What a night! fighting to keep dry, keep the tent from blowing away and trying to sleep... Didn't get much of the last plenty of the other two!
Hurricane Bertha was really putting us to the test, extremely heavy rain and winds up to 100 miles an hour made this a trip into survival not just an adventure, but stubborn gets me through most stuff, and this was something I can do, so packing everything away wet was not just optional, off the hill and finding a safe place to relaunch the trek was the order of the day, although not easily done in the high winds we did get away with some kind of order, just walking now proves difficult the wind behind isn't so bad you just lean back into it and keep going, where the track led across the flow of the wind is where It gets hard throwing you around and threatening to throw you on the floor at any moment.
Like this we pass loch Vaich where the mountains to either side are white with water gushing down into the valley and so on to flood the lower parts of the Glen. At Strathvaich lodge the river is swollen and churning white/brown where it hasn't already broken it's banks, splashing through this until black bridge where Bertha finally kicks us out the valley.
A bit of road walking past an old hotel and into forestry commission wood's soggy but under cover from the wind, a few miles of this till lunch where we shelter under a tree perched on a dry but uncomfortable rock while I heat some noodles and give Alfie ham and other treats.
From here we leave the woods aiming for Garve which we reach in his time and get a room at the hotel here, the room is soon converted into a drying room with my entire kit splayed around the room! At least we'll be starting in good order again tomorrow.
