Day One

1st May 2009   Scotland 

If I had the faith to move mountains…

…and on the first day I woke to the sound of tyres on gravel. It is four o’clock in the morning. I roll out of bed and look out of the window. A car has just pulled up, a car that I recognize. Nobody gets out. Ten minutes later or thereabouts I’m dressed and in the car park tapping on the driver’s window. "Good morning Arthur." He winds down the window "I’ll go put the kettle on." Alongside in the passenger seat Irina opens her eyes and murmurs a "yes please". These were two very good friends that had decided (without me knowing) to drive up overnight from Airdrie, a small town near Glasgow, to wish me well at the start of this adventure.

Not only had they brought their good wishes but also everything you need to put together a full British breakfast. By 6:30am for want of a better word I was stuffed … well maybe enough space for one more slice of toast and another mug of tea.

 

Time was moving on and my walking boots were waiting, my head was already out on the road. I think Arthur knew this, he tells me "I don’t know what your plans are for today, but we have a full day ahead of us and need to be making a move."

Outside of the hostel with boots on and bag on my back I am ready for the first step of this walk. Before shaking the hands of both Arthur and Irina, I hand them my wallet and ask if they could give it to my wife Ulrike, the ‘get out of jail free card’ problem is solved. I also asked them to ruffle the hair of my two girls and to let them know they are both with me.

What was that I talked about earlier… something about the first step of any journey… Today is Friday it is 7:30 in the morning the 1 st of May 2009 the weather is overcast but dry and the temperature is a little cool but seems to be heading in the right direction. Irina hands me a can of Irn-Bru (for those outside of these islands Irn-Bru is a soft drink produced in Scotland and apparently made from iron girders). With a full breakfast under my belt and an Irn-Bru pushed into my bag I take the first step.

Winding my way up and out of the small village of Tongue I pick up the narrow road heading south towards Altnaharra. It is not long before I am confronted with the wide-open spaces of the Highlands. I recognize two of the mountains in front of me, Ben Loyal and a little further away to the west is Scotland’s most northern Munro, Ben Hope. …Loyalty and hope I am glad of their company… if I had the faith to move mountains, I would bring the two Bens along with me on this walk…

Much of what I see in front of me is heathland, a landscape that is dominated by moorland grasses, heather and peatbogs and in the near distance the mountains… I feel the cool breeze moving through the landscape, I stop a moment and look a little closer at what is around me… I have abseiled down blue ice crevasses in Iceland, stood on the top of Table Mountain in South Africa, sat on a small boat in the swamplands of the Pantanal in Brazil, walked the neon lit streets of Seoul in South Korea… and much in-between… all beautiful in their own way… and maybe more so than what it is I see in front of me… and yet I am overwhelmed with a sense of belonging… with my arms outstretched I slowly turn around full circle this is my home… the place I will always return to… the lyrics of the song ‘This is my Island in the Sun’ comes to mind (maybe the word ‘sun’ is not the best description for this rickety old island that sits off the north-west coast of mainland Europe). … ‘Where my people have toiled since time begun’.

It is hard to imagine that the panorama facing me was once ancient woodland where our early ancestors the ‘hunter-gatherers’ were beginning to settle and turn their hands to farming… times were a-changin… they cleared the woodland little by little with iron axes, making space for cultivation and livestock. I cannot help but wonder what their lives were like, did they not also in between just surviving have hopes and desires, fall in love, shed tears of joy and heartache and dream of better days ahead.

It is with these thoughts among others still inside my head and a little over four hours into the walk with both Ben Loyal and loch Loyal now behind me that a car pulls up in front of me. Arthur and Irina climb out; they are heading back home and thought that maybe I would like to share some lunch with them. Yes please. Irina goes back to the car and comes back with a cool-box full of sandwiches, crisps, biscuits and more Irn-Bru. I am glad to sit for a while. The two of them are hoping to be back home by nine this evening, home being a small town just east of Glasgow. I will pass through Glasgow on my way to the ferry at Troon, for me to reach Glasgow I’m guessing it will take me close to two weeks. The three of us push ourselves up from the ground…the sun has been trying to break through the cloud all-day with very little success. There is a slight chill in the air; it is time to get moving again.

Arthur and Irina give me half a dozen sandwiches to take with me. We again shake hands; I watch them both climb into the car and drive of into the distance…Irina leaning out of the side window and waving… I wave back…it is not long before the car disappears over a small dip in the road… and they are gone, leaving me (a truck driver) by the side of the road (without a truck) … I find myself looking around at the wilderness that surrounds me and wondering at what it is I’m doing… I slowly shake my head, laugh at myself and do the only thing I can… and that is carry on walking.

