Tag Archives: scotland

summer slips quietly away…

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The last 4-6 weeks have been a bit strange for me. Plenty has been happening and none of it bad but life has kind of just been ticking by. It’s like being a passenger on a boat that is drifting along in the current of a slow wide river. I’m not complaining about this as unlike other times I’ve been kind of enjoying it. I haven’t been idle through this time but for anyone reading this blog it would appear that I may have fallen asleep for the Summer!

As I say I haven’t been idle but neither have I been committed to anything in particular. I have been reading a lot, watching far too much YouTube, watching a reasonable amount of TV (probably too much of that too!), cycling a bit, walking a bit and making a couple of YouTube videos all around the normal rhythm of work and family life. I’ve been posting a bit on Instagram and Facebook but what I haven’t been doing is writing anything. Something about the last month or more hasn’t given me an urge to write, maybe it’s a seasonal thing and I’ve been too busy just getting on with stuff to write about it?

I’ve come up with an Audax challenge for 2023 that is motivating me to get back out on the bike on an almost regular basis. While still not at the level l need to be, I’ve cycled more in the last two months than the rest of the year to date and I’m still pedalling and even better I’m enjoying it again. I’m (im)patiently waiting for the 2023 Audax Ireland events calendar to be published to make my concrete plans and then I’ll have the details to share. In the meantime I’m enjoying being back on two wheels although it’s sobering when I ride through what used to be a regular training area and realise just how long it’s been since my last visit!

Despite a sustained period of dry and mostly settled weather I’ve had a messy start to my new membership of the walking club. I’d highlighted two walks I was keen to do and that fitted in among all the rest of my life perfectly. However, both of these ended up being hit by a short sharp weather warning and ended up postponed to a later date. However, the new calendar is now published and I have high hopes for October. Yellow warnings in that month are just regular Irish weather! In the meantime I’ve been occupying myself with some walks on the local roads and forest trails as well a trip to Killeter Forest to complete the second trail that caught my eye back in April of last year.

As well as working in between these more interesting activities I managed to get across to Scotland at the end of August for a long weekend to visit my best friend Jim and family. The last time we saw each other was March 2020 when we were in Switzerland and travelled home just before the start of the very first Covid lockdown. It’s been 2.5 years but feels like a lifetime. Like every good friendship it was as if it was just yesterday. I flew over on the Friday morning and left on the Monday morning and in between we had a very relaxing few days of catching up, meeting his new pup, walking and talking, eating and drinking. It was a great weekend and already seems like a year ago!

Heading towards the end of the month I’m full of plans – some fully formed and some still rattling around in Beta phase. This weekend I’m off for a long weekend due to the Queen’s funeral so I’m heading to the Mournes on Sunday evening for a long hike on Monday. I was planning to do this last weekend but again was smited by the weather gods who sent the tail-end of a hurricane across the country for the day! This has worked out for the better anyway, having two full days to use rather than a dash across the country after work on a Saturday evening. This will be a 16km walk with 1200m of climbing and I’m a bit nervous about that level of challenge in a day walk. To be honest I’m sleeping in the van on Sunday night and that also makes me nervous, much more so than sleeping in a tent in the mountains! However, it is an adventure, I’ve never walked in the Mournes before and I get to climb Slieve Donard, the highest summit in Ulster and one of the Irish Four Peaks.

I hope to film the walk as well as walk the walk but in the meantime here are two videos I published on YouTube recently

wild winter

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Wild Winter by John D Burns and read by Stewart Crank.

From Audible:

In Wild Winter, John D. Burns, best-selling author of The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, sets out to rediscover Scotland’s mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, pupping seals, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares, and otters. In the midst of the fierce weather, John’s travels reveal a habitat in crisis, and many of these wild creatures prove elusive as they cling on to life in the challenging Highland landscape.

As John heads deeper into the winter, he notices the land fighting back with signs of regeneration. He finds lost bothies, old friendships and innovative rewilding projects, and – as Covid locks down the nation – reflects on what the outdoors means to hillwalkers, naturalists and the folk who make their home in the Highlands.

Wild Winter is a reminder of the wonder of nature and the importance of caring for our environment. In his winter journey through the mountains and bothies of the Highlands, John finds adventure, humour and a deep sense of connection with this wild land.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a beautifully written and really well narrated book. I absolutely loved listening to it and it felt way too short.

The author has an amazing talent for describing outdoor scenes and environments. His skill takes you away from your current location and firmly plants you in the spot he is describing. His love of the outdoor life and his passion for the Scottish Highlands is evident all the way through and is inspiring.

Not only does he take us to the Highlands but he allows us a glimpse of the strong friendships he has built since childhood and the struggle he had coping with the lockdown at the start of Covid.

This is a hugely positive and uplifting book and definitely my favourite audiobook so far.

Header image source: fossbytes.com

the farthest shore

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The Farthest Shore by Alex Roddie (Read by Alex Wingfield)

From Audible:

In February 2019, award-winning writer Alex Roddie left his online life behind when he set out to walk 300 miles through the Scottish Highlands, seeking solitude and answers. In leaving the chaos of the internet behind for a month, he hoped to learn how it was truly affecting him – or if he should look elsewhere for the causes of his anxiety.

The Farthest Shore is the story of Alex’s solo trek along the remote Cape Wrath Trail. As he journeyed through a vanishing winter, Alex found answers to his questions, learnt the nature of true silence, and discovered frightening evidence of the threats faced by Scotland’s wild mountain landscape.

My Rating: ⭐⭐

I came across this book from a recommendation on Splodz Blogz a couple of weeks ago. Having just finished Wild and watched YouTuber Haze Outdoors’ videos of  walking the Cape Wrath Trail I thought it would be right up my street.

This author and Haze Outdoors definitely seem to be very different characters but I was still surprised by the differences in how the two people approached the walk and their experiences on it. Haze very much camped for the majority of the trail and also immersed himself in the experience, the land and devoted his story to the experience of completing the trail. Roddie on the other hand used this book to talk more about his motivation for walking the trail and his own very personal experience which was more about a changing outlook on life that happened along the trail. He made extensive use of bothies along the trail rather than relying on camping and took almost 3 times as long. That was probably a consequence of the different times of year as much as the different walkers.

As I was expecting more of a trail story I was a bit disappointed by this book. I was expecting and hoping for something more like the aforementioned Wild or even The Last Englishman but didn’t get it. I thought that the book was written more as a way to justify the author’s expedition and to fund the cost of it. Now, that is his career and I can understand the need for it, but I think this was more of a personal journey that didn’t need to be a book. While I have sympathy for his struggles with anxiety I couldn’t help but feel that much of it was either self-imposed by his view of social media or coming from a totally unrelated source. Maybe if I had a similar struggle I could have related and empathised more.

I also struggled with the overly flowery language he used. It reminded me of Steve Backshall’s book Expedition that I eventually gave up on. This author had the same tendency to over describe the most normal of occurrences. Everything seemed to be the most wonderful or the most terrible rather than just depicting it as it was. His occasional forays into a very mystical view of nature and wildlife left me rolling my eyes and tempted to switch off.

This is the author’s second book based on walking The Cape Wrath Trail. It’s possible he didn’t want to rehash the story of the original but for me this approach simply didn’t land. I think I’d like to try his first book though and see what it’s like and how they differ.

Header image source: fossbytes.com