From a secret hideaway deep in the Scottish highlands, out of the window, through the tall Scots Pines, a loch can be spied, the far shores dotted with remote farmhouses. Round to the north, craggy mountains pierce the cloud line. The sound of birdsong and running spring water the only disturbance to the peace and tranquility. Then we show up...
Week Two began in Edinburgh with Paul. We spent a day or so preparing for the impending road trip before catching an early morning train north to Inverness, where we met Kerrigan and our chaperone for the week: a converted VW Transporter van, hired from a company named 'Honk'. After some hilariously sarcastic horn-beeping from fellow road users, we departed for our initial destination: somewhere on Orkney.
Via the lottery of FM radio station surfing, we had the good fortune of book-ending the first days' driving with "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson. We made sure to swing through John O'Groats en route (underwhelming) and found a number for a campsite on the crossing. The van interior was custom-made so could be switched between a table/bench combo and a queen-sized bed so, after christening the 2-ring cooker, the three of us christened the make-shift sleeping quarters, so to speak.
Flagrant tourism was first on the agenda, with mainland Orkney's various pre-historic and mediaeval settlements the subject of our excursions. Ancient tombs and peaceful sea-side communities abound the landscape, evidence of a far simpler way of life - live, eat, grow, cultivate, build, die - to that which the majority of we Brits experience today. Our second night on the island was spent parked in a sheltered cove out of sight of the rest of the world, with the gentle lapping of the tide our only concern. We continued with the tourism on our third day together before parking up on the brow of a hill to pass the time before the short crossing back to the mainland. We decided to make our way around the northern shores of Scotland, and stopped for dinner in Thurso before heading to a camper site for the night.
The beauty of having everything you need in the back of a van is the lack of constraints. As long as there is petrol in the tank (quite the caveat), the freedom of the open road is something to behold. We set our sights on the west coast. Kerrigan had been given a tip off about a remote beach far from the reach of most. The scenery on the way was breathtaking, easily rivaling some of the great geographical vistas I have had the pleasure of witnessing. Pinewood forests and vast lochs gave rise to rugged peaks, as the sea retreated away to the horizon on our right - there is certainly nothing else like it on this island.
We made it to the recommended spot but were put off by the car park feel and "No overnight parking" sign so, instead, plumped for our back-up plan. Kerrigan lives in Findhorn - a foundation comprising a spiritual community, ecovillage and an international centre for holistic education - through which she knows Em. Em owns some land near to Ullapool upon which she has built a croft. Em would be in Findhorn, the croft empty, so a quick phone call and we secured our base for the remainder of the trip. The croft is quite incredible; built back into the side of the hill, it has a cabin-style living area atop a woodshed. Outside there are two further rooms, one a bedroom/study and the other an outdoor kitchen, complete with fire pit just outside. The whole place is designed around eco-living, so the hill behind the cabin is given to the growing of produce, all water is drawn straight from the fast-running stream alongside and the toilet is fundamentally a treehouse with a hole in it.
Eating, drinking and card games aside, our final three days were centred around walking near Ullapool. We managed three altogether:
- Stac Pollaidh : a relatively short walk but offering incredible views from the top, once the clouds had blown over. In fact, by the time we reached the bottom, the sun was out in all its glory, so we took the opportunity to match it by cooling off in the loch. It didn't take long to cool off.
- Around the croft : another fairly short trek down the lane and through the forest around the croft, this time in the blazing sunshine. We foraged for things to put in our dinner and found ourselves covered in ticks. Quite hardy folk, ticks. A tick only needs to feed once in its first year, so climbs to the top of a blade of grass or the tip of a leaf, and waits for dinner to walk by. It then proceeds to bury its face in your leg/arm/torso/bottom and have its fill. Ticks carry Lyme's disease and, between the three of us, we must have 'obtained' over 50 of the blighters, so spent the evening grooming each other like our primate cousins.
- Beinn Eighe : a slightly more taxing hike, this one. Beinn Eighe is Britain's oldest National Nature Reserve and overlooks the impressive Loch Maree. We took on a route within the reserve which took us up to the 'Conservation Cairn' and afforded us great views across the loch.
The week was ended with a lovely meal at The Ceilidh Place, a really rather decent restaurant where, between us, we sampled mackerel, haggis, haddock and Ross-shire beef, all of it very local and all of it very tasty.
