Day Six

6th May 2009 SCOTLAND

Walking alongside monsters

The day starts very much how yesterday finished, an old sofa, a mug of tea, some toast and the thoughts of a muddled-up humanity. I sit for a little longer than maybe I should watching others getting ready for the day ahead… boots being laced up, jumpers getting pulled over heads, hill bags lifted on to backs, people giving farewell hugs and hardy handshakes to those met for the first time in this hostel that sits close to the shores of Loch Ness… that is what folks do…there is a bond between people… we don’t always understand it… but there is a recognition somewhere deep inside, that is telling us we are all on this journey together… apart of the same story.

One of the guys from the room I was sleeping in last night gives the chair I’m sitting on a kick ‘you need to be making a move; you’re not going to get to the south of England sat on that old sofa’. ‘Yeah you’re right’. Somebody else walks passed and picks up my empty mug ‘I’ll take that to the kitchen I’m washing up’. ‘I can…’ before I finish my sentence the mug is gone. ‘…thank you’. I think I’m being told its time to push myself up from this old sofa and to make a move… hmm… and I guess to figure out how to be a better person than what I was yesterday. Fifteen minutes later my boots are on and bag thrown over my shoulder, I look for the girl behind the reception who had allowed me to stay in this hostel last night… she is not there… I tell the old armchair in the lounge to pass on a ‘Thank you’… and then step out the front door and greet the new day. I walk out of this little town that sits on the river Enrick just upstream from the loch. Drumnadrochit was once a gathering place for the selling of cattle and sheep… now it’s the place people come looking for monsters or more specifically the Loch Ness monster…‘Nessie’. 

Less than an hour of walking I pass by Urquhart Castle and then pick up the road that runs alongside the northern shore of the loch. I have blue skies above me; a steep woodland bank to the right of me and a monster to the left of me… two out of three are not bad odds. In truth the real battle is not with the monster in the loch (although I am hoping it doesn’t come to that), it is with our very own monsters within that concerns me more. As I have said I believe in essence people are good but at the same time we cannot be blind or ignore the darker side within us. To become people of genuinely good character takes time, effort and discipline. There is a bunch of words written down over a hundred plus years ago by an American outlaw called Frank Jackson reflecting on the wrong that he had done: - "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny’’… I think there is a truth in those words.

The walk today is pretty straight forward; a twenty-mile thumb print on the map will take me to the small town of Fort Augustus at the southern end of Loch Ness. The road is not busy but busier than any road I have walked on so far on this adventure. I know there is a long-distance path that runs the length of the loch and beyond called The Great Glen Way, only not sure if it is on the other side of the loch or on this side up above the steep bank beyond the trees. I keep an eye out for any signpost but don’t see any. The wind starts to pick up bringing with it heavy grey skies (not long before its goodbye blue skies). A couple of hours (maybe more) into the walk just as the first raindrops begin to fall, I come across the Lochside Hostel. I step inside with the hope of grabbing a cup of tea. The caretaker of the hostel is a German guy called Hardy… and again I am fed… it seems again and again people will go out of their way to help out a stranger… it is as if this giving is a part of who we are… a part of our DNA… something we have inherited from our creator… I have been told the heart of God is to give and then to give again forget that He has given only to give again?

I sit at the table the feast that Hardy had organised, laid out in front me, a pot of tea, cornflakes, crisps and some chocolate. Hardy sits opposite showing me how better to use my smart phone (I am of that generation where smart phones are generally smarter than their owners …hmm... or maybe it is just me). The reason for carrying the phone is to write each day the shortest of blogs to let people know where it is I am each night and to say thank you to those that have help me on my way.

Close to an hour later I am still sat at the same table with a second mug of tea in hand; watching raindrops on the window slowly gathering together each time getting a little fatter and then without warning they make a dash to the bottom of the window ledge. Feeling a little fatter I also decide it is time to be heading south. I retie my boots, pull on my raincoat say again thanks to Hardy for feeding me, helping with the phone and giving directions on how to pick up the ‘Great Glen Way’ and with that done I step into the rain.

