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It was all going to plan. I boarded the sleeper train from Crewe at just past midnight on a warm evening. It was a wonderful surprise to be greeted by name by the attendant as I boarded. I was shown to my room, a tiny cubicle with two bunks. Fortunately I was to be alone so I was able to spread out a little. The attendant asked if I wanted tea or coffee with my breakfast tray, he then wished me a good night and told me that he would wake me at 8am. The train was advertised as going to Fort William, Inverness and Aberdeen. Since these places are miles apart I wondered how it would manage to get round to all of them in the night. At about 4am I found out. The irregular motion of the train stopped and was replaced by silence then a bang and another bang. I awoke and realised that the way the train gets to all these places is that individual cars travel to different destinations. I hoped that mine was being coupled to the correct locomotive and attempted to return to sleep. At 7am I was woken by a knock on the door and a tray with coffee and a croissant was thrust into my hands. Somewhat groggily I got dress and ate breakfast. I lifted the blinds in the cabin to see brilliant sunshine and fantastic mountain scenery. Enthused, I quickly had a wash and stumbled down to the lounge car. There were a few people there but I had a table for four to myself. The views of the highlands were wonderful. On both sides of the track majestic peaks soared upwards, dwarfing the train. The sun was an added bonus since the forecast was poor for the time of my trip. We stopped at Bridge of Orchy and Rannoch Moor before the train set off on the long trek across rolling moorland to Corrour Station.

The station buildings came into sight and I got my rucksack and portable mast ready so that I could get off. The platform at Corrour is short so you have to be in the right part of the train. I got off and saw that a couple got off too; a bit of a surprise as I had expected to be alone. They set off in the direction of the Youth Hostel at Loch Ossian while I set off alone to the north. With my pack on my back and fishing pole (aerial support) in my hand I set off. I soon found that the fishing pole doubled up as a good walking stick over the uneven terrain. The path runs alongside the railway line for several miles until it reaches Loch Treig. It was generally a good track if rather muddy. Some of the worst parts had been bridged with planks and it was clear that it had been used for fair-weather landrover access to the station. At Loch Treig there were tracks heading east and west. I headed west across two very rickety bridges towards my next waypoint. The track deteriorated and then I spotted my path on the left. At the head of it was a sign saying "From here you are entering remote and unpopulated country. Only enter if you have the equipment and experience to do so safely". I mentally took stock and decided that I had both of the necessary requirements and so I set off. At first the track was indistinct and it brought to mind my explorations in Chile where, if there was the luxury of a map available, it often marked such paths a "huella des animales" - animal track. The path ascended over a few kilometres to a pass between two hills and then descended gradually to a small loch. The weather stayed fair with some light showers. By this time I had been walking for two hours and had seen no-one since Corrour. The ground was good underfoot with stretches of rocky path and heather. The path was easy to follow primarily because there was nowhere else for it to run. Eventually, the end of the loch came into view and I saw that towards the ends of it was an isolated bothy. This was a wild and open landscape with contrasting colours of the black water of the loch and the golden colour or the grass where the sun shone on it. The black water of the loch had a silvery glisten as the light breeze disturbed its surface. The approach to the bothy seemed to take ages, it was as though time stood still in this place. So vast was the valley and so clear the air that judging distances became virtually impossible. It probably took 40 minutes before I got close to the bothy. Between it and the loch were two large rocks, at least I thought that they were until as I approached one got up! It was two young Czech girls on a long hike across the region. For each of us we were the first other people that we had met. We chatted for a while as we ate our lunch. Then they headed north and I explored the bothy. Bothies are huts in remote locations that had often previously been used by shepherds. They are kept to provide basic shelter for walkers in the more remote areas of Scotland. This one was actually quite large (which accounts for why it seemed so close for so long). There was nothing much inside apart from (rather curiously) a recent copy of Playboy magazine. I signed the log book and carried on my way.

From the loch, I had only a short walk to do to the area that I had identified for my first camp. The weather began to deteriorate as I headed across country. The path descended and I headed to the base of a distant line of hills. Reading the map I looked out for a specific stream and at that point left the path to head up the stream towards a lochan. The ground was rough underfoot with tussocks of grass and deep heather that made following the stream very difficult. There were few flat spots and it took me a while to locate a suitable place for my tent. However, eventually I found a spot and got the tent pitched. I set up my camping stove and got a brew of tea on while sorting out the aerial. I stood the fishing pole mast some distance from the tent and got the aerial rigged up. I had a few mishaps in doing this as I had only tried this particular configuration out in the garden at home. It all seemed rather more difficult on the very uneven ground near the tent. As soon as the aerial was up and the tea was consumed, I piled into my tent to see if the K1 was working. I soon had it set up but - shock horror - it would not match the aerial. I dived out of the tent and checked that everything was well. It was, so I thought that the aerial must be an odd length that the K1's fairly simple auto ATU could not match. I pruned about 25 feet from the aerial and the K1 at last gave me the required match on both 40m and 20m. Time for a QSO. I contacted M0PCB, who was sending very slowly, and confirmed that I was audible in Durham. I made three more QSOs that evening (G4DUC, EI/PA5BW and MM0BDA). Overhead there was the constant drone of aircraft. Looking skywards I saw a large jet aircraft with two Hercules in close formation. They seemed to be performing some sort of mid-air refuelling.

I waited for my sked with G3IOR at 2100 local but didn't hear him. Tea was instant potatoes (not great for taste but quite filling and economical on both fuel and weight. As I got ready to sleep I saw a deer peeping at me over the hill top. I was not alone after all.

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