Alice Goodridge shares her favourite spots to combine walking with a dip
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Features
What lies beneath…
Keen hill walker Maja Staerke takes a peek below the waves as she explains why she now loves to combine snorkeling off the Scottish coast with exploring on foot. Snorkeling probably does not come to mind when you think about Scotland. Even though the country is blessed with some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, the water temperature is anything but balmy. From around 5C during the coldest winter months to about 15C in the height of summer, it’s a test of endurance to stay in the water for any length of time. Which makes the commonly asked question ‘Isn’t…
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Exploring Erraid in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson
In this extract from ‘The Writer, The Island and The Inspiration’ in her new book Writing Landscape, Linda Cracknell travels to the tidal island of Erraid in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson and his hero David Balfour from Kidnapped. Before travelling to France in summer 2019, and having now read Kidnapped, I made a mini-pilgrimage to the Isle of Mull’s western peninsula, the ‘Ross of Mull’. And then, to where, at its far western tip, Erraid is connected and separated by the tidal pulse. I’m intrigued by tidal islands; a threshold opening and closing in a rhythm cosmically determined.…
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I’m recruiting for Team Toad
Frogs or toads? A simple choice, one that I put to Twitter last week to gauge people’s feelings towards these two amphibians. I was motivated partly by the fact that the spring amphibian emergence is underway and I very much welcome their return, but mainly I was motivated by a desire to see to what proportion of people shared my preference. Just for the record, I do of course acknowledge that this is an absurdly reductionist way of looking at these two wonderful creatures. But yes, I hereby declare I am a fully paid up member of Team Toad. I…
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Breaking down barriers to the outdoors for Scotland’s young adults
For experienced outdoorsy people, it can be easy to think that walking is the simplest activity in the world. I’m a prime candidate for this; a middle-class, white, bearded man who grew up in an active household near hills, and who now owns more gear than I can squeeze into my house. I have heard enough comments along the lines of “But you just need boots, a coat and a bus fare” and “We’ve a right to roam so there are no barriers” to know that some people struggle to understand why many young adults don’t feel the outdoors is…
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Walks showcasing the BBC’s Wild Isles locations
In the new BBC’s Wild Isles series Sir David Attenborough celebrates the natural wonders of the islands that we call home, revealing the surprising and dramatic habitats that exist right on our doorstep. The series features stunning footage, much of it shot on location in Scotland – here we highlight some Walkhighlands routes that may reveal the wildlife and landscapes seen in the first episode. Killer whales- Hermaness, Shetland Some of the most stunning scenes featured orca – killer whales. Although they can be seen in many places around the coast of northern Scotland, Shetland is their only UK breeding…
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The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd
Badenoch writer and wanderer, Merryn Glover’s new book, The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd, is an exploration of both The Living Mountain text and the iconic range that inspired it. In this extract, she recounts her first time on Braeriach – the mountain that can be equally divine or devilish – with Shepherd and other legendary Cairngorms authors as invisible guides. The next time we could return to the plateau was 1 June and a day at the opposite end of the weather spectrum, one that Shepherd would call ‘delectable as honey’. This time we were on…
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The Horizontal Oak – Polly Pullar
Growing up in a remote corner of the Scottish West Highlands, animals and nature have always been at the heart of Polly Pullar’s world. But an otherwise idyllic childhood was marred by family secrets which ultimately turned to tragedy. As her new book The Horizontal Oak is published, she tells us how the natural world has given her the strength to rebuild her life. There’s a single oak high on the flank of Ben Hiant, overlooking the Sound of Mull. I have known this resilient tree since my early childhood. It’s in a place I love very much. Massaged by…
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18 months of mildness – erm, is this normal?!
December. Oh thank goodness for December to end 2022!! Cold and icy, it offered up a truly memorable snowshoe excursion up Glen Derry and over Beinn Bhreac. -17C, alpenglow, sparkling hoar frost and not a breath of wind. Yep, December was marvellous. Okay, so the pipes in our house froze, but December’s icy breath was a welcome return to something approaching vaguely normal. By ‘normal’ in this sense I mean the traditional weather patterns of old, where we’d get colder than average months as well as warmer than average months. It seems incredible, even now, but if you’d told me…
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Conic Hill path closed until end March
The path up Conic Hill from Balmaha will be closed from today, Wednesday 11th January, until Friday 31st March. The contractor has advised that site preparation will require the path to be closed ahead of the scheduled stone uplift next week. The timber steps on the hill have been removed this week and as such, the path will be closed a few days earlier than planned. Conic Hill is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. The volume of visitors now being seen demands that the path be widened and strengthened to make it more robust and ensure the hill can…
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