Sunday 25th (Cont.) - Tuesday 27th - Fern
Where was Bertie? He was at Gardener's Cottage campsite in Fern
Weather: Wild, in Storm Boelo, with forecast winds topping out at 66mph.
As I finished typing my last post, in the middle of Sunday, the winds were just peaking. We continued to get walloped throughout the afternoon and into the night, although it calmed down enough by evening to allow me to do the dash from Bertie's pitch to the dishwash, a distance of around 15m. I caught my foot on some tree debris on the way, but managed to stay on my feet.
Monday morning came and with it a quandary. Once we'd left the campsite and headed 10 miles north, I didn't really want to have to backtrack, but the weather forecast for Tuesday (55mph winds) was such that it would be beneficial to be back in a sheltered spot with electricity. To sit still for another two whole days, or to go out and come back? I couldn't bear the thought of the former, so we extended our stay with the campsite and headed out for another recce.
Mick was to drop me just N of the Caterthuns (hill forts, N of Brechin), and we got there without any drama. Some big trees had come down, but the local community had obviously been busy (I can't believe it was the council acting so quickly) and all had been cut through and the roads cleared, with the only exception being that there was a cone blocking the turn we wanted to use to get to my start point, which we guessed was probably due to an uncleared tree on that road. Fortunately there was another way around that was only a couple of miles further. Mick then drove around to Edzell and visited Sinclair's Larder (cafe), whilst I walked there via a rather longer route.
The recce was a particularly successful one (I'm not sure why it feels unsuccessful when I'm sent out to, say, find potential camping pitches, and I find none, as I can't magic up something that's not there and I've still found valuable information, but it always feels better to find that routes go and places you could pitch a tent are plenty) and despite a forecast of heavy rain all morning, I only got wet in the final 2km. Mick had walked out to meet me, so he also got caught, and he'd not troubled to don anything waterproof, but it wasn't heavy enough to make him uncomfortable.
A trip to Brechin followed to sort out the empty state of Bertie's fridge, then back to the campsite it was, where the owners had surveyed the property in our absence and found they'd lost 16 trees the previous day - happily none near any of their pitches.
Tuesday was our final day of sitting around on the campsite. The forecast did improve slightly, but with wind speeds peaking at over 50mph, it wasn't a day to be out and about.
Wednesday 27th - Glen Lethnot and Glen Esk
Where was Bertie? He spent a night at the road end in Glen Esk.
Weather: We had another of those bizarre nights that was warmer than the days either side. Otherwise, to my recollection it was dry and bright.
Wednesday's plan had been a leisurely morning at the campsite, a visit to a cafe in Edzell, then an afternoon drive up Glen Esk, to position for a recce I would do on Thursday, as the wind on Wednesday was still a bit higher than I would prefer for a long, hard bike ride (by my standards; not by any competent cyclist's standards). Friday's plan was that Ali & Adrian (who were journeying over to meet us for a few days) would drive me up Glen Lethnot so I could recce a route over to Glen Esk, where I would rendezvous with Mick. Accommodation issues for A&A meant this plan would involve more back-and-forthing of Bertie than was sensible (if he was going to drive up Glen Esk, it made sense for him to only do it once), so my revised plan was that Mick would drive me to the foot of the Glen Lethnot, and I would tack an 8km road walk onto the front of the recce. Mick would then (via another solo cafe stop - I'm really not doing well for cafe visits on this trip!) pick me up in Glen Esk on our way up to the end of the glen for the morrow's recce.
Had a vehicle come along soon enough, I would have happily stuck out my thumb and taken a lift up the glen, but it's a quiet road (so quiet, and so open, that in hindsight it wouldn't have been any problem to drive Bertie up there). Two cars passed me on their way out of the glen, but the first on its way in was when I had 2km to go, and weighing up the inconvenience to the driver of having to make multiple stops to pick me up and drop me off, I decided it wasn't worth troubling them at that point. A while later, I came to realise that I hadn't put the gpx file of the recce route on my phone, and after a phone call to Ali (it's amazing where phone signals reach in Scottish glens these days!), I ended up walking a further 1km up the road, so I probably should have flagged down the estate vehicle.
