In the morning it was raining as hard as ever, I went around to the east side of the Loch so as to avoid crossing the river lower down the valley. And then the bog trot began, I would be ankle deep in bog for quite some time. Four miles north I came to a quadi-bike track, after another two miles there was a fork in the track. The map showed the left track going to the top of a waterfall then some way further down the hillside re-starts zigzagging down. I wasn't too sure about the gap in the track. The right fork was longer but was shown as continuous, so I plumped for this one. At the bottom of the falls was Carnach, there was just a locked lodge house and no one in sight. Beyond was a good 4 x 4 track heading away north-east, a couple of miles further along another building Iron Lodge, again all locked up. At this point I walked off the Harvey's Knoydart and Kintail map, these are printed on polyethylene which is waterproof. My next map was an ordnance survey paper map, which isn't waterproof. Where was my plastic map case, not in my sack it was at home so not a lot of use. After Iron Lodge the track forked, left fork looked very steep sided with no where to camp, right fork lead to Loch Mhoicean so I headed there. Had I gone left I'd have come to a bothy but I hadn't got it marked on my map. It had rained all day, I pitched up in the rain and next day I packed in the rain.
Beyond the Loch the good track ends, there is still a track marked on the map but on the ground it's very faint. Somebody had driven a Quadi down it at some point in the not so distant past but following it wasn't easy. At some point I should have crossed over on to the east side of the stream (called the Allt Coire nan Each at this point). But I mist it and continued down the west side. About four miles further north the stream turns left (west) and becomes the Allt an Loin Fhiodha which flows into Loch Cruoshie. This was fast flowing and very deep, I followed it back up stream about a mile to where a ford was marked on the map. After looking at it and poking it with my walking poles I decided it was between waist and chest deep. It had been raining for three days so was in full spate, the water was moving with tremendous force, no way was I crossing there. Another mile up stream I found a place, there was a rock in the middle of the stream with a waterfall either side of it. Getting on to the rock was easy just a boulder hop, the other side was about four feet across and eighteen inches down onto a good wide ledge. I was aware of my heavy pack pulling me back but I took a deep breath and jumped. I was very glad to land safely on the other side. I quickly picked up the quadi track but this went north-east to Pait Lodge. I wanted to go north-west to Loch Calavie which was about two miles away. Two miles of bogs and ponds and Lochans and old glacial moraines and another river which was no doubt also in spate. This river the Allt Loch Calavie, flowed east into a line of small Lochs before flowing into Loch Monar at Pait Lodge which was about five miles away. The only bridge was at Pait Lodge, in this weather I had no other choice. There were some boats moored in the bay and a couple of quadis parked by the lodge but no other sign of life. Once over the bridge there was no sign of the track so I just followed the Loch shore until I found a place to camp. It was still raining and I was only six miles from where I'd camped the night before.
