The war in Stroma
One of my photos from Stroma has been used in a newspaper’s Remembrance Sunday article about the island’s war dead.
Underground Worlds
I recently had a photo published in a beautiful book called Underground Worlds: A Guide to Spectacular Subterranean Places, by David Farley. Here’s a little bit about it.
Three islands
I recently visited Islay, Colonsay and Jura as part of my research for Island Hopping. Here’s a sneak preview of what I got up to, plus a link to my photos.
Ghost town
In which I visit the “Granite City” of Aberdeen on an extra specially grey and misty day. I manage to avoid any reference to shades of grey, which you’ll be relieved to hear.
A quick trip to Shetland
A trip to Shetland – my first time in five years – is an opportunity to remind myself of the islands’ beauty, liveliness and inherent paradoxes.
2013 in review
As I reported at the tail end of last year, 2012 was a big year for travel – I visited eight foreign countries in total, the most since 2001. My prediction that 2013 would be quieter on the travel front was correct, but only to an extent. Yes there was no overseas travel, but I…
TROTMH 7: San Francisco
This is the seventh and last in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This final extract is an account of a day’s touristing in San Francisco. The photo is of the city’s skyline, taken from the Coit Tower.…
TROTMH 6: Fresno
This is the sixth in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This penultimate extract describes an evening in the curious, almost claustrophic town of Fresno, California. The photo is of the town’s utterly out of place cinema.…
TROTMH 5: Salton Sea
This is the fifth in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This antepenultimate extract is about the harsh landscape of the Salton Sea, in the desert of southern California, which I visited in search of Mullet Island.…
TROTMH 4: South Island road trip
This is the fourth in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This fourth extract describes one of my roadtrips through the South Island – a beautiful country that had more than a few echoes of Scotland. The…
TROTMH 3: The Scots in New Zealand
This is the third in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This third extract describes my visit to Te Papa, New Zealand’s excellent national museum in Wellington, which at the time of my visit included an exhibition…
TROTMH 2: Motutapu Island
This is the second in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This second extract describes my visit to Motutapu Island, an uninhabited island off Auckland which was home to Mullet Bay, one of New Zealand’s five mullets.…
TROTMH 1: Tipping
This is the first in a series of extracts from my new book The Return of the Mullet Hunter, which I am posting over the the course of this week. This first extract is from my trip to Canada, the second country I visited in the book. In amongst the mullet hunting, I was able…
Some photos from the south coast of England
A few photos from a short trip to the south coast of England, surviving a massive storm along the way.
A long walk to Beinn Mheadhoin
I was out hillwalking this past weekend for the first time in a long time. The attempt to get out lots during 2014 has become slightly unstuck during the latter part of the summer for various reasons, so it was good to be out again. With a group of friends I did a walk from…
Kelkaj tagoj en Esperantujo
The following is a blog post about this year’s Scottish Esperanto Congress, which I attended last month. In it, I mainly write about what happened at the congress and my slow improvement in the language. Have a wee read and feel free to comment about how much you understand of it! Ŝajnas ke kiam oni…
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…
Return to Kintail
This weekend past saw a trip to Kintail to knock off a few hills, during which a group of us stayed at the NTS bunkhouse that we’d stayed at on one previous occasion two years ago. We had planned to spend Saturday doing the well-known Five Sisters of Kintail, a stunning ridge of peaks close…
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…