JOGLE Day 2 – 01/05/17 Mybster – Forsinain 24 miles

A sheltered night in Betty on the Brown Trout car park massive thanks to the people we met in the bar who donated £28 for the charity – a fantastic start! After breakfast we drove 5 miles back to Mybster and today’s start point. In summary today was not terribly exciting, very windy, mostly from behind, and few highlights. The first 7 miles to the isolated Strathmore Lodge through a mixture of farmland then open moors dominated by a massive wind farm. After that onto a stony then sandy track through some fine pine forestry past the choppy Loch More and 7miles later arriving at Altnabreac Station for a rest. Probably the most remote railway station I will ever visit but reassured that I could easily have wild camped there as originally planned. After lunch the next 7 miles were about as mind numbing as I have experienced – areas shown as forestry on the map now just desolate landscape made bare by logging or fire/disease. The last 3 miles to Forsinain were better – a return to pine forest, a small climb around Sletill Hill, my first real close-up encounter with a deer (unfortunately a dead one) and the sight of the waiting Betty as arranged, although Cath and PJ were not there – they had walked to meet me and taken the wrong path – this has happened before, so not a major drama and we were very quickly reunited. Our chosen wild camp spot was perfect. Even had an inquisitive otter sniffing around!