Coalman.

[Ray Young]

Yesterday evening I got round to dropping off the coal at Bunny's Bothy in preparation for next Saturday's Scottish winter bivi. I decided I may as well stay the night as I was going to be there anyway. The nearest safe place to park the car was 4 1/2 miles away, 2 on road, 2 1/2 off road along an almost flat land rover track. I had two 10kg bags of coal in a haversack on my back. One bag to burn that night and one for the Saturday. God was it heavy, I almost fell over just trying to get on the bike. Any way I set off and noticed all the weight at the back was making my steering rather light but the two road miles were good practice for the land rover track to come.
The sky was perfectly clear so it was pretty cold and the land rover track was frozen and icy in places and muddy in others which made riding the light steering bike rather interesting to say the least. There were a lot of large puddles too, some of them quite deep and all with a layer of ice over them. Luckily the ice was thin enough to break as I rode over it otherwise I think I would have been pushing a lot because the poor steering and heavy weight on my back meant that I would have gone down hard a fair few times if it had been frozen solid.
There are four fords along this track all crossing the same stream. Previously I had ridden through them all but they were deeper now. I waded through every one as there was no way was I going to risk coming off in a freezing cold stream with all that weight on my back. The deepest ford came up to my knees but it wasn't far from the Bothy so I didn't really mind. When my lights picked out the Bothy I thought someone was already there but it just turned out to be my lights reflecting off the windows.
Once inside it was hurricane lamp on then fire lit to dry out my wet stuff and warm me up. As I hadn't ridden far I wasn't particularly hungry so I got stuck into a bottle of wine whilst listening to some tunes. Before I knew it the wine was gone and I was more than a little merry having not eaten. Better eat before bed I thought so cooked up some filled pasta with a carbonara sauce. Went out for a pee before turning in and saw one of the best night sky's I'd seen in a long time. I slept like a log waking in daylight to the sound of heavy rain so turned over and went back to sleep. I love bothies and i love time to myself, a great evening.

[Wotsits]

That sounds like a great trip Ray.. Carrying 20kg of coal on your back is pretty hardcore though!

I'd be tempted to come up for your winter bivi, but i've unfortunately got other plans this weekend..

[Dan_K]

Sounds like fun Ray! I'm planning on doing the Capital Trail in the spring and like the look of that bothy...

[benp1]

Good effort sir

20 kg on your back, lent over

I haven't carried a rucksack that heavy since, well I'm not sure I ever have...

[HaYWiRe]

I heard a very similar story when I was younger....


Oh yes, My mother used to tell me about how she used used to ride home on cobblestone paths with 15kg (well, she said 30 pounds in old money) of coal on her back.....that she'd knicked from the farmer a few miles up from where we live
Seems to be a welsh tradition around here....

[Farawayvisions]

Ray, that sounds like bliss. Not the carrying of the coal part, but the after part.