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).
Tag: hills
CXCI – Kinloch Hourn to Invershiel
THE third day of my May ’18 trip began with a hearty breakfast and a reconsideration of my plans. I aimed to set off from Kinloch Hourn along an old drove road, which would lead me to Arnisdale and Glenelg. From there, I intended to head inland on the Old Military Road — when can I ever resist one of those? — to Shiel Bridge and Invershiel. This was, I had reckoned, about twenty-four miles.
CXC – Mallaig to Kinloch Hourn
MY PLAN for day two of my May ’18 walking trip involved placing one foot in front of the other a lot until I got somewhere else. Well, nothing unusual there. Except this time, I planned to do that in the Knoydart Peninsula, a rather remote sticky-out bit of Great Britain. So much so that, while I can’t say that it doesn’t have roads, I can say that they’re not connected to the rest of the roads on GB. So, if you want to visit the village of Inverie, for instance, you need to do so on foot or by boat.
CLXXXVIII – Mingarry to Lochailort
THE FIFTH day of my first walking trip of 2018 was also its last, a slightly-frustrating state of affairs that would see me reach Lochailort but not Mallaig. This had not been my original plan, which had included a sixth day, but ominous meteorological forecasts had promised that a Mini-Beast from the East would bring bad weather and likely heavy snow. I didn’t want to get to Mallaig only to find myself trapped there and so my plans had been curtailed.
CLXXXVII – Tobermory to Mingarry
MY FOURTH walking day in 2018 began with dull grey skies and the promise of drizzle all morning. Who can resist such tempting conditions as that? Clearly not me. Noël Coward once sang that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun but he never said anything about venturing out in an antemeridian downpour. Even the maddest of dogs would refuse to countenance such nonsense and so, like the Englishman I was, I would have to do this walk alone.
CLXXXVI – Salen to Tobermory
GIVEN
the dismal downpour that had dominated day two of my first 2018 walking trip, I threw back the curtains on day three with some trepidation. The sky was grim and grey but the water appeared to be staying up there and not rushing to join me on the ground. I judged this a qualified success and hurried to the bus stop, keen to get started while that was still the case.
CLXXXIII – Strontian to Craignure
IN KEEPING with my unintentional Christmas tradition of not writing up the last walk of the year until the festive season, it’s time I recounted the details of my walk from Strontian to Craignure. Not that I walked the entirety of that distance; Craignure is on the Isle of Mull (Muile), so a ferry crossing was involved.
CLXXVIII – Oban to Port Appin
IT HAD been raining when I reached Oban and it rained through the night with thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. I knew then, when I woke bleary-eyed in the morning, what the cold, grey light seeping through the curtains must mean. The only real question was how bad would it be? I hesitated, my hand halfway to the window, not at all sure that I was keen to find out…
CLXXV – Cairnbaan to Kilmelford
DAY Five of my most recent trip began with an urgent assessment of the damage to my knee. The previous day it had chosen to protest — through the medium of pain — against my plan to walk six days straight. An evening of rest and a cold compress had reduced the inflammation to almost negligible levels and a tentative stroll up and down the hotel hallway revealed that while it was in some indefinable way not quite right, it didn’t exactly hurt.
CLXXIII – Tarbert to Kilberry
ON THE third day of 2017’s July trip, I theoretically had a choice on how to proceed. I could continue up the A83, along the shores of Loch Fyne to Lochgilphead or I could go the long way around, following the B8024 along the Atlantic coast. The former would be a shorter walk of about fourteen miles, the latter would take me two days.