Big Bothy Walk #30 The bothy sat in a fold of the glen beside the Glencoul Loch, carved out by retreating ice many millennia ago. An old schoolhouse once, to the children of all the tiny settlements in the creases and cracks of the nearby hills. Many of these children would grow up and be … Continue reading Glencoul
Big Bothy Walk #28 I had found myself in Rùm prematurely. A number of factors, among which was a growing loneliness and increasing anxiety in the wake of being rescued, making me feel like I needed a change of scene. I was too inside my own head now. I had taken a night out back … Continue reading Guirdil
Big Bothy Walk #27 Glenpean sits just the other side of Monadh Gorm from A'chuil. So close, and yet so entirely different. Where the setting for A'chuil is both well walked and wild, the Glenpean valley is off the Cape Wrath Trail and thus the bothy is much less visited. However, where A'chuil looks out … Continue reading Glenpean
Big Bothy Walk #26 A'chuil is the first MBA bothy reached by those on the Cape Wrath Trail; the 200 mile trail that winds its way through the rugged fringes of isolated Knoydart, on to Torridon and the edge of Assynt before the final push across the peat-hagged Parph to the Cape Wrath Lighthouse at … Continue reading A’chuil
Big Bothy Walk #25 Invermallie was the 25th bothy on my walk and, up until this point, the majority had contained a now-predictable layout of two larger outer rooms sandwiching a smaller one - classic but-and-ben buildings. Occasionally the space would be separated into two rather than three, or there would be the added novelty … Continue reading Invermallie
Big Bothy Walk #24 Gleann Dubh-Lighe translates as glen of dark water with 'lighe' referring to water that is full, flooding, or in spate. It had been raining in the days before and the Dubh Lighe river was churning and hurling itself in a frenzy of white, fast and high along the deep, shadowed chasm … Continue reading Gleann Dubh-Lighe
Big Bothy Walk #23 There was once a large orchard at Cadderlie; a vibrant, brimming garden so fantastic and beautiful it was written into both history and local lore. We have only old words and handwritten records of it now after a freak tide chased up the land during a devastating storm four hundred years … Continue reading Cadderlie
Big Bothy Walk #21 Stewart had dropped me off at the top of the path that would take me south out of Glenfinnan to the west side of Loch Shiel. All that overdramatic faffing around at Essan had cut my day short, I set up my tent by the bank after a few hours of … Continue reading Resourie
Big Bothy Walk #20 No other bothy manages to be both as visible and as inaccessible as Essan. Perched on the south side of Loch Eilt, the railway line that carries the trains between Fort William and Mallaig runs only 100 metres or so in front of the bothy, with the A-road carrying cars the … Continue reading Essan
Big Bothy Walk #19 I had managed to wrench myself away from the islands for now, which was good because I somehow lost all track of time and myself on them. Their slower pace, friendliness, individuality and, well, many distilleries, means I could pretty much turn into whatever the equivalent would be of an Odyssean … Continue reading Leacraithnaich
The Walking Papers 