So my Z-Pack pack is a bit too fancy and ultimately fragile. There are these thin round carbon fibre stays that run the length of your back and form a frame that transfers weight onto the hip belt. On day 2 one of these forced a hole in the webbing that holds it taught at one end. I managed a botch mend but when you lose trust in your pack… and it also meant I couldn’t tighten the pack so as to bend the stays and thus create a ventilation gap between pack and back. Not that I think it made any difference anyway. But it pissed me off. 
Anyway, I’d kind of half fallen out of love with the pack as it felt a proper mess. Truth is my packing was shite. I had something like 11/12 separate bags in there as well as other bits of bollocks like a loose midge headnet, my tripod poles (don’t ask). So I managed to simplify into 5 bags that lay across the pack in a nice straight tidy line. I like a tidy pack. Possibly I am a saddo.
We did 22 miles today. From our camp site on Allt Bhran up Glen’s and eventually into Glen Feshie (about a mile south of the Lodge). I’ve wanted to walk Glen Feshie for a long time and it is beautiful. Wide, high sided, beautiful wild trees – mostly Caledonian Pine/Scots Pine/Birch. The river has recently eroded the path and changed course totally and the power of that change must have been immense. So the journey along the edges was at times quite adventurous.
Anyway we motored, got in a groove and fucking nailed the day. We met lots of folk but the people we especially warmed to were Dick and Rosie (the boozer), the Canadian couple, and a couple in a tent by the bridge who had a Hilleberg Nallo; all these seemed interested and interesting. Always the test. 
So we cruised down Geldie Burn and here we are in the rain in our tents imbibing by the river, a mile from the car park, chatting and eating. First rain since Corrour. That’s 3.5 days ago. Apparently it’s pissing down tomorrow but its 8 easy miles into Braemar where there is beer. And a youth hostel, restock, clothes wash, and then the final 5 day walk into Stonehaven.
A study of specs. Quite dull unless you are in a tent, imbibed, and it’s pissing down outside.
PS wifi is too shit to upload photos so will do so later