I arrived at Tyndrum at 13.45, packed the bike and departed. Today I was to follow the HT550 route as far as Ben Alder Cottage bothy mostly on estate roads. For some reason I had it in my head that it was 40 miles so I reasoned i'd arrive by 8 or 9 pm.
Half way along Loch Lyon one of the Gorilla cages jumped out of it's mount, caught in the wheel and sent me crashing to the ground. In the fall the cage had broken but it was my own stupid fault as i'd not used these before and without thinking I had overloaded the one that had come adrift. Half an hour saw a fix and a re distribution of weight and I was off again albeit with my Garmin gps unit in my pocket as the fall had broken the zip ties holding it to the bars. I normally carry spares but i'd forgotten to put them in and I had no other way to re attach it.
Crossing from Glen Lyon over to Loch Rannoch slowed me further due to strong headwinds and persistent rain and I missed a turn off below Leagag. I could backtrack or carry on along the track I was on which by a slightly longer way would bring me to where I wanted to be. I decided to backtrack but arriving at the turn off wished I hadn't as in the dark it looked to be a nasty singletrack push and being pretty tired now I couldn't face it so backtracked once again along the way i'd already been going.
By the time I arrived at Bridge of Gaur the wind and rain had ceased so I had some food and pressed on along the last leg. I knew now that todays ride was far more than the 40 miles i'd thought it to be but pressed on without checking my current miles or time. The last mile to the bothy was very boggy and being now very tired I pushed all the way. 100 metres to go and one last obstacle, the bridge over the Alder Burn. A one metre step up to get onto the bridge, however at the base of the step the ground is worn away with only a little bit to stand on. With the bike vertical and the front wheel touching the lip of the step the back wheel is sitting in a hole in the ground making the lift even higher. With my bad back I really should have unloaded the bike to get it onto the bridge but I was tired, sweaty, pissed off and so close to my goal that I just went for it and on the fourth attempt and much swearing I managed to get it up and onto the bridge.
On arrival at the bothy it was uninhabited but found it to have had every door left wide open. I could imagine it is just about possible though rather negligent to leave latch doors open but one side of the double doors had sliding bolts top and bottom so I came to the conclusion that they had been left open deliberately, for why I had no idea. A further mooch about showed empty cans and bottles and uneaten food left lying about. Whoever had been here previously was in my opinion a complete dickhead which I found hard to understand as it is some undertaking to get to this bothy. I'd have understood it if it was close to the road but this had me baffled.
I chose the room with the raised sleeping platform and stove but before unpacking thought i'd better check the time and distance i'd done, I thought maybe 10 pm but no, 12.50 am and 53 miles!!!! How the hell did that happen? Just goes to show time passes quickly when your having fun. I reckon i'd messed up on the distance I thought I was doing because i'd plotted several routes to choose from all of which I thought had a forty mile first day, another lesson learnt, check your route properly.
I put a firelog in the stove to warm up a bit and dry my clothes whilst I sorted kit and food out, had a couple of drams then off to sleep at 2 am.
I didn't wake untill 10 am but still felt very tired. The painkillers i'm on have that effect on you and i'm so glad i'm only on them when needed as I hate the way they make you feel. My back will settle down in a week or two until something else sets it off, usually manual labour. I'm generally very independent but it's starting to dawn on me that I can no longer do as much as i'd like to, old age I guess.
Over breakfast I looked at todays route to see if I could shorten it as I didn't want to do another full on day and after 7 hours night riding I wasn't sure how much life my lights had left in them. I could cut the route to 20 miles but my heart still wasn't in it. I had brought 2 days worth of food so I decided to go and look for firewood and if I found enough for the evening i'd stay for the day at the bothy as it was in such a fantastic location and I could do with the rest. Some woods across the way proved futile as every bit of dead wood that could be feasibly cut by hand saw had already been taken so I wandered back to the bothy and walked up along the loch side finding small bits of driftwood then bingo, the remains of two tree stumps with roots attached had been washed up on the shoreline. The stumps were too big to saw through but the roots which had twisted and grown together would produce enough logs for the evening but it did mean having to saw through several places to untangle the roots and produce a single log. I had all day and it took me a couple of hours to cut and carry what I needed back to the bothy.
A leisurely lunch followed by two hours ukulele playing saw me through to 5 pm when I decided to light the fire. If no one arrives in the next hour or so then I reckoned i'd have the bothy to myself but ten minutes later a Dutch guy with an unpronounceable name arrived after walking 12 miles in. He said "just call me G, everyone else does". He was a great bloke and we spent the night chatting, listening to tunes and drinking Tesco's taste the difference single malt whisky which i'd brought and is actually rather nice. At £18 a bottle it's a good buy in my opinion. He lived near Inverness and had worked in Scotland for the last 4 years and had no plans to leave, he loved the place. He enquired how i'd slept the night before then told me the place was supposed to be haunted. I'd slept fine but it got me thinking that maybe the ghost was responsible for opening all the doors. G retired to the other room at 9 and I sat to finish the whisky and let the fire die down then hit the sack at 10.
Next morning we were both up by 7.30 and G was on his way an hour later. I had more decisions to make. I decided to backtrack to The Bridge of Gaur and take the road to Rannoch Station then see how I felt and check train times. If I felt good or there were no trains then I would head across to the Kings House Hotel (a crossing I knew would be difficult) then South to Gorton bothy. As it happened I had only 20 minutes to wait for a train back to Tyndrum and the car, the next train wouldn't have been until 5pm, so that was rather fortuitous and decision made.
Despite struggling on this route due to the tiredness from the medication and not doing the full distance I had planned I did actually really enjoy myself. I'm loving the new Genesis Longitude and this was it's first proper bikepacking trip. I've learned not to overload a gorilla cage and managed to source a new one for £20 rather than the £30 normally charged. Meeting G was a pleasure and both the bothy and landscape were great. Whoever recommended making my own marzipan and chocolate sweets is a star, i'll be making them again and a block of cheese cut up into portions and wrapped in clingfilm is much cheaper than buying Babybells. The wifes said I should get out again in the next few weeks before we go to London to visit her Mum so naturally i've jumped at the chance. Hopefully I won't be on any medication by then,
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I also sat on a chair outside in the shade for 5 minutes applying more sun cream - an indication of the weather we had - and eating whilst I recovered ready for the climb up the single-track 
