Ben Alder Cottage.

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Ray Young
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Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

My wife and her friend Maureen were off to Tenerife for 12 days so this was a great opportunity for a multi day bikepacking trip. I asked on here for some suggestions but after buying myself a copy of The Scottish Bothy Bible I ended up making my own route up of 150 miles and three bothies over 4 days but this didnt quite work out as planned. After dropping them off at Edinburgh airport at 10am Monday the only thing stopping me from instant departure was the fact that I had promised to decorate Maureens flat for her whilst she was away. Ceilings, walls and woodwork so quite a job which i'd hoped to finish by Friday which meant putting in very long days. The weekend afternoons were to be taken up by driving my stepdaughter to two local dressage events then I planned to leave Monday morning driving to Tyndrum where I was to start. I got the flat finished by Saturday morning but as I can no longer be classed as any sort of "spring chicken" the long days and having to take high doses of pain killers to deal with my back pain whilst decorating had left me exhausted so I changed my plans. I'd rest Monday then leave Tuesday.
I arrived at Tyndrum at 13.45, packed the bike and departed. Today I was to follow the HT550 route as far as Ben Alder Cottage bothy mostly on estate roads. For some reason I had it in my head that it was 40 miles so I reasoned i'd arrive by 8 or 9 pm.
Half way along Loch Lyon one of the Gorilla cages jumped out of it's mount, caught in the wheel and sent me crashing to the ground. In the fall the cage had broken but it was my own stupid fault as i'd not used these before and without thinking I had overloaded the one that had come adrift. Half an hour saw a fix and a re distribution of weight and I was off again albeit with my Garmin gps unit in my pocket as the fall had broken the zip ties holding it to the bars. I normally carry spares but i'd forgotten to put them in and I had no other way to re attach it.
Crossing from Glen Lyon over to Loch Rannoch slowed me further due to strong headwinds and persistent rain and I missed a turn off below Leagag. I could backtrack or carry on along the track I was on which by a slightly longer way would bring me to where I wanted to be. I decided to backtrack but arriving at the turn off wished I hadn't as in the dark it looked to be a nasty singletrack push and being pretty tired now I couldn't face it so backtracked once again along the way i'd already been going.
By the time I arrived at Bridge of Gaur the wind and rain had ceased so I had some food and pressed on along the last leg. I knew now that todays ride was far more than the 40 miles i'd thought it to be but pressed on without checking my current miles or time. The last mile to the bothy was very boggy and being now very tired I pushed all the way. 100 metres to go and one last obstacle, the bridge over the Alder Burn. A one metre step up to get onto the bridge, however at the base of the step the ground is worn away with only a little bit to stand on. With the bike vertical and the front wheel touching the lip of the step the back wheel is sitting in a hole in the ground making the lift even higher. With my bad back I really should have unloaded the bike to get it onto the bridge but I was tired, sweaty, pissed off and so close to my goal that I just went for it and on the fourth attempt and much swearing I managed to get it up and onto the bridge.
On arrival at the bothy it was uninhabited but found it to have had every door left wide open. I could imagine it is just about possible though rather negligent to leave latch doors open but one side of the double doors had sliding bolts top and bottom so I came to the conclusion that they had been left open deliberately, for why I had no idea. A further mooch about showed empty cans and bottles and uneaten food left lying about. Whoever had been here previously was in my opinion a complete dickhead which I found hard to understand as it is some undertaking to get to this bothy. I'd have understood it if it was close to the road but this had me baffled.
I chose the room with the raised sleeping platform and stove but before unpacking thought i'd better check the time and distance i'd done, I thought maybe 10 pm but no, 12.50 am and 53 miles!!!! How the hell did that happen? Just goes to show time passes quickly when your having fun. I reckon i'd messed up on the distance I thought I was doing because i'd plotted several routes to choose from all of which I thought had a forty mile first day, another lesson learnt, check your route properly.
I put a firelog in the stove to warm up a bit and dry my clothes whilst I sorted kit and food out, had a couple of drams then off to sleep at 2 am.
I didn't wake untill 10 am but still felt very tired. The painkillers i'm on have that effect on you and i'm so glad i'm only on them when needed as I hate the way they make you feel. My back will settle down in a week or two until something else sets it off, usually manual labour. I'm generally very independent but it's starting to dawn on me that I can no longer do as much as i'd like to, old age I guess.
Over breakfast I looked at todays route to see if I could shorten it as I didn't want to do another full on day and after 7 hours night riding I wasn't sure how much life my lights had left in them. I could cut the route to 20 miles but my heart still wasn't in it. I had brought 2 days worth of food so I decided to go and look for firewood and if I found enough for the evening i'd stay for the day at the bothy as it was in such a fantastic location and I could do with the rest. Some woods across the way proved futile as every bit of dead wood that could be feasibly cut by hand saw had already been taken so I wandered back to the bothy and walked up along the loch side finding small bits of driftwood then bingo, the remains of two tree stumps with roots attached had been washed up on the shoreline. The stumps were too big to saw through but the roots which had twisted and grown together would produce enough logs for the evening but it did mean having to saw through several places to untangle the roots and produce a single log. I had all day and it took me a couple of hours to cut and carry what I needed back to the bothy.
A leisurely lunch followed by two hours ukulele playing saw me through to 5 pm when I decided to light the fire. If no one arrives in the next hour or so then I reckoned i'd have the bothy to myself but ten minutes later a Dutch guy with an unpronounceable name arrived after walking 12 miles in. He said "just call me G, everyone else does". He was a great bloke and we spent the night chatting, listening to tunes and drinking Tesco's taste the difference single malt whisky which i'd brought and is actually rather nice. At £18 a bottle it's a good buy in my opinion. He lived near Inverness and had worked in Scotland for the last 4 years and had no plans to leave, he loved the place. He enquired how i'd slept the night before then told me the place was supposed to be haunted. I'd slept fine but it got me thinking that maybe the ghost was responsible for opening all the doors. G retired to the other room at 9 and I sat to finish the whisky and let the fire die down then hit the sack at 10.
Next morning we were both up by 7.30 and G was on his way an hour later. I had more decisions to make. I decided to backtrack to The Bridge of Gaur and take the road to Rannoch Station then see how I felt and check train times. If I felt good or there were no trains then I would head across to the Kings House Hotel (a crossing I knew would be difficult) then South to Gorton bothy. As it happened I had only 20 minutes to wait for a train back to Tyndrum and the car, the next train wouldn't have been until 5pm, so that was rather fortuitous and decision made.
Despite struggling on this route due to the tiredness from the medication and not doing the full distance I had planned I did actually really enjoy myself. I'm loving the new Genesis Longitude and this was it's first proper bikepacking trip. I've learned not to overload a gorilla cage and managed to source a new one for £20 rather than the £30 normally charged. Meeting G was a pleasure and both the bothy and landscape were great. Whoever recommended making my own marzipan and chocolate sweets is a star, i'll be making them again and a block of cheese cut up into portions and wrapped in clingfilm is much cheaper than buying Babybells. The wifes said I should get out again in the next few weeks before we go to London to visit her Mum so naturally i've jumped at the chance. Hopefully I won't be on any medication by then, :wink: .
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JoseMcTavish
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by JoseMcTavish »