It is good to be walking knowing I have food on my back, not only do I now have some sandwiches but also the chocolate and sweets the cyclists gave me the night before plus the can of Irn-Bru Irina had given me this morning.

It takes close to another two hours to reach the small hamlet of Altnaharra, one of the first building when approaching from the north is the small parish church, standing on the right, away from the road on a raised piece of land. I walk up the pathway to the church; there are trees both to the left and behind the church, rough grassland to the right and behind me the west  end of Loch Naver. A little over a hundred and fifty years ago (back in 1854) seventeen men were sat in the local pub and between them decided Altnaharra needed a place of worship, a year later this church with the stone Celtic cross high above the main door was built… as I step through the doorway... I hear myself quietly say "This is me o lord" I am aware that I am the last person to walk into this church (the last person that is and till the next person walks in). I again cannot help but wonder what were the dreams and hopes of those that came before… and what of the dreams of those yet to step into this church. We stand in the middle of those that have been and those yet to come…  there has to be some kind of responsibility wrapped up in all of that.

I sit on a bench near to the front of the church. I close my eyes for a moment and slowly breath in the familiar musky smell of every village hall, scout hut and small church I had ever walked into. An hour or maybe more goes by, my thoughts drifting into prayers and prayers drifting again back into thoughts.

I am glad of this quiet space… maybe it’s because I’m a truck driver, the long hours on the road and when the day is done, parked up some place… a flask of tea, a bite to eat and a bunk to climb into… truck driving can be at times a solitary life… hmm or maybe it’s just me, whatever the reason I sit better in an empty church than I do a full one. I have a faith, but I was never very good with religion… stand up… sit down… the singing of songs that never really moved me at all. I sit for a little longer… I glance up at the stained-glass image of St David… was not this guy also a warrior and a king… I wonder where have all the heroes gone… I am reminded of a song from days gone by… of gently putting the needle down on to vinyl and the speakers crackling to the intro of No More Heroes… a song from my youth… I am a little older now and I would like to think a little wiser… my experience tells me there are thousands of unsung heroes up and down these islands and beyond its shores… people giving their time, money and skills for the sake of the other… hmm… still a good song though… I guess it’s a little unfair to say songs sang in a church never move me…if sang well the sweet sound of Amazing Grace or Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah or the Carols sung at Kings College on Christmas Eve can take me to another place… a better place… sorry going a little of track here (that’s vinyl records for you)… what was I talking about… not being very good at religion… I say this but at the same time I do recognize the importance of religion… whether we have a faith or not, religion is important…it is the foundation stone to any civilization; our morals and values sit on that foundation… and they become a part of who we are.

The Church at Altnaharra

It feels like it is from this simple stone church in the north of Scotland that I begin the walk properly… I guess I needed to step into a place of prayer maybe to offer the walk up to God… I don’t know…what I know is this…sitting here quietly for the last hour or so has allowed faith the chance to step into this walk. As I look up from the floor at the empty pews, the stained-glass window and high ceilings my thoughts jump from one track to another… ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ it would be a good place to stay the night, a roof over my head would keep me dry and St David with spear in hand would I figured keep me safe, but I decide the day still has a little bit of walking left in it… I Go… I bid farewell to St David and close the door of the church behind me.

Not much more than an hour out of Altnaharra I decide to call it a day. I step off the road and walk a hundred yards in to the heath, find some flat ground close to a small stream, lay out the sleeping mat on top of some low growing heather and push my sleeping bag into the bivvy bag (the idea of the bivvy bag is to keep the rain from getting in while allowing the condensation out… that’s the idea...only the bivvy bag is twenty plus years old…). I dig out a few sandwiches a chocolate bar and the can of Irn-Bru and say Thank you to Irina, Arthur and the cyclist for feeding me this night.

The light is beginning to fade, the temperature is slowly dropping I climb into my sleeping bag. With my arms behind my head I watch the clouds slowly taking over the spaces of open sky… the near horizon, the clouds and the incoming mist slowly merge together… I wonder at how much or little this landscape has changed over the past thousands of years. It is incredibly quiet; there is the tiniest sound of ripples from the nearby stream like a whisper from the past… speaking of what it is that binds us together, our earliest ancestors, David from the stained-glass window the seventeen guys sat in a pub with a beer in hand and I guess that list would include me and everybody else out there. Regardless of who we are or when and where we were born; have a desire to achieve real peace, love and happiness…the hope of all ages is for a better world, a hope that has been passed down from one generation to the next… and then to the next and the next, like a baton in a relay race through time being passed from one runner to the next runner. I sit up in my sleeping bag and offer the last of my Irn-Bru up to these guys (not sure what our early nomadic hunter-gatherers would make of Irn-Bru… maybe Iron age man would appreciate it better). I close the day in a short prayer and sink back into the heather.