The 2013 Challenge, day 3: Lochailort to Glensulaig (6)

I soon arrived at Glensulaig bothy, which is a lovely little three-room bothy (two large rooms with fireplaces, and one small room opposite the front door). When I arrived it was already well-stocked with occupiers: a party from Outward Bound consisting of 9 teenage schoolchildren from Dubai, a Lebanese teacher, and an Outward Bound leader called Ken. The schoolchildren and their teacher had already laid out their sleeping gear in the main rooms, whilst Ken had laid out all his gear in the smaller room. When I arrived, Ken insisted on clearing all his gear out of the small room so that I could have it to myself, and went outside to pitch his tent. I said that I'd be happy sharing the small room, there was plenty of space: but I think he was probably glad to have an excuse to get out for a bit of solitude. The schoolchildren were very well behaved; but they were also very, shall we say, exuberant. If I had to be with them all day for at least two days on expedition, I think I might have been seeking to get away from them overnight, too!

Once the Dubaians had had their supper and cleared away, I made myself some supper. Ken mentioned that there was another Challenger camped just outside the bothy, and so I went to the woods and found Tony. Now, i have mentioned Tony in this blog before. I first met him in 2009 at Garva bridge. He's a great guy ... but he's certainly a character! He was just settling down for the night, so I said I'd see him in the morning and headed back into the bothy.

We had a good fire going, so I tried to dry off as much gear as I could. I was the last one awake, so when I was done I damped down the embers before turning in for the night. And this was where I made a bit of a boo-boo. You see, I was a bit concerned that my rucksack was still wet. I have a three quarter length Thermarest sleep mat, so on expedition I always sleep with my feet resting on my rucksack. But I have a down sleeping bag ... and down doesn't like getting wet. So I decided that I had better make use of my survival bag to keep the sleeping bag separated from the wet rucksack. So I tucked the foot end of my sleeping bag into the survival bag before finally bedding down for the night ... and that was a BIG mistake. What I OUGHT to have done, of course, was to put the RUCKSACK inside the survival bag. But ... more of this anon. For now I was comfortable. I had had no recurrences of my medical symptoms. My shoulder seemed to have settled down a bit and was no longer troubling me too much. So even though I was not going to be ticking Gulvain off my list this Challenge, all seemed well with the world as I settled down to sleep.