Stroll Up Scotland
A walk along the Scottish National Trail, Scotland, in May-June 2022. Long-distance hike, mountaineering and bog-walking, amongst other activities.
Saturday, 18 June 2022
Changes
Tuesday, 14 June 2022
Universal Basic Land
Sunday, 12 June 2022
Cape Wrath
I'm here. Thirty eight days after setting off from Jedburgh, I arrived at the Cape Wrath lighthouse at 10:30 this morning, Sunday 12th June.
Just one more bog from the Cape
Cape Wrath felt very wrathful today; I walked here through a storm of southerly (luckily, I was blown along) winds and heavy showers. But as I reached the Cape - the lighthouse is set dramatically on a cliff-top - the sky turned blue, and the sun made the raindrops sparkle like jewels.
My last night on the trail was Strathchailleach bothy, the former home of a naïf artist and recluse, James MacRory-Smith, known as Sandy. All of the internal walls of the tiny, dark, two-room cottage, are covered in painting and colours, including paintings of strangely exaggerated bodies, and of an unclothed mother and child in the tropics. Walkers - and one cyclist - arrived in from the storm so that this morning there were four of us ready to do the last three-hour trek across the bogs to the Cape. It was good to have company, because out here there are no signposts, no clear trail.
Relief in a storm - I've found the bothy Sandy's paintings
And that has been one of the wonders of this wander up Scotland. No signs, no trail, no path marked on a map. Just land - much of it bog - and an endpoint for each day, 20-30km from where you start. It feels like a metaphor for our lives; we roam across time, each finding their own path, criss-crossing with others, and occasionally hitting the bog. It's the people I meet at the intersections of these paths, and the loved ones who are there at the start and the finish, that make the hard route worth taking.
Wednesday, 8 June 2022
My Day
Looking back from the bealach |
Monday, 6 June 2022
Scot Land
A Cairn Society
A gift, in the hills |