the blood Pteridium aquilinum was also found – in 1960 – to be highly carcinogenic causing polyp-type bladder and intestinal tumours in grazing animals who ate large amounts of bracken or were fed bracken-containing fodder. The carcinogenicity of bracken was demonstrated definitively using lab rats, a result that was later reproduced by several research groups.

It was noted – importantly, from the human consumption perspective – that the young fiddleheads, eaten by the Japanese, are actually the most carcinogenic. Bracken is usually vigorously boiled with wood ash or sodium bicarbonate before it is eaten. “It is eaten alone or as one of the vegetables in soup or as a vegetable mixed with rice,” explains chemist Kiyoyuki Yamada of Nagoya University, “cooked bracken is soft and has a good taste that’s difficult to explain in English.” Anyway, I diverge.

The grassy track descended down into the dense forest. We all savoured the chance to go downhill!

As one can see from the photo there were many pesky twigs and branches scattered about which had a terrible habit of becoming stuck in one’s spokes and cassette tempting disaster. We hopped and dodged our way down at break-neck speed, navigating ruts hidden by slippery grass and deadly badgers with sordid thoughts throwing wet soap into our path via tubes.

The trail came out at a clearing and a fork in the track. There were two options, up and down. Guess where we were going? I actually found myself slipping into autopilot and for some reason tried to convince myself that the route would be downhill. I suppose it was a way of staying positive, just thinking that it would get easier round the next corner. So far we had done only about twelve miles but with huge bags almost our own body weight attached to our backs and bikes this was no mean feet and we had been climbing gradually and constantly. Tom checked the map and it was indeed uphill he proclaimed with masochistic glee, spitting sputum from the corners of his face hole.

Mark handed out mouthfuls of energising Kendal mint cake which tasted so sweet and made the mouth water like a weir. It also gave almost instant energy bursts and mental clarity. With this we started ascending the huge climb like there was a rocket inserted into the posterior. The feeling was similar I imagine to attempting to climb a ladder with a brick wall attached to one’s back whilst on speed. I have not actually done this but I have American friends who have and they’re real crazy like P Diddy. They are all dead now mind you.

Each turn of the pedal was like lifting huge dumbbells with the legs. As we hoisted ourselves up the rocky, slippery, rutted, narrow path it made me wonder if any other vehicle could possibly get up it apart from the local rock climbing snow goats. I ain’t afraid of snow goats, Tom proclaimed in his mind and aloud in duality. Although no one could tell whether he had actually said it, or just thought it, and Mark and I didn’t even know whether we had in fact heard it or just thought we heard Tom saying it or thought that he thought it. And on that note the three of us linked our minds creating a large blurry viscous plume of haze containing plethora electric sparks and synaptic pathways. As we used our telekinetic powers to hoist our way up I would remark that it was not dissimilar to the speed at which a roller-coaster ascends on it’s way to a huge drop, which at least, gave me hope for the descent. Click, click, click, chug, chug, chug….I used this very fact as a positive affirmation in my mind and remarked numerous times to Mark and Tom providing a most stimulating and intoxicating thought for the adrenal glands and senses. I once read a quote or a headline from MBR (Mountain bike rider magazine) that described the process of riding to the top of a huge climb of developing a: “get me to the top mantra”. I felt this described the situation perfectly and on numerous times it popped into my head. The process of cranking repetitively toward the top over stimulates the motor-cortex of the brain into a repetitive alpha wave state allowing the unconscious thoughts to begin to penetrate and for the mind to meander off on endless wondrous associative thought adventures into the abyss. The other almost insane thing is the ever present but fading in and out looping over and over of various tunes completely arbitrarily picked as a lubricant for the brain, by the brain without any concious thought by the individual. The mind just drops into a complete trance which goes some way to explain why I love mountain biking and some electronic formats of music which share repetitive elements overlaid and complemented with subtle and varied multitude of changes, textures, crescendos and fortissimos.

About half way up the climb, I collapsed from the bike into a heap of endorphin soaked bliss and sweaty, salty joy. Mark and Tom arrived and more Kendal was consumed. On we continued and eventually reached the top of the climb. We had climbed 300m within the space of about a mile as the crow flies. The route then continued to climb and the surroundings became more and more desolate with less and less vegetative cover. The temperature was noticeably lower and the clouds had closed in. We had left the microclimate of the forest. I was drinking a fair amount of water and shovelling dried fruit. We rested at the top of the next big climb where many mixed nuts were distributed and heartily consumed. As we sat here slumped next to our bikes there was still a clear feeling of disbelief of how much we had climbed. There was also a natural survival instinct which kicks in. Tom and Mark are serious personalities, strong people, and in situations of stress one can see the best come out in people. I felt reassured that my friends were up to the challenge and I couldn’t think of anyone else who I would rather have on this adventure with me. Interestingly I found my ability to express myself sway in and out of control. Sometime I felt clammed up like I did then almost like a primeval instinct to succeed in that situation had brought out competitive spirit and now we were resting I felt ‘socially’ I hoped Mark and Tom didn’t think I was trying to race ahead. My mind sometimes became hypersensitive to things although the feeling was only temporary and mostly I would hazard a guess fuelled by a society which puts overemphasis on constant social interaction on a superficial level involving a great deal of hiding real feelings behind pretense, combined with a lack situations where one is taken out of the comfort zone. An example is if you took someone from the big brother house and stuck them on a wilderness skills course in the the mountains without warning the person would have to adjust from intensive social ability practice to using completely different parts of the brain.

