THE third day of my April 2019 trip promised to be a long one. This was entirely of my own choosing because, when I’d looked at the map, something had leapt right out at me —two places called Shieldaig! This isn’t that amazing in itself; Gaelic toponyms are often repeated as they’re mostly descriptive in nature. ‘Shieldaig’, for instance, is the Anglicised spelling of a Gaelicised version of Old Norse síld-vík, meaning ‘herring bay’ and more than one bay in Scotland would have had herring in it. So, why my excitement about spotting two Shieldaigs?
Tag: sunrise
CXCIV – Isleornsay to Armadale
WHEN I planned my May 2018 walking trip, I never actually intended to have a sixth walking day but that was okay because I hadn’t originally planned to have a fifth one either. I had expected to reach Kyle of Lochalsh (Caol Loch Aillse) on day four and from there take a train home the next morning. This plan, which on the face of it seemed reasonable, fell apart when circumstances demanded that I reach Kyle on a Saturday. With next to no trains home on a Sunday, I elected to extend my trip and thus day five took me to Isleornsay (Eilean Iarmain).
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.
CXL – Dalbeattie to Kirkcudbright
WAY back in the distant dawn of time, known to some as ‘last October’, I plodded step by step from Dalbeattie to Kirkcudbright, fitting in my last walk of the year before the days got too short. As it turned out, they already had, which goes some way to explain why I was up and about in Dalbeattie before it was properly light.
LXVII – Barry to Merthyr Mawr
I MAY, as the twilight began to lighten the horizon on Saturday morning, have wondered to myself why I thought it was a good time to be sitting in Cardiff Central Station (or Caerdydd Canolog in Welsh). The answer, of course, was that it enabled me to catch the first train to Barry and so to resume my walk around the coast. It didn’t, on the other hand, do much for sating my body’s desire for sleep. But hey, it had had a two hour snooze on the overnight coach from London. That would just have to be enough…