I'd had a good night's sleep in front of the fire and the room was still warm in the morning. With very little wood left I had to use my gas stove to make breakfast and my morning coffee. Now with daylight shining through the window I could better see the living room and could take a closer look at the mural painted on the wall. It was a celtic symbol with what looked like two dragons heads attached. Below the painting was a large wooden table with candelabra, a perfect setting for playing dungeons and dragons. I felt that I would one day have to come back with friends and spend a weekend being dungeon master as they battled goblins and orcs. On the wall next to the door was a notice board with the usual notices about looking after the bothy and keeping an eye on the fire so as not to set fire to the bothy, there was also a printed map of the area surrounding the bothy that someone had made. It too resembled an old d and d style map. It indicated where you could find wood or cut peat as well as the routes to the nearby villages. Marked on the map where other interesting places to explore such as the spa, which I could only imagine would be freezing cold, a stone for thinking and a cave. It was all very intriguing and I found the temptation to stop another night too much to resist. I was behind on my blogs as well so the little stop over was very much welcome. With my mind made up i decided to seek out the toilet which I found hidden round the back. With the door wide open and me sat on the throne I gazed at the views if the hills. It was going to be a nice sunny day. The toilet wasn't plumbed in exactly as there was no water main running out to the bothy so flushing required the use if a bucket filled with water from the water butt outside.
I was quite getting into the bothy lifestyle now so grabbing a large plastic box and bow saw I headed of to the woods indicated on the map to collect some dead wood or driftwood from the shore. The way down was quite boggy and wet in places and rocky on slopes in others. Reaching the wood I scouted round and found some nice sized branches that I cut down to size and loaded into the large plastic box. With the box full I began to make my way back to the bothy. It was hard going on my own the box weighing at least 25-30kg. Stopping every 10-20 metres it took almost an hour to haul the firewood back up the rocky slopes and across the wet bogs. Getting back to the bothy I made a coffee and went to get my knife so that I could split the logs ready for later that night. My intention was to then explore the rest of the mystical map pinned to the notice board. I rummaged around and then emptied my pack out but couldn't find my knife anywhere. It then dawned on me that it must have been left in my old pack on skye which had been thrown into the bin after transferring everything across. I'd relaxed so much and had become preoccupied with trying to find the missing blogs on Facebook that I'd neglected to make a final check of my kit. I had the choice of staying at the bothy an extra night or trying to contact the owners of the cottage before the bin men arrived to collect the rubbish. Before making my final decision I took my phone to the highest point I could see to try and get a signal but there was nothing. I knew I would need a good solid knife to get me through winter so decided I'd have to leave craig and head towards the next village or certainly further inland to get a signal.
Back in the bothy I collected my kit together and double checked I'd not left anything behind before heading away and up into the hills. The path from craig was easier to follow than the one I'd followed the night before although I'm sure the daylight helped too. I followed the footpath as it meandered through the hills alongside the coast stopping occasionally to check my phone signal. Eventually I picked up a faint connection. Luckily Josephine had handed me a business card for the cottage before we left and I called the number. Fiona answered and I explained the problem. She was lovely and said she'd ask her husband to take a look when he got back. I couldn't ask for more. Satisfied I'd done my best I continued along the path until I emerged at a small village.
The houses of the village were scattered across the hillsides overlooking a small harbour. The road I'd come out to went down towards the harbour so I began to follow it. Reaching a junction I stopped abd hoped I wouldn't have to take the road away from the village and that somewhere ahead I'd find a trail to the next village that I knew were behind the high hills somewhere. Glancing around I spotted a gentleman entering his house nearby, he waved and said good morning. Seeking local knowledge is all important on a journey like this especially when you're not carrying a map so I decided to go over, introduce myself and ask the all important question. "Is there a path or trail leading to the next village over them there hills?".
Adrian and Nicky lived on an old dredging boat in Inverness and had recently bought a small house in the village I was now passing. They were in the process of cleaning it up and decorating. Adrian pointed to the cliffs at the far end of the village beyond the harbour and gave me instructions on how to find a small trail and footpath that would take me over the top and on with my journey. It all seemed simple enough. I was then invited into their home for a cup of fresh ground coffee and some cake. Nicky was a very lively individual and a hands on type of person applying her knowledge of diy to some shelving the previous owner had somehow managed to convince to stay on the wall having simply screwed them directly into the walls without the aid of raw plugs.
After my short stop I decided I needed to make a move and clear the cliffs before it got too late and too dark so thanking them and finishing off the last slice of cake I set off down to the harbour and over to the beginning of the path which started off in the last house's back garden and wound its way through a small birch wood up to the face if the cliff. That's where I lost the path completely. I knew I'd have to scramble up the side of a grassy slope so picking what I thought would be the simplest route I began to climb.
At the top I found a vague trail through the heathers and towards an even higher cliff face. Picking up a more defined trail that wound its way up a steep slope in front of the cliffs I was surprised to meet an elderly lady walking towards me. Anne was a local who loved climbing and walking. She also fished from her little boat to earn money. A couple of days earlier her boat had become untied from her mooring and drifted off, thankfully though the coastguard had spotted it and towed it back to skye. We had a good chat about the journey I had made and the bothy I'd stopped in that night. She told me a little about the history of the bothy when it was a youth hostel and about shaun, the warden who'd stayed there for several years and who had painted the mural on the wall. It was all very fascinating and eventually we said our goodbyes and I set off again climbing the slope to get over the cliffs following the path anne had come towards me on.
After a long hike between the hills and rock faces I eventually found myself at an extremely remote cottage. There were no roads or obvious paths leading to it and there was nobody home. The sun was beginning to set now so I decided to pitch my tent up on the grass outside and settle in for the evening sure that the owners probably wouldn't mind my brief stop over. Checking my phone I found I had a signal and tried calling the cottage to see if my knife had been found but there was no answer.
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