17 February: Rum day 6

It’s the weekend! Consternation when the Wi-Fi drops out for a few hours. It means I can’t check the weather, but I decide to run with yesterday’s forecast, which was for rain in the afternoon. 

I skip my usual early-morning routine and jump on my bike. It is just an hour up Kilmory Glen and down to Kilmory Bay. Astonishingly, I cross paths with the ginger-bearded “social housing guy” last seen disembarking from the ferry on Monday. He is crushed by a massive backpack, with a bin liner of gear under one arm and a bedding roll under the other. He must have been wild camping for the last five nights. But can only mutter a brief, indecipherable reply to my enquiry about how it has been. He tells me he has a ferry to catch. And bustles onward.

It is one long road to the beach. And I am glad to be doing it on a bike. At the end of the track is a cluster of buildings used for the deer-research program, and some ruins. And then a superlative sandy beach. Across the beach I catch sight of a group of deer. They take me in but are unperturbed. As I slowly walk towards them, I notice some of them have collar tags. It makes them look strangely unwild. 

I realise that I am separated from the deer by a stream and it is almost as though they know this. I have to take off my walking boots to cross. A brief moment of agonising, foot-throbbing cold. The other side, I follow a deer track across the squishy sand. On the horizon, their summits in cloud, I look towards the Black Cuillen, on Skye. (And I realise what I have been seeing from Kinloch Bay has in fact been Knoydart, on the mainland, not – as I had thought – the Cuillen.) To the west is the island of Canna.

It is a spellbinding place, and I hope I might get back there again this trip. But I am hungry, and know that rain is on the way, so I reluctantly set off back along the track. This time my encounter with humanity is three yomping lads, again carrying unenviable loads. They are heading to the same bothy as my housemates. So it looks as though they are going to be cosy there tonight, with the rain pitter pattering.

At the bunkhouse, I get into a strange conversation with Simon, whose narrative around his perceived ill treatment is causing him in a lot of suffering. Again, nothing I say, seems to be helpful.

Yesterday we had all placed an order for patisseries from the Mallaig bakery. But it turns out the season has ended. I mitigate my disappointment with a trip to the village shop where I’ve just realised they do coffee. I celebrate the weekend with coffee and chocolate brownie and chat to Stuart, who took over running the place with his partner last summer.

Back at the bunkhouse, I notice my chain is beginning to rust and I am on the way to yet another chain replacement. I do what I can with my bike-cleaning brush and a smidge of oil. And then the rain closes in seriously. I take refuge in the cosiness and privacy of my room.