Knoydart II

In that semi-awareness between sleep and wakefulness, I realised that my knees were freezing. It struck me as an odd part of the body to feel cold, and it was only as I started to wake up that I noticed my knees were against the side of the tent. A short time later we discovered the tent was covered in frost.

Actually, the whole of Knoydart was covered in frost. And the mountain we were due to climb was covered in ice. Bad idea, so I stuffed my jacket with some snacks and off we went to Rough Bounds, across the Braomasaig plateau, and up Sgurr Coire nan Gabhar to have a look at Loch Bhraomisaig, which supplies the town water as well as electricity, though a hydro-electric system. There's a large monument on the way, built by a past laird. Apparently locals used to burn things there as a sign of disdain for the laird. Not sure I would have bothered with the ascent just for a bonfire, but I'm also not much of a mountain climber, as we discovered.

Rough Bounds is as it sounds. Garry practically skipped up the

mountain, while I stumbled around working out my footing. Garry described me as walking like a penguin with a coordination issue, and tried to teach me a better technique for getting up the slopes. It took a while to learn, and there was a lot of spoon feeding while I worked out where the hell to step without landing flat on my face. After falling into a few mud holes and using the fence to hoist myself up the hill, we made it to the top for a snack and a few well deserved photos. Given my total lack of climbing skill, it was probably a good thing we didn't do the taller mountain anyway - I need more climbing practice!

We had a great view of Ladhar Beine (pronounced "Larvin"), which was covered in snow and ice, and made me quite glad I was on the lower slopes instead of high up in the cold. We refilled my water bottle from the loch, and Garry added a chlorine tablet which made it taste like a swimming pool. Didn't get sick though, there's a lot to be said for drinkable water.

Of course, there were the obligatory photos, followed by the descent, where I finally got the hang of zig-zagging down the hill. I only landed on my bum once, so am considering it a success. Because I was so slow, we didn't have enough time to walk along the ridge. Still had some great views, and I'm glad we did something, if not what we had planned.

Back to the campsite for a quick pack up, and onto the boat back to Mallaig. There was another boat waiting at Mallaig, and within a couple of minutes our luck had changed and we were en route to Armadale.