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Number two on The List: BBFC President
Quentin Thomas, I believe, is the current incumbent. The reason for this choice is simple. Firstly, I assume that films which make it to classification are likely to get a release on some scale. Second, there are only so many films released from week-to-week. Third, having lent his signature to the classification of every released film, Quentin must have seen them all. Ergo, he spends all his week being President of watching all the films.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Monday, 11 April 2011
#002: One thing after another
I think it is fair to say I spent the last ten days before this trip in a state of perpetual motion. You may have thought you saw me sitting still for an hour or two in that time, but more-than-likely I was in quiet inner turmoil contemplating what was still to be done before the off. My apologies to you if I came across in any way distracted. Because I was distracted.
I immersed myself in lists to get things done. Indeed, I find myself at their mercy even now, into the second week of the trip. There is a list for things to buy (for this and other legs of the journey), a list for things to do (book flights, hostels, renew driving licence), a list containing useful links, a couple more for budgeting and, also, the makings of a list of lists to aid listing (I've numbered the pages of my notebook). However, there is one more list of greater significance than all the rest. And it is named The List...
I'm not sure if everyone is built the same, but my body has a habit of 'winding down' once it realises I no longer need a 24/7 supply of adrenaline. I had reckoned on this happening around lunchtime on Day One but, fortunately, Sam's (uni housemate) wedding meant I'd keep going for a day or two longer. It was a great day with the Exeter contingent; the most informal of weddings I've had the pleasure of attending, with the most eloquent of speeches delivered by the Best Men - Sam's brothers Ben and Tom. And my reputation for possessing snake hips is ensured, you'll be glad to know.
Day Two involved a one-way commute from Leicester to Huddersfield via Sheffield, as the first week of the journey would be spent with my sister Becky. The purpose of this leg, for the first few days at least, was to allow for the aforementioned 'winding down'. A couple of days in and both armpits and both groins felt they were preparing for the worst but, thanks to some professional-grade sitting-about and no little consumption of pure fruit smoothies, I was over the health-scare within 24 hours. Inherent laziness aside, the remainder of the first week featured a few casual excursions to the childhood haunts of York, Pocklington and Brimham Rocks. At Brimham it struck me quite how much of England is farmed. Sat atop a massive boulder in the North York Moors, the view revealed maybe five times as much pristine green pasture to barren heathland - evidence of the extent of English land ownership. My research for the British portion of the trip taught me you camp wild in England at risk of being shot, because every inch of it is owned by someone. Over the centuries this country has become obsessed with personal worth, not from a spiritual or cultural perspective, but in title, deed and financial legacy.
I've tried, over the last few years, at the proverbial nine to five, financial stability, corporate success, responsibility for a 'property'. A thoroughly Western, corporate way of life, feeding the capitalist machine with my purchasing power. And I liked it; the independence to do what I like, with the money to fund it and the friends to share it with. It has taken a while for me to truly realise there are alternatives out there, and I intend to find some of them while I am away.
I feel I must confess that, over the coming year, I am obliged to 'find myself'. It is written into my *cough* objectives *cough* at *cough* work *cough* that I am to return knowing what exactly I wish to do with my life. As I write I'm interested, more than anything, to find out if such a thing is even possible. The List, then, will be a record of all things I consider, during my journey, to be potential answers to the question: "What do I want to do?"
Given my opening muse of the journey, I would be lying to myself if the first entry on The List was anything other than deep space visitor. Not astronaut as such, just someone who gets to see the Universe first-hand, like a trip to Margate on a Saturday afternoon. I might need a few extra weeks off mind.
I immersed myself in lists to get things done. Indeed, I find myself at their mercy even now, into the second week of the trip. There is a list for things to buy (for this and other legs of the journey), a list for things to do (book flights, hostels, renew driving licence), a list containing useful links, a couple more for budgeting and, also, the makings of a list of lists to aid listing (I've numbered the pages of my notebook). However, there is one more list of greater significance than all the rest. And it is named The List...
I'm not sure if everyone is built the same, but my body has a habit of 'winding down' once it realises I no longer need a 24/7 supply of adrenaline. I had reckoned on this happening around lunchtime on Day One but, fortunately, Sam's (uni housemate) wedding meant I'd keep going for a day or two longer. It was a great day with the Exeter contingent; the most informal of weddings I've had the pleasure of attending, with the most eloquent of speeches delivered by the Best Men - Sam's brothers Ben and Tom. And my reputation for possessing snake hips is ensured, you'll be glad to know.
