Climbing over rock mountains (I)

Delay, what delay? That is some imagination you have there...


To bring our listeners back up to speed: Between two dates last year (no one really knows which dates) two intrepid explorers Tim 'Burke' Trudgian and Will 'Wills' Usher embarked on a journey into erstwhile unmanned terrain. A journey reaching the very apogee of human endeavour, with its zenith in the highland town of Inverness and a thundering nadir in the depths of downtown Glasgow. Many said they were mad, many said that camping in Scotland in winter was a one-way journey to self-destruction and too-many hyphenated phrases, but many, as history has so often shown us, were wrong.

In order to appreciate the hours of thought and planning that went into such an expedition, one need only look at the following comparison.

Above: Douglas Mawson braving the ANTARCTIC COLD with a maverick balaclava
Above: Our heroes don their anti-winter attire.

And so they set out on a journey of both body and soul, first down to the nation's capital (both parliamentarily and spiritually, and of course, correctly) London, thence on an 11 hour traversement of Britain on a bus, ending up at the 'City in the Highlands', commonly known as Inverness. Initially Wills was a little hesitant at the prospect of camping, but was assured by the dogged Burke that a little bit of chill was nought to be afraid of. After a bout of food poisoning after sampling the local sandwiches in 'London', Wills took on a troubled state of mind in the bus. He was almost coming around to the frame of mind conducive to such an outdoor camping gambit, but then his eyes bellied his mind after seeing:


So when reaching Inverness a hostile (rather, a hostel) was called for and our two adventures hunkered down for a night in man made comfort. This did provide a chance for journeys, not of the geographical nature, but of a publican house variety. As is the wont for travellers on long voyages, our two protagonists engaged in some quiz machine questionnaires to compliment a pint or two. And as is the wont for quiz machines, money was received but it was not correspondingly returned, causing an oath or two, but in the end a retreat to the comforts of a hostel. And so ended the first day, whereupon base camp had been established, and the next step was a bearing of 225 degrees down to the dangerous inland trench known as Loch Ness.