deer Archives - helpful mammal

CCXV – Drumbeg to Scourie

I MUST have been tired after three days of hiking because, on the fourth morning of my September 2019 trip, I first slept through my alarm and then slept right through breakfast. This was highly appropriate, though, as it was nine years since I set off on my first walk from Gravesend and I set off late then too.

CCV – Strathcarron to Applecross

AROUND the middle of April 2019, I found myself back in Wester Ross, ready to embark upon a seven-day trek from Strathcarron to Ullapool. This naturally required that I start in Strathcarron, which would have been easier had the Strathcarron Hotel had a vacancy. Alas, it did not. Plan B was to stay in Kyle of Lochalsh, knowing that I could catch the early morning train (on which I’d left the area at the end of my last trip) to whisk myself there at some awful, ungodly pre-breakfast hour. So that’s what I did.

CLXXXIV – Craignure to Pennyghael

AS THE winter nights shortened and the calendar crept towards the spring of 2018, I looked forward to resuming my perambulatory pastime. The warmer weather would also be more welcome except that it never arrived. Instead, a cold front — nicknamed the ‘Beast from the East’ — swept across Britain, burying rural areas under drifts of snow and even dusting London with the stuff.

CLXXX – South Ballachulish to Fort William

ON THE fifth and final day of my August 2017 trip I walked from South Ballachulish to Fort William, which lay about 15 miles up what was once a drove road along the shores of Loch Linnhe but is now the A82. With this in mind, I emerged from the Ballachulish Hotel to face the narrows at the mouth of Loch Leven, which stood between me and that road. If I wanted to walk it, I would first need to cross them.

CXLI – Kirkcudbright to Gatehouse of Fleet

I RETURNED to walking after a five month gap, the delay having come about on account of being a bit under the weather. Not me, you understand, but south west Scotland, which had spent much of the winter assailed by flooding and storms. Since I planned to go walking, not wading, I patiently waited this out until the first signs of impending spring brought calmer, warmer and — most importantly — drier weather. And then I got sunburnt. In Scotland. In March. It’s like my special super-power.

LIX – Combwich to Highbridge

UPON waking in an enormous room in an early Tudor farmhouse (very early Tudor – it was built in 1486, the year after the Battle of Bosworth Field) my thoughts were, in order, ‘wow’ and ‘I’m hungry’.

XXIV – Swanage to Kimmeridge Bay

MY LEGS hurt. Actually, I think even the hurt hurts. But on balance, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

It’s been a while since my last walk on account of a number of factors including, but not limited to, being a bit busy, my finances dwindling and not wanting to climb hills in the heat of the summer.