During the first few months of 2013, I became fascinated by journeys because of their power to inspire and transform. For my first outing, I plotted a one-way route across Scotland on foot. A view of the Atlantic to any destination on the North Sea seemed acceptable, with an infinite mix of glens and hills, paths or pathlessness between them. I looked at my maps to see where my feet had never tramped and estimated the distance that was possible in 24 hours using public transport from the Central Belt.
I picked a route from Perth, considered navigable up the River Tay in spring, to Kinlochleven, beholden to the tip of Loch Linnhe’s most easterly tentacle. The journey measured about 60 miles as the crow flies. Over the mountains, it was closer to 90.
My first attempt started one April Saturday morning at Perth station, before it was fully light. Running along the banks of the Tay and the quieter Almond as the sun filtered through oaks and beech was tremendous. Urban outskirts led to less-travelled parts. A vale became a gorge. The trees were ancient. I lost the path and slipped across water-scrubbed sandstone. The ratatata of a woodpecker mocked my feet as I made short steps up one embankment and down another. Hydra-like, exposed roots clutched waterworn boulders. Brambles snagged my socks. There was a house, a bridge and farmland where the river widened and the colours changed.
I slowed. There was no need to hurry because this was a journey not a race. As usual, the only competition was myself. For the six miles I traced the river that needed my waymaker skills not to cross walls and wires and break the rules of roaming. Glenalmond College materialised: gothic spires like Hogwarts and equally exclusive. I peeled off here, nearly a marathon done, to take trails and roads back to the start point. The beauty had taken away my drive.
On my second attempt in May, I took the West Coast Citylink. This time, I’d travel with the prevailing wind, west to east. On the local bus to Kinlochleven, seven miles of fjordic glassiness stared back through the window as local youths pushed one another across the aisle and laughed. Bagged-up fourpacks of tinned lager took up the spare seats. It was Friday evening, after all. I stayed a few hours at the village hostel beside the old turbine house, and chatted with walkers on the West Highland Way. I took some rest on a pee-proof mattress in a dormitory room. At three am exactly, I tiptoed out and began running.
At the only bridge across the river, I crossed to the right bank and continued upstream. Here, I zigzagged through birch thicket with only my headlamp for guidance. Cool mud splashed up my legs. I lost the path among a confusion of hoofmarks. Roots tried to trip my feet while the land steepened and forced me to lose height. Now, I was downclimbing a mush of vertical rock and grass, near blind and deafened by waterfalls. At river level, I hopped out to a boulder in the centre of the turbulence and turned off the light. It was an amazing feeling, only a few minutes into my voyage, alone in blinding darkness, befriended by the roaring silence. My nostrils flared: peat from the flow competed with mulch of vegetation.
I clawed my way up the ravine and rediscovered the path. Earth, rock and bog interchanged underfoot. My limbs eased into the rhythm. The wind refreshed my lungs. Slowly, darkness ebbed and the landscape opened up. A giant wall appeared - the Blackwater Reservoir. I looked at my watch and the map - one hour with five miles done. From my pack I took a snack bar and ate it following the north shore. I ran and ran. There was no path, just shingle with sandy mud, or the endless heather of Rannoch Moor. My ankles sprung and jolted as the hills of Glencoe emerged and disappeared into crimson-tinged mist.
The head of the loch appeared after 15 miles. Here, the other side was calling. Rather than mess around at the intake river, I chose to cross the water by a string of rocky islands that protruded from the drink like stegosauri. I stripped to my trainers, stuffed belongings into my drybag and slipped into the icy black. It can’t have been more than 200m of swimming with slow, deliberate strokes, but when I landed on the far bank my body began to convulse. It was snowing too, with enormous eye-stinging flakes. Survival mode kicked in. I started running immediately and dismissed the getting dressed until I’d reheated. As one of the most inaccessible parts of Britain, the risk of hypothermic exposure was more than that of undignified self-exposure!
After a few miles, Land Rover tracks converged and dropped through pine forest to Rannoch Station. Walkers in high-vis Lycra greeted me on their early starts. I made up time taking the road for an hour. At the Bridge of Gaur, a speckling of stone houses waymarked the access to more hills. Rhomboids of forest blemished the tundra like patches on a hobo’s jacket. Ptarmigan squawked. Tracks dwindled and the paths expired: nobody ever came here either. As I climbed, the bog soured, sliced with jagged wounds that filled with deepening snow. The hilltop zenith beneath the blue sky seemed impossibly distant.
Suddenly, my world flattened and began to drop. Glen Lyon opened up beneath me. I let my feet glissade where they could. Soon, I met the road again. At Bridge of Balgie, the Post Office café enticed me like those cliff-top Sirens. I ordered soup and coffee and cake and chocolate and sat outside with the sun on my face: delicious. Indulgently, I shrugged my shoulders and decided to call it a day. I’d done 45 miles before lunch and felt at peace. Hitchhiking and public transport would get me home. Meanwhile, I could look forward to completing this journey another time.
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