Day fourty-eight - Saturday

Quite a funny night in the car. To start with I was flat out for about 4 hours, woke up at 0200 feeling a bit chilly. Put my shoes back on and tried to get comfy again, a difficult task in a reclined car seat. One of the problems was that the snazzy Golf TDI had bucket seats, meaning the sides of the back rest pushed your shoulders forward when flat! I tried to sleep on my side instead and use them as mini pillows. Few more hours, woke up, glanced across at Mike to see he'd cranked his seat to about 40 degrees. What the hell?! Wondering if I was missing a secret trick to sleeping in a car I cranked mine up too and dozed off again. First light around 0600, glanced acrossand Mike was at 70 degrees, almost vertical! Unbelievable. I cranked mine up again and dozed off. Both woke up around 0800 and decided to go for breakfast, over which he revealed his vertical tactic was to alleviate the shoulder problem!

The long walk back to the gear stash

Lovely fry up in Sligachan hotel, good value too at £10 for cold buffet, coffee and decent quality fry up. Drove off down to Glen Brittle and reluctantly set off on the 2hr walk back to Loch Coir a'Ghrunnda. Weather was pretty sunny, and the two rivers we'd had trouble crossing 36 hours ago were easily crossable today on stepping stones, no worries of wet feet! Passed two groups of walkers on the way up - we were both moving quickly with only an empty rucksack to bring down the kit. It was good to get the limbs going again too!

Arrived! Coffee on...

I arrived first and got the stove going. I thought we had one last sachet of coffee in the gear dump but after searching couldn't find it! Gutted I turned the stove off. Feeling sweaty after the walk in and all of yesterdays efforts with no shower I stripped off and dipped into the lochan - bloody freezing but felt revitalised on emerging a cleaner man! Mike arrived shortly after and I explained the coffee situation. He had a quick look and unwrapped the aluminium foil wind shield to be greeted by the coffee sachet falling out! A few minutes later we were holding warm cups of coffee with big smiles. Packed everything up and hiked out, downhill from here!

Walking out happy!

Before long the knees were aching again. I'm sure I felt my ACL straining on some of the awkward downsteps with the pack on! We did 100m descents each, which meant swapping over quite quickly at the start before longer stints as the terrain flattened out towards the end. Beautiful sun, nice views over the coastline to sea.

Arrived back at the car in blazing sun! Took the opportunity to lay all the kit out on the grass to dry while we went down to the beach and cooked some fresh pasta lunch. Took 2hrs to walk up, about 1hr15m to walk back down. Great to chill on the beach, almost warm enough for t-shirt/shorts, just the wind was a bit cool. Back in the car we drove back to Sligachan before continuing on to Portree and then Uig, Mike testing out the performance of the TDI Golf on some of the bends!

At Uig by 1600, my ferry not till 1800. Headed to the Pier Restaurant for a pint, great views over the harbour. Mike showing off his grated finger tips - definitely wear sturdy gloves if you're gonna have a go at the cuillin ridge!

Mike's shredded finger tips

Wondered around the Skye brewery shop before watching the ferry come in. I bade Mike farewell, what a 48 hrs!! Boarded the ship with all my kit, feeling pretty knackered after an uncomfortable night in the car. Slept most of the journey!

Arrived in Tarbert by 1945, walked over to my car before setting off north to Stornoway. None of the traffic was hanging around, everyone was absolutely gunning it along the road! I was following a van with 2 bikes on the back - how fast could that go right?! Pretty flipping fast! Had trouble keeping up! Got to the Co-Op by 2030, got some milk and chicken as everywhere shuts tomorrow (Sunday, sigh). In the checkout queue met one of the GPs who's involved in the helicopter service up here. Sadly he informed me that I'm not gonna get a flight on them this trip, as they're all currently switching over to Bristow control in the recent government shakeup of services. Disappointing but would have been icing on the cake. Back at the flat, quick food before a very welcome hot bath for aching limbs! Briefly sorted kit before collapsing unconscious for a long sleep...