I enjoyed that - sometimes it would be nice to just go to one spot and hang out, rather than always being pressed for time and distance. Ben Alder Cottage is a great spot to hang about and enjoy the isolation I reckon.
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by ScotRoutes »

Yeah - I've promised myself to "hang out" more this year. Arrive early, leave late, explore local area on foot etc. Bothies would be ideal for that and Ray's tale makes it sound even more appealing.

FWIW Ray, metalheart and I bumped into a stalker at that big new shed (you might not have seen it in the dark) at the S end of Loch Ericht and he asked if we just wanted to bivvy on the porch. Would have been an ideal spot, with a view right up the Loch.
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

Hi Scotroutes. I did see the building on the way in and checked out the porch area on the way back and yes, it would make a nice spot to stop over.
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fatbikephil
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by fatbikephil »

Good one Ray and much respect for lugging a bottle of whisky over that route :-bd
Maybe the previous occupants had farted a lot so thought they were doing you a favour??
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

htrider wrote: much respect for lugging a bottle of whisky over that route
I don't actually carry the glass bottle, I decant it into a plastic one and take a small glass whisky tumbler to drink it from as although I'm English I'm not a complete luddite, :wink: .
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by sean_iow »

I enjoyed reading that. The description of getting a loaded bike across the bridge at the Alder Burn brought back memories of last years HT550, it is quite an effort to get a bike up onto it on your own.

