Day 5 – Craigenbay to Stoanpatrick (16.8 miles)

After being dropped off at exactly the same place as we’d been picked up. Our day started very gloomily; low cloud, mist & not a breath of wind. Think ‘The Day’ (post apocalyptic film circa 2011)
With it being so still & grey the midges were out in force, my advice to Adele, “keep moving, they don’t bother you so much if you’re not standing still”, shortly we turned right off the road and onto a boggy forestry track, the long grasses still damp with morning dew (midge heaven)
Our quest for treasure today would be deep in the pine trees, we didn’t find anything on first inspection of the marked area, so we had another look around. In fact we spent well over an hour searching… to no avail. Kist4 not found “Epic Fail”
As we ventured on the cloud began to lift and the skies brightened, blue sky was beginning to show through, after a fair bit of road walking we were nearly back at ‘Dalry’ (where we’re staying these 2 nights). We planned a pub lunch today, instead of the now usual packed lunches knowing ‘Dalry’ was about halfway. ‘The Clachan Inn’ was a welcome oasis with the temperature rising we managed a couple of pints during our ‘lunch hour’
The afternoon saw perfect conditions for walking; bright warm sunshine, clear blue skies, a cooling southeasterly breeze & soft grassy pasture land on wide open rolling countryside. With the temperatures still rising and the incline on Culmark Hill doing the same I could see Adele was beginning to struggle, but with the ‘pick-up point’ just a couple of miles away we managed to arrive just as the car pulled up to end another fantastic day on the trail.
Stats: Total mileage: 79.3 Pint count: 11