Date: 3rd July 2016
Day 6 Destination: By this time, my 1st time camper compatriots were comfortable enough to take a long walk from Newtonmore to Kingussie via a classic Highland trail & a loch.
Day 6 Travel Map
Costs: £2.50 (taxi split) + £5 (fish & chips) + £6 (tent pitch) = £13.50 ($18)
Lessons Learnt
- Flowing stream water is safe to drink with a Lifestraw that Yoda bought for this camping trip & beyond. Infact, it remarkable how tasty stream water (& waterfall water which I tasted in a few days) are. So fresh & pure!
Our water source
Ramblings
As the weather was permitting, the 4 of us embarked on a 7 km walk along a gentle highland trail. Outside of two minor showers, we managed to get dry weather, even getting sunny by the end (which is a win in Scotland, no matter which month it is). We recommend this walk for people who want to take in the Highlands without exerting themselves. Takes 4 hours at a leisurely pace. Here are a couple of pictures from our walk.
The bell shaped flowers are very common in the Highlands
Clouds cleared just in time for beer by the lake
Scotland is so green
We had a lot of fun-filled moments all through the walk from playing with dogs (sometimes a bit to enthusiastically), talking to sheep & trying hard to work a mini-keg of beer. Eventual success with the keg tasted subtly sweet gained from sipping the delicious Black Gold beer bought from Cairngorm brewery the previous day. Much more details & jokes can be found on our friend’s personal blog at 22 Nelson Street
Our legs were pretty jelly by the time we reached Kingussie so we sat at the garden below in the village centre till we could walk again only to throw in the towel & catch a taxi. The fun part was chatting up to the taxi driver as he told us he been to India (our home country) many times while working for the oil industry. It’s fascinating how someone whose home is in a Scottish highland village of less than 1000 people has crossed the world to a country where small towns have millions of people. We were more so surprised to hear he liked the food & got accustomed to the heat, something we can’t really stand ourselves having lived in cooler climes for the last few years.
Kingussie village centre garden
We slept like logs overnight with all the physical exertion followed up by loading carbs. Yoda & I got our first (of hopefully many nights) of good sleep under our tent.
