76

It's 10 miles round Loch Affric. The river's in turmoil and all the burns are high, spilling over the rough track often ankle deep. I splash through on submerged stone, thinking, ‘What will these burns be like later when the sodden hills have released all their weight of water?’ Stalkers’ vehicles have churned the peat in many places and, a short way off the track, I see two figures hunched in a parked Argocat, peering into the gloom. Not a good day for their sport, I guess.

Out of the landscape comes the only human I'll meet from first to last, a young Frenchman, heavily laden, who's trekked in from the west coast, having stopped overnight at Alltbeithe. It's not the weather that bothers him, he says, but the midges.

In Cannich, I dry off in the Slaters Arms and, coming out, I meet John MacLennan, his face burnished by the wind. He's been out on the hill all day.

‘Have a dram,’ I say.

But he declines. ‘I've had a few already,’ he responds with that wee smile of his.