Edinburgh Streets

It all started with a phone call to Trail Magazine looking for publicity for the Crieff Tryst. In some daft attempt to grab the journalists attention I ended up promising ever more – which left me needing high-quality photographs of myself and various idiots in costumes with live(ly) Highland Cows (with horns!) within three days. A sinch. Oh, and I’d also stated I was walking from Skye to Crieff along the old Drovers routes, averaging 22-25 miles per day (so what, they said?), bivvying out under the stars ‘like the old Drovers’ (well?) … and … and living on a Drover’s diet of porridge oats for a week (interest at last!!) … no chocolate (I had a story!!!)

So that was the plan – walk for a week along vague routes, sleeping out and eating rabbit food. After 6 months of not leaving my computer and a bum moulded to the shape of my swivel chair, and a distinct feeling of public pressure – a fixed arrival date that wouldn’t allow for delays of the ‘I had a blister/got lost/bored/broke my neck’ sort. Damn, I had to do this, without a stove, no money for ‘snacks’ en-route or the bus and no idea if my tendons would play ball.

Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh StreetsOh, and the photographs. Poo! Lots of cow poo, actually, as we stood in a field with Highland Cows looking cute (them) and nervous (them) and stupid (us) in our kilts, gortex, and costumes down the ages. No Wellington boots. Cows don’t like being told what to do by a photographer so we had to casually ‘walk’ into a herd of cows (with sharp horns) and stand as they inevitably bolted between us. Yeh, walking would be a sinch – and it WAS. It was fantastic -the best long distance walk I’d ever done as it turned out. This walk deserves to be a classic. Do it – but read on first.

Terry from Dun Caan Hostel (Kyleakin) dropped us off at the KyleRea Ferry and ‘G’ and I sailed the rapids that once drowned panicked coos, over the pinched gap that keeps Skye an isle, to Glenelg. Omens made me nervous, and ‘G’ felt it, felt the straps dig into soft shoulders. Conversation was sparse as we gauged steps, counting the metres and calculated the distance each day would necessitate. The mountains ahead showed no way through to ‘G’ – who’d joined this 1st leg with me, knowing nothing of Scottish mountains, Drovers or me!!! (We’d only once spoken on the phone – after she’d read the Trail Magazine article).
Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh Streets
Edinburgh StreetsThe Brochs in Glenelg took our minds off the mundane walking and navigation and from then on I was in a world of past lives. I was connected to the endless movement of humans and livestock across these mountains: seeping with memories, revealing hidden valleys and paths unlocking a natural route. My heart had reason to beat – it was magical! To follow such a natural route, leaving man-made paths in favour of the obvious gentle gradient, the lush pasture remnants, where cattle were grazed at night, fattened on their way to market by these skilled herders – the farmer’s ‘long-distance lorry drivers’ and security (they kept their guns) too. It all made such sense, and within the first hours of this walk, I am leaping around the tussocks of grass, a child transformed into a Drover, the journey inside my imagination.

From that first day on I was a drover and it felt great – to not just do a walk, but to understand why and to feel part of this history. Telford planned to use this route for the main road but I’m so glad he didn’t – it’s far too beautiful for that. Let the cars sweep down Glen —–, and leave this journey back in time, when the crags echoed the mooing of cows, the thwack of sticks and the bark of excited cow-dogs with occasional manly shouts. Now I had the rutting deer and felt satisfied.