Bathroom sinks and sheep-eye stinks

Day 5 RRW: Killin to Ardtalnaig, 12.54 miles

At the risk of sounding boring, today was yet another fantastic day on the RRW!  As you can see from the videos below, it was a different type of walk today – less foresty and more hilly, with a big section on exposed moorland, at times above the tree line.  As you can also tell from the video, it got a bit windy right at the top – and yet again I gave thanks to the weather gods for their kindness this week.  Clear blue skies, abundant sunshine (I think I’ll leave this vacation with a bit of a tan – who would have thought it?!!) and not a mosquito or midge anywhere! (I know they don’t count as a weather event – but I’m extremely grateful for the lack of them anyway!).

As the distance was a bit on the longer side, I set out for the trail early-ish, at around 8.30am.  I was also irrationally irritated with the B&B I’d stayed in, so was glad to wave it off into the distance.   Maybe I was more tired and grumpy than I thought yesterday, after my 14 miler, but my hackles were raised even before stepping across the threshold by a sign in the door window which basically said “We are closed until 4pm.  If you are here before that, fuck off until 4pm.  If you have already rung the bell, we will not answer it.”  I mean, it wasn’t exactly phrased like that – but that was the overall gist and tone.  Fortunately there was a nice pub/restaurant/hotel across the street that I was able to kick my heels for 30mins – apparently, according to the guy behind the bar, “they are nice people, but they are Dutch” so they have to have everything just so.  In my mind, if you are in the hospitality business and your guests arrive a bit early, just let them in FFS.

So I was already a bit annoyed – which was then compounded by the proprietor immediately requesting I take off my hiking boots as he didn’t want boots to bring dirt onto the hall carpet.  Firstly, its not muddy out there, secondly, you are running a B&B pretty much catering to the hiking crowd and thirdly, have you ever heard of a fucking door mat??  I do believe they are still sold in the UK, so why not get one of those and ask people to wipe their feet, rather than demand they take their boots off the second they cross the threshold?**

Debooted, I was then led into a little side lounge where I had to fill in a form with all my details including my passport number which a) no-one else has asked me for and b) required me to go deep diving into my daypack to find it.   Upon mentioning a), the reply I got was that everyone else should do it and it was actually a requirement of the government.  I mean, technically he is correct – its the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order Act of 1972 in case anybody cares.   But then, to rub the final salt into my oversensitive, main character syndrome wounds  (I know I’m overreacting at this point)- my suitcase was just sitting there in the lounge.  At every other place I’ve stayed up to this point, my case (which obviously arrives before me) has been taken up to my room, so that its already there when I check in and get up to my room.  Obviously I am capable of hauling my own suitcase – and I did, up the flight of stairs to get to my room – but wouldn’t it have been lovely if I didn’t have to have done that after having walked for 15 miles to get there?

The room itself was pretty tiny (you know, where there’s not enough space to walk round your bed after you’ve opened up your suitcase) but the main issue was how thin the walls were.  Somehow, every single Dutch person in Scotland seemed to be staying at this B&B, attending a conference on How To Be Annoying that apparently was being held in the hallway outside my room.  I escaped for a bit to go have a lovely dinner back at my prior refuge and when I returned, the conference appeared to have moved into the room next door to mine.  There seemed to be one keynote speaker who was LOUD, with a low pitched droney voice that simply carried its way through lathe and plaster like it wasn’t there.   And he didn’t STFU until well past 10.30pm (I was blogging until 10pm, so I typed EXTRA LOUDLY in retaliation) and so for 30mins, after I was done, I wondered whether I should bang on the wall as the internationally recognized sign for SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP.  As much as I wanted to, I also then thought of having to see them all at breakfast the next morning – so it was quite the quandary.   I know, I know – I could have put earplugs in – but I was in the mood to be irritated by this point, so it seemed kinda fitting.

The last straw came when I went to clean my teeth, just before turning off the light and tucking myself in for the night.  Whoever designed the bathroom is a complete moron.  Its not that it was small and that you could probably take a shower while sitting on the toilet.  It was the sink.  Let me ask you this – what is the main function of a sink?  If you are ManpanionTM and you are thinking of the high-end designer bathroom sink I used to have in my old place in Wicker Park, you would say that its a purely decorative statement and its ability to drain is completely optional, due to its flat bottom not really helping move water towards the sinkhole.

