The Third March

This was a total pain for the organiser(s), which was brought about by the crazy SPL fixture system. For the Highland March to retain its tradition of walking from the penultimate match to last match of the season, they had to endure a long wait before knowing where they were walking. This was brought about by ICT now being in the all-singing-all-dancing SPL. ICT’s final two fixtures could not be decided until all sides in the SPL had played 33 games. This wretched Premier League then splits into two sections with the top six teams playing each other and the bottom six playing each other. These fixtures could not be decided until the back end of March so this gave the organiser(s) about two weeks to book the accommodation and plan routes etc. Some groundwork was done, however, and various routes were pencilled in for the various fixture scenarios – madness, total ruddy madness. The fixture computer eventually dealt out an ‘away’ match in Dundee and a ‘home’ match in Inverness, and so, was born the march back up the road from Dundee to Inverness.

16th May Broxden, Perth

This route was shorter than its predecessors by some 20 miles or so but this didn’t stop some the marchers from making it a little longer. There were eight starters for the march and they split up into two groups for the first four days –

Team Yomper and Team Gringo.
The full Team Gringo version of he event can be found here.
The two routes were:-
Team Yomper – 145 miles
Day One (Sat): Dundee to Coupar Angus (18)
Day Two (Sun): Coupar Angus to Amulree (23)
Day Three (Mon): Amulree to Tummel Bridge (18)
Day Four (Tue): Tummel Bridge to Dalnacardoch Lodge via Schiehallion (15)
Day Five (Wed): Dalnacardoch Lodge to Tromie Bridge. (21)
Day Six (Thu): Tromie Bridge to Carrbridge. (22)
Day Seven (Fri): Carrbridge to Daviot. (20)
Day Eight (Sat): Daviot to Inverness.(8)

Team Gringo – 133 miles
Day One (Sat): Dundee to Campmuir. (15)
Day Two (Sun): Campmuir to Dunkeld. (16)
Day Three (Mon): Dunkeld to Blair Atholl. (20)
Day Four (Tue): Blair Atholl to Dalnacardoch Lodge. (11)
Day Five (Wed): Dalnacardoch Lodge to Tromie Bridge. (21)
Day Six (Thu): Tromie Bridge to Carrbridge. (22)
Day Seven (Fri): Carrbridge to Daviot. (20)
Day Eight (Sat): Daviot to Inverness. (8)

With two walks already in the bag and the lessons learnt from those, this was by far the most successful of all the HM’s to date. There was a 100% home run with very little in the way of blisters to show for it. All, to an almost professional standard, did training and it paid dividends. The only real glitch in the whole march was an attempted short cut on the penultimate day when the troops got rather wet whilst taking a ‘short cut’ across open moorland north of Tomatin courtesy of some imaginative map reading. Despite late planning and the logistics surrounding the whole event it proved to be worthwhile in the end and was the most successful, completion wise of all the HMs.