Cadderlie

I took my wife to a bothy, once, specially chosen because it was easy to reach. No mountain passes, bog-hopping or river crossings to get to Cadderlie: just an easy two-hour stroll along the shores of Loch Etive on a well-made landrover track carrying everything on our backs. We walked in the dark for five miles as I regaled her with the joys of bothying. There was just one concern: what if someone else was there, and they had driven up? They would be loud, obnoxious, a drunken pain in the arse, probably with amplified music and a variety of other drugs. Not my wife's scene. The bothy came into view. A white transit van was parked outside.

Shite.

We walked in, and found four young lads inside with a massive ice bucket full of beer ensconsed before a roaring fire. "Hello, would you like a beer?" they asked. A cheerful crew. Could have been a lot worse. There would be no romantic canoodling tonight, but that is the thing with bothies: they are open shelters, free to use, often empty, but when chance throws you together with unexpected companions you just have to roll with it. Pre-wife, I used to love that random aspect of bothying.

I got a fire going in the but and out of politeness, left my girlfriend (oh, she wasn't my wife yet!) to join the lads for fifteen minutes in the ben. I am glad they did, for they told me a story. 

The last time I'd been in this bothy, I told them, I'd been their age, and I'd not forgotten it, because my friends and I encountered an artist and his wife. They were around retiral age - she was still attractive - and he was rude: he'd irritatedly told us this was his house, he had exclusive permission from the landowner, he'd been coming here every year for inspiration, and we weren't welcome.

Unfortunately Cadderlie had had a change of use. It was now a bothy, open to all, and he hadn't (or had refused to) get the memo. 

Apologies for his attitude, said his wife, but you know. She shrugged, and in that shrug was every excuse for art ever.

Well the lads were locals, and they knew the artist, by both reputation and encounter. They told me how his story ended. He drank too much. One night he waded out into the loch, pissed. This being the West Highlands, people were prone to abandoning old vehicles in the loch. He got himself tangled up in one and couldn't free himself before drowning. I imagined him in the dark, his leg caught on a piece of rusty metal, the tide rising, and hoped it was quick.

In the words of Dougie Maclean:

Standing here on Cadderlie
Between the burn and the turning sea
I gaze across at these golden hills
I'm looking all the way to eternity  

Cadderlie bothy (Source: BBC):

After our bothy adventure my girlfriend and I still went away, but we stayed in paid for, self-catering cottages, a thing much more to her taste and to my increasing horror, mine too.

My bothying days were behind me it seemed, but this weekend I got chatting to a man who extolled the virtues of a bothy I hadn't heard of in Upper Tweeddale. A new bothy I've never been to? Something long dormant stirred and my heart beat faster. I've been to a lot of bothies, but this one was new. And there is another consideration. I've taken my own dog Skye camping and it has been a disaster: like my wife, she only cares for self-catering cottages. It makes a spur-of-the-moment getaway difficult. Perhaps the answer is a bothy? We must visit one soon!

Right Skye, let's go bothying!