Knoydart cover

Knoydart, 2016

Knoydart is one of Scotland’s most beautiful but least accessible areas, where a difficult history of land ownership still casts a shadow over the community’s cautiously optimistic future. I spent a week walking, cycling and exploring there in May 2016. Here are a few posts from the trip.

Wild camping at Loch Ericht

This year will see at least four camping expeditions, and the past weekend will probably be the toughest-going as it will be the only actual wild camping, where we were in the middle of nowhere with no facilities. Trowel on standby… A group of us spent two nights wild camping by Allt Na Bealach Dubh…

Shenavall circuit

The year’s mission to get out more at weekends and make the most of the beautiful walking opportunities nearby, continues. As does the weather’s mission to be as miserable as possible. Thankfully Saturday’s walk around the Shenavall circuit, south of Ullapool, wasn’t a particularly rainy one. But the mist obscured our views quite considerably, even…

The old railway at Invergarry

Much of Britain is littered with the often rarely visible remains of closed railways, many of them victims of the infamous Beeching Axe. Of course, Beeching can’t take all the blame for railway closures in this country, because many closed long before (and, in some cases, after) his efforts. One of those that closed beforehand…

Walking the Coulags circuit

The problem with agreeing to go hillwalking on a certain date is that you can’t wimp out when the weather forecast is rubbish. Our plan was to do the Coulags circuit, which runs northwest from near Achnashellach. According to MWIS the prognosis was not good, though: below zero temperatures at summits, and as low as…

Hike and bike

I was away this weekend past with Nicole and a bunch of friends to do some hillwalking and cycling.  Based near Braemar in the Cairngorms National Park we had two excellent days, both of which involved longish cycles and then Munro-climbing at the end. Our first day saw us tackle Carn Bhac, south of Braemar.…

Haindlkarhütte

I was looking forward to the climb. Firstly, after about a fortnight of doing little else except imbibing copious quantities of food and wine on our journey through the south of France to Austria, I knew I needed some serious exercise. Secondly, I’d never done any serious hillwalking outside Scotland, so I was keen to…

Ben Wyvis, at last

Given it sits among comparatively flat landscape (by Highlands standards), it doesn’t take much for Inverness to be towered over. That’s why Ben Wyvis, over half an hour’s drive away, is a dominant feature in Inverness, especially in the popular views across town to the north from the castle. There, seemingly just at the mouth of…

A long trek

This past weekend, Nicole and I were away hillwalking with a group of friends from Glasgow.  Our base was a hostel near Roy Bridge, and our route was Corrour to Spean Bridge.  The start and end points lie on the famous and beautiful Glasgow to Mallaig train line, and so we headed by train to…

Glen Affric

Nicole and I went for a walk out Glen Affric the weekend before last and I’ve just got round to uploading a few photos.  It was our first time out there, I think, since we got engaged.  Shame really, it’s such a lovely walk and one of the prettiest and most accessible parts of the…

Torridon and Applecross

This past weekend, we hit the west coast with a group of friends to go hillwalking. We climbed a mountain at Torridon on Saturday (Mullach an Rathain, for those are interested).  It would have been two peaks but the weather was against us. Then on Sunday Nicole and I drove around the spectacular Applecross peninsula…