In the heart of the Scottish Highlands, there is a wilderness without peer in Western Europe. Stretching between Glen Nevis and Blair Atholl, and lined by glens Spean and Coe to the north and south, it covers more than 250 square miles of bog, moor and mountain, a desolate plateau permanently inhabited by less than a dozen human beings.
This bleak land has a distinguished pedigree. Scotland's ancient Royal hunting grounds were sited here; Bonny Prince Charlie hid with loyal Cluny in the hollows of Ben Alder after Culloden; while David Balfour and Alan Breck, the fictional heroes of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped," escaped the redcoats across Rannoch Moor, "a wearier looking desert which man never saw."These words are typical, I have since discovered, as are John Macculloch's, an 18th-century traveller who described the lands of Courrour, Rannoch and Alder as "a place of inconceivable solitude, a dreary and joyless land of bogs, a land of desolation and grey darkness."
You get the picture, then. This is not a tweedy, comfortable landscape of rolling hills and elegant pastures. Its horizons are empty and austere. Equally, they have a haughty beauty and grandeur. Even better, this magnificent vision has not changed a jot for two centuries, creating a wild, unspoiled oasis in the middle of the suburban garden that is modern Britain.
Of course, you don't pop in and out of such topography at a moment's notice. This land is untamed, remote and, by definition, inaccessible. Yet fortune did, in one sense, smile upon my daft but romantic plans. The east of this great 1,200-foot high plateau is skirted by the Highland Railway to Inverness, while the West Highland Railway meanders through its heart towards Fort William, both lines having been forged by Victorian engineers who overcame blizzards, gales, midges, and grim terrain to make their mark upon the land.
I could take the sleeper to Inverness, disembark at Dalwhinnie and head westwards towards Kinlochleven 35 miles away, I realized. I would carry food, stoves and sleeping bags; spend a couple of nights in bothies (mountain refuge huts); and at Kinlochleven, take a short bus journey to Fort William and the sleeper back to London. And who knows, if progress was good, a dinner at that monument to culinary excess, Fort William's Inverlochy Castle Hotel, would provide a blow-out finale.
The notion sounded straightforward. I even sold it to my walking companion John Gillies, a decent man who likes life's comforts and who has since forgiven me for what followed.
Certainly, our outward journey was pleasant enough as we consumed microwaved lasagne and British Rail red wine while the train clattered northwards. There was no silver service nor white linen to satisfy our lust for nostalgia, but the experience was still cheery.
Dalwhinnie was different, however. Even on a warm, May morning, its few concrete edifices, its bleak position above Drumochter Pass, and its hotel's ghastly coffee rather dented our spirits. Civilization seems to have made little impact here. Even Queen Victoria hated it. On her legendary Highland Journey, she dined at Dalwhinnie, on "miserable starved" chickens, with no potatoes. There were "no puddings and no fun," she moaned, and left. So we followed her example, striking out along Loch Ericht's wide, north-shore track.
And at first, things went swimmingly. The route is broad and easy and we fairly ate up the miles, before turning inland at Ben Alder Lodge, past bemused herds of deer towards Loch Pattack and the lowering peaks of Ben Alder and Aonach Beag.
By lunch we reached our intended evening destination, the bothy of Culra, a tattered hut perched below dark Carn Dearg which left us in a quandary. Should we hang about all day, consuming books and whisky or should we stride on to Courrour a further 11 miles to the west?
We looked at the bothy: crude wooden bunk beds, concrete floors and, of course, no lighting or heating. Luxury by bothy standards, in other words. Nor did we care much. We had not come for lavish indulgence. And there was always the prospect of the fellow walkers' companionship. Then I remembered my hill-walking heroine Muriel Gray's description of typical bothy inhabitants: "underprivileged schoolchildren from a housing estate in Manchester with a near-hysterical social worker, a ghetto blaster and some crisp bags to sniff glue ... and a computer programmer from Maidstone who wants to tell you all about why his promotion fell through." We moved on.
It was then, of course, that matters got serious. We were both laden with mighty packs and for the first time our path went properly uphill. The track from Culra to Bealach Dubh (the black pass) is about four miles long and rises only about 1,000 feet. Nevertheless, we began to slow down, as the first cathartic release of energy dissipated.
Fortunately, the weather was sunny and mild, though the granite massif of Ben Alder was still wreathed in snow in May. But then this is a big mountain. It sprawls for several square miles, a battered citadel of waterfalls, crags and hollows. Here, Bonnie Prince Charles and followers hid for 11 days in September 1746, in "Cluny's Cage," a "very bad and smokie" place, cut into the rocks and covered in holly bushes. It was sanctuary to Charlie, but permanent home to Cluny McPherson who, supplied by loyal clansman, hid here for nine years from redcoats before escaping to France.