Gravity-assisted draining aside, I think we can all agree that one of the main functions of a sink is that you should be able to easily move water from the taps/faucets to your face and back down into the sink OR to move toothpaste from your facehole, after brushing, into the sink.  Well this fucking sink allowed neither of those two because some genius had decided to place a glass shelf directly above the sink, about 6 inches above the taps/faucets.  This meant you couldn’t splash water onto your face or rinse your mouth out without the glass shelf being completely in the way.  You had to cup the water in your hands, navigate out and around the shelf, then splash it on your face at an angle and hope some of it managed to fall back into the 30% of the sink that wasn’t obscured by aforementioned shelf.  Unbelievably dumb.

OK – rant over.  I feel better now.  Thank you.

Anyway, because of all that, I wasn’t too sad to leave – the very last straw being when the emphatic sounds of “In The Mood” started emanating loudly from next door just before breakfast.  I mean, I love a bit of Glen Miller as much as the next person, but at 8am?  Isn’t there some type of bylaw that prohibits excessive use of the trombone before 10am on a weekend??  I was certainly In A Mood – mainly, relief, as I scampered out through the door, passing a clutch of Dutch in the lobby as I went (hmm…I think I’ve just invented that as the plural noun for a bunch of loud Netherlanders).  I walked back past the Dochart Falls, taking a few more pictures as it was a bit quieter than the previous afternoon, and was back on the trail by 9am.

The route out of town was 3 miles of unrelenting uphill that actually did get the heart rate up and the sweat dripping!  It was on tarmac road, so again was easy underfoot and as I ascended up and away from Killin, I walked through fragrant piney forests before leaving them behind and heading out across the open moorland.  The views of the surrounding mountains and lochs (particularly Loch Tay) were just spectacular – and today, more than any other day so far, felt the most Scottish Highlandy of all (“Look Mum, I’m hiking in the middle of the Scottish highlands!”).   Most of the moors were being used for sheep farming, so I did feel a teeny bit guilty about yesterday’s choice of supper as I walked past all these adorably cute baby lambs!  (I particularly love the way their legs are black and the rest of them is white – its like someone dipped them into a pot of ink).  Side note – don’t fuck with lady sheeps – or even look at them when they are with their lambs.   Forget “Mama Bear” – “Mama Ewe” is a far more terrifying sight to behold.  These fluffy harbingers of doom will STARE YOU DOWN and chill your blood if you even think about pausing to admire how cute the lambs are.  It’s as if they know that, ultimately, their offspring is gonna end up covered in mint sauce on your dinner plate – and they are not happy about it.  Not At All.  Thank god they don’t have opposable thumbs otherwise they definitely would have fashioned weapons by now and then the balance of power in the hillside would really be up for grabs.

Anyhoo…it was another lovely walk, punctuated by 2 stops for refreshments – one at a hotel in Ardeonaig, the other at the world’s cutest little pop-up coffee trailer on the road a couple of miles outside of Ardtalnaig (don’t ask me to pronounce either of those names).  I slow-rolled the last couple of miles as I was being picked up from my end destination at 4pm, so I had plenty of time to take it easy as I’d reached Ardeonaig before 2pm.  It was nice, though, as there was a ton of fun wildlife in the last mile or so – including another red squirrel!!!  And not a feeder-assisted sighting either!!  I also saw a Scottish hare (I can spot bunny ears from a mile away) and some pheasants.  Lots more birds again, including some oystercatchers.

I met my taxi driver (a nice chap called David) at the allotted time – easy enough as Ardtalnaig has about 6 houses and 1 red phone box to it – and that’s it!  It was a 15 min drive to Aberfeldy which is where I will be staying for the next 2 nights – which means that David will be back at 8.30am tomorrow morning to drive me back out to where he picked me up from today, so that I can rejoin the trail and continue the RRW walk back into Aberfeldy.  Yes.  I am aware of how faintly ridiculous it is – but as there is nowhere to stay in Ardtalnaig, there’s not really much choice.  Aberfeldy is a nice town – lots of shops and restaurants, so I had a lovely supper (a much needed salad) and managed to find a sandwich in the still depleted and tragic shelves of the local Co-Op.   I don’t have a fridge in my room so I’ve put my cheese and ham sandwich outside on my stone window ledge to keep it cool overnight.  Given the number of canny rooks and jackdaws in this town, I give it only about a 30% probability that it’ll still be there in the morning.  We shall see.

Tomorrow is actually the longest day – I misread my itinerary and so its OVER 15 miles tomorrow – with some enthusiastic elevation gains.   Fortunately I can offload as much as possible from my daypack and leave in my room and so lighten it up a bit, but I am still expecting tomorrow to be the toughest day of the trip.  Wish me luck!!

** given the vast quantities of sheep poop I waded through today, I might be slightly more sympathetic to this request now – but I stand by my point about the door mat.  Or – at the very least – provide a chair or something for the person to sit down in and remove their boots so they don’t have to hop about on one foot like a total jabroni