ekmc reports

CLUB REPORTS

A busy bothy away from it all - March 2005

Yet again another wild bothy weekend was enjoyed by five brave club members, Sam Harrow, Janet Jamieson. Stewart Richardson, David Jamieson and myself(Angela Harrow). We left East Kilbride on Saturday morning in two big cars at 7.00am, arriving in Kinlochleven at 9.20am, leaving a car at the car park next to the “Ice Factor” in Kinlochleven we all piled into one car and headed for the train station at Bridge of Orchy, waiting on the train platform which was filled with about twenty other folk of varying ages all carrying ruck-sacks. The train stopped at the station and the door opened to reveal Isabel, the friendly train conductress who announced to everyone, “Corour Station is Shut” as we all stared at her feeling crest fallen she began to cackle and then shouted,”Only Joking!” We began boarding the 10:43 train to Corour the first leg of the adventure, our spirits were high, Isabel asked Stewart for £9.20 for his ticket fare and we were horrified, however it soon became apparent that she had mistaken him for an old married man and charged him for me as well, it was a reasonable £4.60 per head for a single to Corour.

Looking up towards the end compartment we could see a group of pikey wee neds standing jostling each other with their burberry base-ball caps and their ill concealed bottles of buckfast in see through Morrisons bags, we were ever so glad when they got off at Rannoch station, (being the hypocrites that we are with our very well concealed hip flasks!) 11:15am we got off the train, so did a couple of weathered fishermen we spoke to along the way and a large group of Green Horns complete with new shiny kit all male and all under twenty who were going to Fort William. A slightly bogy in places land rover track soon gave way to a more solid track with some large pond type puddles every so often which held frogs that were a treat to watch jumping around and the rare sighting of tiny cute pond newt was witnessed too. The path then veered off to the right and it was a very pleasant cross country single file route filled with witty anecdotes and heady expectations for the Bothy ahead.

Arriving about 15:45ish at Loch Chiarian Bothy we were over joyed at the immaculate condition of the Bothy and it over-looked a beautiful loch. We baggied our room and then set about getting our barbecue started outside to catch the last warm rays of the sun. It was a lovely night and we cooked sausages, Chinese chicken, spare ribs and toasted pitta bread on our barbecue and nibbled at parma ham, salami, rye bread, primula, baby bell cheese and nuts whilst waiting on the food cooking, it was a rare feast.

Two English blokes turned up and we chatted to them briefly but I think they were happy doing there own thing until later when we got the fire going and they joined our company. The fire very quickly filled the room with smoke and despite our best attempts the lum would not work so our brave men folk shovelled all the hot burning coals that were carried in our ruck-sacks into a wheel barrow and carried them upstairs to another room where thankfully the lum was working, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise as in actual fact it was a much nicer room to sit in, all pine panelled from walls to ceiling and candle holders on the walls with reflective aluminium plates behind them. Amongst all the commotion our English friends retired to there own room and we didn’t see them again until morning, however another four folk arrived and went into their room too and judging by the sounds coming from their window from outside they sounded like they were having a rare tare as well. The evening was a great success and each of us was trying to out do the other with stories of daring do, followed by a short game of continuous stories that no-one was very good at! We settled down(some of us with coco) to a great night’s sleep about 10:30 and were back up to face another glorious day of sunshine at 7:00am.

After a breakfast of Kings we gutted our room and left it tidier than when we had arrived. Heading of on a good cross country single track path back to Kinlochleven we came upon the Dam in a state we had never seen it in before, it was overflowing and the water was cascading down the whole length of the wall, it was a magnificent site to see and we spent some time getting photographic evidence. At last we got back to the car at the “Ice Factor” in Kinlochleven at about 14:00 and drove back through to Bridge of Orchy Train Station (stopping for an hour at Fort William to buy some much needed bargains!), we said our goodbyes and Sam, Stewart and myself headed back to EK in one car with Janet and David in the other, we all agreed it was superb weekend.

Role on the next one and hopefully after reading this we will see some new faces away on the next adventure!

Angela Harrow

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A busy bothy away from it all - March 2005