Day Two involved a one-way commute from Leicester to Huddersfield via Sheffield, as the first week of the journey would be spent with my sister Becky. The purpose of this leg, for the first few days at least, was to allow for the aforementioned 'winding down'. A couple of days in and both armpits and both groins felt they were preparing for the worst but, thanks to some professional-grade sitting-about and no little consumption of pure fruit smoothies, I was over the health-scare within 24 hours. Inherent laziness aside, the remainder of the first week featured a few casual excursions to the childhood haunts of York, Pocklington and Brimham Rocks. At Brimham it struck me quite how much of England is farmed. Sat atop a massive boulder in the North York Moors, the view revealed maybe five times as much pristine green pasture to barren heathland - evidence of the extent of English land ownership. My research for the British portion of the trip taught me you camp wild in England at risk of being shot, because every inch of it is owned by someone. Over the centuries this country has become obsessed with personal worth, not from a spiritual or cultural perspective, but in title, deed and financial legacy.
I've tried, over the last few years, at the proverbial nine to five, financial stability, corporate success, responsibility for a 'property'. A thoroughly Western, corporate way of life, feeding the capitalist machine with my purchasing power. And I liked it; the independence to do what I like, with the money to fund it and the friends to share it with. It has taken a while for me to truly realise there are alternatives out there, and I intend to find some of them while I am away.
I feel I must confess that, over the coming year, I am obliged to 'find myself'. It is written into my *cough* objectives *cough* at *cough* work *cough* that I am to return knowing what exactly I wish to do with my life. As I write I'm interested, more than anything, to find out if such a thing is even possible. The List, then, will be a record of all things I consider, during my journey, to be potential answers to the question: "What do I want to do?"
Given my opening muse of the journey, I would be lying to myself if the first entry on The List was anything other than deep space visitor. Not astronaut as such, just someone who gets to see the Universe first-hand, like a trip to Margate on a Saturday afternoon. I might need a few extra weeks off mind.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
#001: The Universe
When I was just a lad, maybe nine or ten years of age, I had a favourite book. That's not to say I haven't had a favourite book since, or before, because I have, and did. Currently the holder of my favourite book accolade is 'The Raw Shark Texts' by Steven Hall. Anyway, I digress. The favourite book of the pre-teen version of me was a work of non-fiction entitled 'The Universe', from which I learnt a great deal about the nature of our solar system and something of the nature of everything else beyond the borders of our little bit of space.
This book was my first knowing exposure to the notion of the Big Bang, how the rock on which we live, indeed our very being, might be explained by something other than Creation (the only explanation proffered to me up to that point). Perhaps it was the reading and re-reading of those pages which lay the foundations for my overtly logical mindset - in the few weeks immediately leading to this trip I know I have been quite calculating in my preparations. Certainly, it was that book that instilled in me an awe and wonder at the infinite vastness of the Universe: the possibility that other solar systems exist that are not unlike our own; ones where planets may have evolved that are capable of supporting life; ones where the path of planetary evolution is akin to Earth's; ones where you are sitting in front of your computer screen reading a blog written by me...
So, as I sit on the train rolling north on the first leg of many I will undertake, I can't help but hear something deep inside me whispering: the world is not enough. And then I think: Teri Hatcher.
Mmm, 1990's power-dressing Teri Hatcher.
Mark
This book was my first knowing exposure to the notion of the Big Bang, how the rock on which we live, indeed our very being, might be explained by something other than Creation (the only explanation proffered to me up to that point). Perhaps it was the reading and re-reading of those pages which lay the foundations for my overtly logical mindset - in the few weeks immediately leading to this trip I know I have been quite calculating in my preparations. Certainly, it was that book that instilled in me an awe and wonder at the infinite vastness of the Universe: the possibility that other solar systems exist that are not unlike our own; ones where planets may have evolved that are capable of supporting life; ones where the path of planetary evolution is akin to Earth's; ones where you are sitting in front of your computer screen reading a blog written by me...
So, as I sit on the train rolling north on the first leg of many I will undertake, I can't help but hear something deep inside me whispering: the world is not enough. And then I think: Teri Hatcher.
Mmm, 1990's power-dressing Teri Hatcher.
Mark
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