26 October

26th October

It was still raining when I woke. I made myself breakfast and decided to wait for a break in the weather. My plan for the day was to get on to skye and hike to the village where I could meet up with the owner of the holiday cottage I'd visited Josephine and Peter at, and where I'd left my knife.

It rained all morning and without wet weather gear I was not looking forward to making the 16 mile round trip. From the swimming pool I headed back to the harbour and straight for the shelter of the local public toilets. I knew I could get a signal there so I switched off airplane mode and checked my messages. Joanne had sent me a text, joanne and her mum chris had decided that they'd go halves on a bed at a hostel for a night concerned about my health, catching pneumonia or going hyperthermic. The hostel was on the island just over the skye bridge. I'd have to pass it to get my knife. I'd already failed to wild camp the whole way but I had at least wild camped half of it with the full intentions of wild camping the remaining coast until I arrived back at Southampton. I accepted the offer, I would have to wait a day or so to receive my boots at kyle post office and I needed to walk 8 miles to get the knife back.

The wind was strong and the rain beat down in waves. Crossing the skye bridge was difficult, as I approached it a sign indicated that vehicles with high sides were not currently permitted to cross. Getting about half way across I had to stop for a break, holding onto the bridge to help keep me balanced. I soaking wet and once again getting cold.

Once across the bridge I headed for the backpackers hostel to check in, dry out and work out what I was going to do next. There was nobody in reception just a nice little note inviting you to have a coffee and chill out until 5pm when you could check in.

I made myself a coffee got the wifi code and checked in to see if I had any messages. Roto had sent me a message he'd driven to kyle that morning with anne and brought with him a few supplies as well as water proofs, camouflaged naturally. I immediately got back in touch to let him know where I was and provide directions, which was simple turn left after the bridge.

It was lovely meeting roto and his wife and completely unexpected. Bringing a large box from the back of the car I could see that Christmas had come early for me. Gortex jacket and trousers, camouflaged. Which meant that in the event of an accident emergency services would have a tough time finding my stealth like body. It also meant wild camping was alot more fun and I could pretend I was special ops on a lone mission. Roto had also brought with him three boxes of 24 hr expedition rations. I had plenty of food to keep me going, sweets, biscuits, puddings, breakfasts and dinners. Piling all I could into a large bag I hoped I'd be able to carry it all. Among the goodies roto also brought was a bivi bag, camouflaged, essentially a waterproof sleeping bag which meant that should I not be able to pitch up the tent I could climb in to the bivi and sleep under the stars.

With all my gifts sorted and put safely with the rest of my kit we went on a little road trip to Broadford, to be exact the coop supermarket in Broadford. I'd had a call from the owners of the holiday cottage Josephine and Peter had rented, they'd been able to retrieve my knife from the trash and had kept it safe for me to pickup. It was a great feeling being reunited with the knife, making fires should hopefully now be so much simpler.  It also meant I'd be able to build improvised shelters more easily too.

While I was chatting to chris, the cottage owner, roto and anne were doing a little shopping. At the checkout anne called across "smoked or non smoked". I had no idea what she was going on about but instantly replied "non smoked". It was like an instant reaction. It turns out they'd bought me bacon and eggs for the morning. Fantastic.

Back at the hostel we had a quick coffee before saying goodbye.  While waiting for the reception to open I hung around the kitchen chatting to the other guests and staff. Josh was from california, joy from Taiwan and jess was from new Zealand although she sounded like princess Ann or is Margaret.  Either way it was a posh English accent and you wouldn't have known she is was a kiwi. At 5:30 reception opened and it was confirmed that joanne had booked me in. I was in room 1 in the bed named jaba the hutt. You got it.  The room had four beds well two bunks, each bed was named.  yoda, darth vader, obi wan and mine. There were also original star wars posters on the walls,  very kool.

Once settled in I decided to fill my gut up and had soup and bread followed by fruit cocktail in syrup sauce, it was quite bland and needed a touch of sugar, followed by muesli and a nibbling of a cake jess had made.

It was odd being in the warm and out of the rain. Feeling quite exhausted I retired to the bunks in the dorm, a foam covered plank of wood, which I felt was certainly more comfortable than the deflated self inflating air matress, and dropped off quite quickly.

Although I could easily get used to such luxuries I knew that I'd soon be back roughing it up in the Scottish wilderness and although I felt like I'd failed the challenge I was determined to make it back to the finish line.