RanaldRory

  TGO Challenge 2024   There is real pleasure to be had when a plan comes off; a route that works, a well-placed camp, perhaps obstacles overcome. But plans come with expectations. It is the moments of serendipity that perhaps give the greatest pleasure of all, a more simple, childlike joy in their element of surprise. It is one of the great gifts of the Challenge that with fourteen days on your own unique path there is plenty opportunity for the unforeseen. One of these moments comes on my way out of a winding exploration of the Monadhliath, following the River Dulnain towards an overnight stop in Nethy Bridge. I started following its course the day before, accompanying it from youthful stream to adolescent river and it’s here that the scenery starts to change. Old pines, isolated at first, become more abundant, their scent filling the air. Patches of juniper are scattered over grassland and the glen begins to open around me like a Scottish savannah. The sounds are different too, pla