"Be bold, start cold": Walking in the Highlands, Part One

 (This is basically a long journal entry in multiple parts, written mostly for myself, though maybe someone else will find it interesting.)

Wednesday, 30 September

If I'm really going to do some serious walking in the Highlands -- and isn't that the whole point of my trip tomorrow? -- I need proper gear. A priest friend from way back in my Iowa days has told me what I need. Waterproof everything, basically. And midge repellant. I head to the Cotswold Outdoor store on Rose Street in the New Town.

I go in, take a look around, feel overwhelmed, and leave.

I am easily intimidated by unfamiliar things.

I head back to my flat and book an appointment with someone who will help me get "kitted out." It's for the next morning. You know, the morning before my afternoon departure.

Thursday, 1 October

CJ is fabulous. Somehow she manages to appreciate my complete ignorance and advise me without ever being condescending or making me feel like an idiot. I mean, I have to learn how to lace my walking boots. (It's super-complicated.) She tells me what I need, respects the fact that I don't want to shell out loads of money for something I may well never do again, and gives me all kinds of useful information.

One of her tips is "a saying that we have in the walking community." It's "Be bold, start cold." It means you start with fewer layers than you may eventually need, because you're going to get warmed up, and it's better and healthier to add layers than to subtract.

Consider that foreshadowing.

So I leave the store with waterproof everything. (No midge repellant, though.) I head back to my flat, stuff everything in my suitcase, and head to Waverley Station.

It's a two-and-a-half-hour train ride to Kingussie, a town I picked somewhat at random, on the grounds that it was (1) in the Cairngorms and (2) not as built-up and touristy as Aviemore. I arrive a little after 4 pm, momentarily panicked when my phone, which has almost no battery life left, won't update my location. It tells me the place I'm staying is a seventy-minute walk away, which I know is not true. It's a ten-minute walk away -- but which way?

Then all the satellites do their thing, and I trudge up the hill toward my guest house, dragging behind me a suitcase laden with everything waterproof, pausing midway to catch my breath, which is totally a good sign and does not at all bode ill for my weekend of walking in the Highlands.

I arrive, get checked in, and settle into my impossibly cozy, comfortable, and charming room.

There are homemade biscuits (shortbread and flapjack, replenished daily, and unbelievably delicious) and, for the first night, a "wee dram."