… in central London. Not easy, not easy at all. Still, I’m trying to do the best I can with what is at my disposal. The absence of hills of any great height or length – you would have thought there could be at least one Munro, even a rubbish one, in London – means I…
The writing
The journey over, the writing has started, and I have churned out almost 14,000 words in 10 days. It has been a long, time-hungry process. Constantly, as I read and re-read my words, I ask the same questions. Is it any good? Will anyone want to read this? Will anyone actually pay good money for this? It can be a…
St Kilda
So here it is, St Kilda, my last island, reached despite the weather’s best attempts to foil me. We were the first group to land on Hirta for 10 days. I will obviously elaborate in far greater depth in the book, but St Kilda was everything I had expected: a beautiful, eerie, awe-inspiring archipelago pitched 40 miles…
Inaccessible Pinnacle
Munro number 59 was a tricky one: Inaccessible Pinnacle, the only Munro that requires climbing expertise. There are two ways up. By the west ridge – a vertical climb, rated vdiff. Or by the east ridge – an airy, exposed scramble, rated moderate. We gained Sgurr Dearg and the base of Inaccessible Pinnacle by Coire Lagan and the An…
Highland Cross 2010
DREAM TEAM aka Young, Gifted and Old – MacIntyre, MacRae, Muir. First overall gents team Highland Cross 2010. Cramp. I’ve had cramp before, close to the end of marathons or during a long swimming session, but never like this. Never Highland Cross cramp. I had reached Beauly, crossed the finish line. Top-10 in a race…
The Rum midge
On the wall of the visitor centre on Rum is a poster entitled ‘the Rum midge’, which illustrates people under attack by a swarm of giant midges. It’s like something out of a horror movie, but the poster isn’t ironic: the midges on Rum are that bad. There are midges, and then there are Rum…
Coll
I have now visited 10 islands – Arran, Holy Island, Bute, Colonsay, Oronsay, Islay, Jura, Mull, Coll and Tiree – and Coll is the one that has come closest to fulfilling my island fantasies. Less revered and frequented than its near-neighbour Tiree, Coll is all the better for it. For two days I followed in…
Isle of Jura Fell Race
We were sent on our way, a ripple of applause and the pounding of 200 pairs of feet on road drowning out the skirl of pipes. The theatrical idiom ‘break a leg’ was written across a saltire – a light-hearted but all too realistic prospect. A gloomy blanket of mist had been thrown over Jura…
Holy Island
At first it looked like my attempts to reach Holy Island, a small isle off the east coast of Arran, would be sunk by the weather. Despite glorious sunshine, crossings were cancelled due to high winds. The Dalai Lama had once been foiled by the unpredictable Scottish climate in 1993, so at least I was in good company. Fortunately, the wind eased the…
Arran
I’m writing this from Brodick, Arran, three days into my inter-island journey on the Scottish west coast. I’m in the fortunate position to have been commissioned to write a travel book on these wonderful islands. Today is a ‘rest day’, after 48 hours of excessive physical exertion. First there was the Goatfell hill race, a brutal…
Highland Cross training… in London
I might be almost 600 miles away from the start line, but training for the Highland Cross continues apace. Practice the transition from running to cycling, prepare yourself for the cramp, etc etc, Cross veterans stress. So I did, proposing an eight-mile run followed by about 20 miles on the cycle. I cantered up the…
Heights of Madness 