The route passes close to the bothie but doesn't quite go up to it, but I went across to it anyway as it was the first bothie I'd ever actually been up to :smile: I also sat on a chair outside in the shade for 5 minutes applying more sun cream - an indication of the weather we had - and eating whilst I recovered ready for the climb up the single-track :smile: I did think at the time I would like to re-visit and stay the night but it's a long way from where I live :sad:
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Bearbonesnorm »

Firm believer that being flexible and open to change or whim often results in some great trips :-bd
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fatbikephil
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by fatbikephil »

sean_iow wrote: The route passes close to the bothie but doesn't quite go up to it
It does now :wink:
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Mariner
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Mariner »

followed by two hours ukulele playing
On a practical level how do you carry a ukulele?
Hard or soft case inside or outside a dry bag?
Zazen - nothing happens next this is it.
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by whitestone »

sean_iow wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:15 am I enjoyed reading that. The description of getting a loaded bike across the bridge at the Alder Burn brought back memories of last years HT550, it is quite an effort to get a bike up onto it on your own.
It is definitely one of the more awkward efforts in handling your bike on the Highland Trail. The Alder burn is the boundary between two estates http://www.whoownsscotland.org.uk/geo/i ... yers=B0TT and while the Ben Alder estate are quite good at maintaining things (did you see the trimmed edges to the path around to Bealach Dubh?) I don't think the same can be said for the estate to the south. A quick search doesn't show who built or is responsible for the upkeep of the bridge, possibly the Scottish Rights of Way Society have taken it on, Colin might know. It's possible/probable that there was a buttress of some sort on the south bank but it's been washed away when the burn has been in spate.

There was a question about the lochside path between Ben Alder Lodge and the bothy, I came across this blog post which has some good shots of it: https://ness64.wordpress.com/2012/06/24 ... r-cottage/
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

Mariner wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 9:15 am
followed by two hours ukulele playing
On a practical level how do you carry a ukulele?
Hard or soft case inside or outside a dry bag?
I carry it on my back in a soft case, it's so light you hardly know it's there. The most common sizes are soprano scale (the smallest one and the one that springs to mind when you think of a uke but I find it too small for my fat fingers to play chords correctly), concert scale ( a bit bigger and the one I take away on trips) and tenor scale (bigger again and my main instrument but I'd never risk that on the bike as it cost £485). I put the uke in a bin bag then another over the top to keep it dry. I intend to make a waterproof cover the the soft case but need to get hold of a sewing machine. The uke itself cost £50 so if I crash and break it it's not too expensive to replace. I used to take a cheaper £30 one but wasn't that impressed with the sound it produced.
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

I forgot to mention I spotted an Osprey flying overhead as I took a rest from sawing firewood. At first I thought it was a seagull but then realized it was high up and far away. It eventually flew directly overhead. It was big but not an eagle so on returning home checked the internet for raptor silhouettes and the only thing it could have been with its swept back wings was an Osprey.
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

whitestone wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 9:37 am
sean_iow wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 10:15 am I enjoyed reading that. The description of getting a loaded bike across the bridge at the Alder Burn brought back memories of last years HT550, it is quite an effort to get a bike up onto it on your own.
A quick search doesn't show who built or is responsible for the upkeep of the bridge, possibly the Scottish Rights of Way Society have taken it on, Colin might know.
There is a plaque set in a stone nearby. Built voluntarily by an ex airman and I believe in memory of his daughter who died at age 21 if I remember correctly.
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Blair512 »

Sounds like a good trip Ray, I've managed a grand total of zero nights out with the bike this year so far but reading your report has piqued my interest once again! :-bd
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by psling »

At first I thought it was a seagull but then realized it was high up and far away.
Why does that put me in mind of Father Ted... :lol:
"OK, these are small... the ones out there are far away. Small... far away... ah, ferget it!!" :lol:

One of the beauties of travelling alone sometimes is that you can be totally in charge of your own time; despite the obvious physical discomfort you experienced that actually reads like an idyllic time was had!
We go out into the hills to lose ourselves, not to get lost. You are only lost if you need to be somewhere else and if you really need to be somewhere else then you're probably in the wrong place to begin with.
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Ray Young
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Re: Ben Alder Cottage.

Post by Ray Young »

psling wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 8:11 amOne of the beauties of travelling alone sometimes is that you can be totally in charge of your own time; despite the obvious physical discomfort you experienced that actually reads like an idyllic time was had!
I'd say 99% of my trips are solo. Go your own pace, change plans on a whim, be self reliant and yes I did enjoy it very much.
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