We sat there and we tried to fathom where the route was. There were a couple of tracks which both looked equally navigable. We took the right path and pushed the bikes arduously through thick heather covered singletrack until the path clear and widened and the foliage disappeared and we emerged on desolate heathland nearing the summit of the mountain. Some of the path was rideable but the terrain involved huge slabs of rock jutting out of the group inter dispersed with large areas of bottomless soggy peat. The progress involved pushing, riding, navigating the intensely slippery surfaces and trudging through the peat creating soaking wet shoes and sapping energy. The views were fairly incredible now as we could see all the way across the enormous valley enveloped in a pea soup thick mist and threatening to rain. The next section of trail questioned whether we had taken the correct route as it turned into rock climbing territory for about fifteen metres. I bike hiked my way up it gingerly stepping from one algae covered rock to another balancing all the weight on my bike with the task of remaining upright and ascending the climb. I helped haul Tom’s bike up and then Tom and I helped haul Mark’s pannier laden bike which didn’t lend itself to this sort of thing because it was very heavy whereas Tom and I were carrying most of the weight on our backs. Re-mounting our bikes at the top and slowly continuing along, I felt excited that we were nearing the top and would soon be enjoying the first proper descent. I felt intrigued and interested in how Tom and Mark were finding it so far but didn’t want to marr anyone’s confidence or disrupt the equilibrium by continuously enquiring. When biking like this there are extended periods where we were just riding and not speaking much. I felt it necessary to keep on a similar wavelength as my fellow riders in order to judge how they were doing and to keep taps on myself.

The trail swooped through a bleak vegetation-less valley and up promisingly over the brink of the hill teasingly to the summit (we hoped). As we cranked our way along dodging rocks, judging routes of least resistance and shifting our weight around on our bikes to maintain balance on the unnervingly slippery rocks we came across a small dried out pool with what I thought was a small lizard. Mark arrived and looked at the creature, exclaiming that it was actually a newt. It was a strange site to see up here. I was puzzled why it was there, it seemed out of it’s normal habitat. Mark dribbled some water onto it, and it twitched slightly suggesting life. He picked it up gently and took it too a puddle and lay it by the side in a hope that it may breathe some life back into it. Feeling satisfied with our conservation work I continued on slogging up to the brink of the hill, I pushed my bike up, SPD clips tapping on the rocks.

At the top the view stretched across the entire of the next valley and I felt a real sense of satisfaction from travelling under human power. Previously I had not done many long biking adventures, with most rides being maximum eight hours long or a weekend. During my time as a bike guide in Croatia the maximum rides had been up to five hours. Similarly biking with the mountain bike club at University at York had involved loops starting early in the Yorkshire Dales or Moors and finishing before or early into the evening. The sense that I would not be going back to where I started that day was particularly refreshing. It was a good feeling to be breaking out of my previous experiences which was one of the aims of the trip and a major aim for future trips and life in general!

Tom dropped the bike and ran clambering up through the heather to the pile of rocks at the summit and Mark and I chased after him shouting and egging each other on. I stood there in the moist fresh atmosphere and took a huge gulp of breath, and slowly breathed it out. I felt life entering my veins again after being couped up in an office like a rabbit in a hutch. Feeling invigorated I ran half tumbling back down the hill and eagerly climbed on the bike to start the descent that awaited.

The downhill was a pure two miles of gravity assisted glee which descended four hundred metres in altitude. The terrain was highly technical even without huge bags loading us up. The trail was about land rover width with up to two-foot drops scattered randomly along its way, ruts and trenches littered down it, television sized boulders, knife sharp slate and to go with it there was basically a river running down it adding lashings of lubrication. Needless to say the going was hedonistic and very hairy indeed.

We gathered our thoughts before starting the trail, with the intention of just going for it and hoping for the best. I threw myself into it launching down each drop and step up hoping my bike would hold up with the extra weight and pounding. I skipped down picking my route exiting the trail, up onto the grass at the side, then re-entering the rocky fray, shifting my weight as I fish tailed down at a rocket pace. With no chance to check the others for fear of losing concentration I didn’t notice Tom having trouble with his bike. His SPD (pedal clips) were causing him problems and had caused him to fall off whilst clipped in. I stopped and turned to see Tom’s bike rolling and flipping down the hill. Tom had thrown it a pure, shear utter rage accompanied by roars of frustration. Mark was making good progress in front of Tom and didn’t seem to notice the drama. As I re-met up with Tom he was cursing profusely about the “Stupid SPD pedals”.