Even today, at 3,766 feet high, Ben Alder remains the epitome of remoteness, hidden from sight from all of the Highland's thoroughfares. Most A9 travelers simply pass by, unaware of this nearby, untamed heartland dominated by one of Britain's most spectacular mountains.
And to make matters eerier for those who do venture here, the main dwelling place, the bothy of Benalder Cottage, is said to be haunted by a dead gamekeeper's ghost. In fact, local hunters made up the story to scare off hikers, a ploy that failed miserably, as the bothy's reputation now attracts hordes of walkers eager for new, extra unpleasant experiences to add to their lists of hill-walking miseries. We could have made our own paranormal investigation with a brief detour, but John was looking distracted and was mumbling the words "chablis, chablis" over and over again in a worrying way. We moved on.
At the head of Bealach Dubh, we could see our immediate destination, Loch Ossian, glimmering a little too faintly for my liking in the western distance. We descended, skirting disconcerting aircraft detritus which peppered the hillside, the wreckage of a Wellington bomber that crashed in 1942.
We followed the Uisge Labhair burn for four miles. Heading downhill, our passage should have been easy, but our now deadening packs, the burn's twisting course, and the thick peat hags made it desolately tiresome work. Nor did it help to know that Scotland's worst hill-walking accident happened here in 1951, when four fit mountaineers perished as they walked up the glen to Ben Alder. One by one, they fell beneath one of the country's worst blizzards to die of exposure.
By early evening, we reached Loch Ossian and trudged round its southern shore to the succour of Courrour youth hostel. John and I had just walked 22 miles over mountains carrying full packs. And we knew it. Our feet were blistered and our legs ached. Hostel warden Tom Rigg was encouraging, however. Only seven more hours' walking would get us to Kinlochleven the next day, he assured us. So there it was. We had cut our three-day journey down to two and could reach Fort William by evening and that meant dinner at Inverlochy. John looked momentarily cheerful.
Indeed, after a meal of Marks and Spencer's best take-out, supplemented with fresh eggs from Tom, life looked quite rosy. The hostel's only guests, we got Tom's undivided attention, and gossip which proved to be stunningly varied for a land that boasts only a handful of inhabitants within a radius of 20 miles. The night drew in, the wind rose, and I felt very extremely sorry for my poor friends stuck in London.
In the morning, Tom guided us to our proper path along part of the drovers' Road to the Isles, or the "Thoroughfare of Thieves," as it became known in the years after the Jacobite rebellions. Then Rannoch was filled with vagabonds and brigands who lay in wait for travellers heading for the Lowlands, giving the moor a deserved reputation for murder and robbery. We, however, felt slightly rejuvenated, so the moor seemed quite pleasant to us, with its ribbons of streams, patches of bog-cotton, blueberries and bracken.
By noon, however, weariness returned as we trudged to the shores of Loch Treig. "I think we've got this wrong," John suddenly announced. "We should have dinner and then spend the night at the Inverlochy. I don't mind paying my share."
These last, atypical words had me very worried indeed. However, the prospect of a luxurious bath, dinner and a comfortable bed did put a certain spring back in my step, and helped us on our way to Loch Chiarain, and the bothy where we had planned our second night's sleep. We would have succumbed then but for the prospect of several buckets of lager and a couple of large, springy beds.
By evening, we reached Blackwater Reservoir utterly exhausted and began our descent from the plateau to Kinlochleven, four miles away and 1,000 feet below us. "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks," we moved in shuffles, not strides, as our shoulders were cut through by our packs, stuffed as they were with stoves, gas cylinders, pans, and other utterly useless, heavy implements that had been included thanks to my bungled planning, and about which John never once upbraided me. The final two hours were agony. I would have given anything to have been with my friends in London. And then, suddenly, it was over, and we were staggering through one of Kinlochleven's housing subdivisions.
"Where's the nearest pub?" I croaked at a terrified child. He pointed, and I stumbled towards a building with a Tennent's lager sign outside, which, as I entered, I realized was marked "Masonic Lodge." But I was desperate. The bar's occupants were open-mouthed but poured me beer unbidden.A mini-cab, hailed by John, whisked us to Inverlochy Castle Hotel and a fairy-tale happy ending. Flunkies appeared from nowhere to carry our sodden packs and we were ushered to our rooms. Never have I been cast down so low to be raised so high with such abruptness. We sat down to a superb dinner.
"Travelled far?" asked the maitre d'hotel.
"We've just walked from Dalwhinnie," I answered, in explanation of our still shambolic appearances.
"Indeed, and why did you do that, sir?" came the response. My mouth opened, but no words emerged.