It was a pleasant walk between the glens, with no access issues but a dearth of good camp spots, and I reached the Fernybank Bridge to find Mick walking towards me.
The car park at the end of the glen was surprisingly quiet, and by dark we were alone, although not for many hours as at around 8pm two other motorhomes arrived at the same time. By everything we observed the following day, it was just freak timing and they weren't together.
Thursday 28th
Where was Bertie? He arrived in the car park of the Park Hotel for a 3-night stay. Happily, his favourite level spot - just about the only one without any tree branches in the way - was available.
Weather: A lovely sunny morning, with a bit of cloud building later.
I was a little jealous of our motorhoming neighbour in Glen Esk this morning, as he headed out on his electric mountain bike. I was an hour behind him on my manual bike, with the expectation that I would only make it 6 or 7km through my route before I had to continue on foot.
I was thus chuffed to bits, as I ground my way in first gear up the final significant climb on the route, to realise that I was going to make it the whole way to my destination of the Stables of Lee.
Having stopped to do all the necessary explorations on the outward leg, there was nothing to stop me whizzing back down the glen as fast as I dared, which isn't very fast at all, but a whole lot quicker than the outward leg had been. That said, there were still a couple of first gear inclines on the way back, but neither of them was long.
I'd just passed the old cemetery at the E end of Loch Lee, when I heard a shout behind me. Mick had just walked out of the graveyard to see a bike going past, and a few moments later realised it was me. Good job he left when he did, otherwise we would have passed like ships in the night and I'd have been back at Bertie, without any keys to get in, wondering where Mick had got to!
The ride had been hard on my shoulders, wrists and back, so I was perfectly happy to dismount at that point and walk back with Mick.
After another hour of loitering in the car park, we headed out and over to the Park Hotel, where later in the evening we had a Traitors-viewing party in Ali & Adrian's room.
Friday 30th - House of Dun
With all of my recces now complete, we had nothing on the agenda for today, so we drove out to House of Dun, a National Trust for Scotland (NTS) property. Entry to the house is by guided tour only, and a good tour it was, although with the slight complaint that it would have been nice to have had a minute to look around each room once the guide had finished her spiel. A couple of times I found myself scurrying to catch up with the group (a small group, with just 6 of us), on one occasion wondering where it was they'd gone.
Just last Friday, the property finished an inventory of all the books that were left in the house when it was handed over to the NTS in the 1980s, including a first edition King James bible, and a full set of unread first edition JM Barrie books, signed by the author. The guide said that they're hoping to start some themed tours next year, including one focusing on the books, so I need to check when we're in the area in May whether that has come to fruition.
Back in Montrose, and with A&A back from their recce up in Stonehaven, we convened for dinner in Bertie. It was as we sat down to eat that we turned on the lights in Bertie's lounge area, which should have been unremarkable, except that soon after finishing our meal, suddenly all the lights went off. That was somewhat concerning, as it was clear that the control unit had shut down, and when it came back on we realised that was because the leisure battery had dropped below 11v. Considering we'd had a good amount of sunshine and had been for a drive, and thus had a full battery at sunset, and had used no appreciable power except for the lights (which are all LED), and further given that we have a 150Ah battery, that most definitely should not have happened and thus my assessment last week that the leisure battery wasn't quite dead yet may have been somewhat inaccurate.
We ran the engine for 15 minutes, whilst we did the dishes, at the end of which the battery was reporting itself to be full again. That could easily have been a false reading, but three hours later, it was still full, and even by this morning it had only dropped to 12.5v. Unfortunately, we're not going to be anywhere long enough to get a new battery delivered to us, so we'll just have to manage with what we've got for another week.
Saturday 31st - Montrose
Opening day for entries to TGO Challenge East, so Mick was going to be occupied from late morning, but we were free earlier on, so we partook in parkrun, during which we established that we are still not fully recovered from whatever lurgi we both caught three weeks ago. In my case, my throat & upper respiratory tract were sore again and every time I gently jogged for a couple of minutes, my heart rate would shoot up into the 190s.
I thus sat around for the rest of the day, as I suppose did Mick, but he was working. I ventured over to the hotel bar for lunch and again at tea time, even though I had no appetite for the latter. We then retreated for our final night in the car park for this trip.
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