“How the hell are you supposedly to ride in these bloody things”. He exclaimed.

“They’re a bloody nightmare.”

For about the next fifteen minutes we endured a barrage of swearing and cursing about the pedals. Tom stopped, sat down on the sodden ground and changed out of his specialist SPD shoes, replacing them with his huge black army standard issue army boots. I couldn’t think of anything worse to ride in – these boots against SPD pedals offered about as much grip as a frog against a windscreen covered in fairy liquid.

To make up for this slightly disappointing occurrence the last bit of the downhill was very fast. It swooped down through technical double track and careered through ancient silver birch forest. It provided a comparatively clear and fast run down to the road and back onto the Great Glen Way. Once we reached the bottom only wide grins could be seen across our faces.

I have made an executive decision to make my writing slightly more concise otherwise I will never finish the bloody thing.

Back on the Great Glen road we whacked our waterproofs on as the bloody awful weather began to set in. From the road there were great views across the valley. The landscape was patchwork fields coloured in shades of green dulled by the grey skies. A farmer could be seen herding his sheep in the middle distance. In this sparsely populated area were just a few farm houses with occasional angry dog or Land Rover. After about five minutes of pedalling down the round we took a right down a flat swoopy section of gravel singletrack path which lead towards the forest where we would be camping. Half way down this track we noticed a camp site and decided to investigate. A strange sign indicated the direction of the campsite but there was no particular evidence of human life or a campsite which was intriguing. We walked along a wood chip path amongst many recently forested tree stumps and strange wooden huts raised off the ground. At the end of the path was a ramshackle settlement consisting of a caravan and a large dog kennel housing about five calf sized dogs, white in colour, which looked more like the wolves which used to roam the highlands in days gone by. No sooner had we seen the bounding beasts than a red-headed woman dressed in scruffy clothes with her sleeves rolled up appeared from the smallholding. We enquired about the campsite and the possibility of getting a pitch for the night. It turned out that the forested area was the campsite offering a rather uneven surface and no amenities. Also the water was about one click continuing down the track we had arrived on. We decided not to stop and continued along the track to the water point. Here we refilled and then made a quick decision to find a campsite in the adjacent wood as the darkness was setting in and we were already well in the grips of twilight. This seemed a good idea, so after ambling tiredly along a fireroad, feeling hungry and sore we found a clearing in order to make camp.

The site wasn’t ideal or especially pretty but it was sheltered and had plenty of fuel about. There was a bird-watching hut which provided additional shelter and a place to put the bikes and hang up clothes to air. After a few minutes of getting ourselves into some drier clothes we set up the tents and searched for wood for the fire of which there was plenty about. Tom quickly dropped into a role of cook investigating what to make for dinner. Mark and I didn’t complain as he is a good cook and it would be interesting to see what ingenious feast was in store. Due to tiredness, I did feel a bit at the end of my tether. Half of me wanted to find a more idealistic campsite. I felt strangely miffed at the fact we were stopping on what was basically a man-made track and not in the middle of some isolated moorland. I expected something more ‘out there’ but there was plenty of that to come and after all, a lesson I learnt was, that survival is making the best of what one has whatever the situation.

We lay about the campfire as close as we could without getting singed, not really saying much, feeling tired and slightly overwhelmed. My clothes refused to dry out at all and after a dinner of flavoured rice and some dried fruit, we retired to bed. I left my shoes next to the fire in an attempt to dry them. The pitiful tent I bought from Aldi for a tenner was utterly terrible. In this situation I really got what I paid for. Mark had bought one too so we were both in the same situation. The tent didn’t have a fly sheet and I woke up numerous times in the night with a wet sleeping bag, water dripping on my head and worrying about never being able to dry anything out. I didn’t sleep very well and it annoyed me to hear Mark snoring happily and to know that Tom was blatantly nice and bloody warm in his army bivvy and ridiculously warm sleeping bag. This was my perception anyway. The dark damp forest with it’s noisy nocturnal creatures was getting to my mind. I was glad when morning arrived and exasperatingly packed my stuff in a obsessive ordered rush, attempting to dry my tent and sleeping bag with a stray sock which just got really soaked quickly and was fairly useless. We ate porridge with dry fruit for breakfast and breakfast bars. I had a really satisfying poo crouching round the corner in the heather whereas the other guys refused to which i found highly amusing and not very survival-esque at all. Eventually we had all our stuff packed up. I swung the ridiculous weight of the bag onto my back and thought “Jesus, it really is too heavy” but carried on regardless believing that something had to give at some point but it wasn’t going to be my will to carry on.