Four to five hundred yards down the road I’m thinking I must have gone passed the small pathway that leads up to the ‘Great Glen Way’ that Hardy had spoken of, but I do find a gap in the trees and scramble up the banking, ten minutes later maybe a little longer I’m standing on a wide path that could only be the Great Glen Way, I turn left and head south. It is a good pathway much of it is above the tree line with good views of the surrounding hills and the loch below and with the added bonus of no traffic or monsters to worry about.

I am walking across open hills in the rain without the proper gear slowly getting wet; legs ache, I have no idea if I will get the chance to eat at the end of this day or where I will sleep tonight and yet for reasons I don’t really understand… I feel good…I think for the first time while on this walk, I am not wondering any more whether or not it is possible for me to reach the south of England without having money in my pocket… I kind of know both in my head and heart that it will happen… in truth I could stop this walk now and feel that the walk had been successful, but if I were to do that I would miss out meeting the many more incredible people that I have not yet met on this adventure...and on top of this I had told God in the parish church at Altnaharra on the first day of this walk that I would meet Him in the church on the south coast that I was baptised in.

The rain pretty much stays with me all afternoon stopping occasionally but never for very long. When reaching Invermoriston the path drops back down to the road so as to cross the River Moriston. Walking over one bridge I stop and look across at a much older bridge. For a moment I see more than the span of the old stone bridge reaching across a stretch of water…it seems to also reach across the ages, I can almost see...not quite…but almost… our ancestors stripped to the waist lifting heavy stone, grunting as they push them into place. They build with the future in mind in order to make life easier / better for their children and their children’s children. We should also be building bridges; bridges that bring together the generations of young and old, bridges that reach out to different communities, bridges that connect us to different cultures and the different faith groups… if we were to build such bridges, would we not also, at the same time be building a better future for the generations to come. I look across again back at the old bridge and try to catch the eye of one of the labourers… that’s not an easy thing to do when the guys exists only in my imagination… hands in pockets I follow the path back up to higher ground, I still have a few hours of walking and till I reach Fort Augustus, I look behind me in the hope of catching a glimpse of the sun… the sun would also appear to exist only in the world of imagination.

It is late afternoon when I walk into the small town of Fort Augustus. The rain has stopped, the sun stays hidden behind a blanket of white and grey skies. It would be good to have a roof over my head and to get out of these wet clothes. I walk up to the first church I come across. The minister’s home is next to the church, I knock on the door (this is the hardest part of each day…I don’t like putting people on the spot) the door is opened by a Rev. Adrian and again I explain myself… We walk down to the church and step into the entrance porch, the Rev. Adrian switches the overhead heaters on and pushes the two benches on either side of the porch together for a bed, then unlocks the main door to the church ‘feel free to use the church for prayer’. ‘Thankyou’… next the reverend opens the small church hall behind the church, so I have access to a loo and sink. ‘I’ll let you get settled; I’ll be back down in an hour with some dinner’. ‘Thank you’… I sit down on the bench, steam slowly rising from wet clothes, trying to take in what just happened… less than five minutes ago I had very little and now I have a roof and four walls, heaters, a bed, a loo, a sink with hot running water plus soap, a hot meal on its way and my very own church … minutes go by before I push myself up from the bench…and whisper a quiet thank you.

A little over an hour later I am in dry clothes, with a hot meal inside of me, wet clothes spread along the many coat hooks, sleeping bag and mat laid out on the benches and with heaters turned down a little I step in to the main body of the church. I walk with a distinctive hobble down the aisle and sit on a bench close to the front, reflecting on the day just walked. Frank the American outlaw comes to mind. I’m thinking it’s not easy to be the best of what we are. To be good at anything takes time and investment, it does not just happen. My dad comes to mind he was a much better runner than I ever was…Why? Because that is what he did… as a child I remember my dad either being in uniform or his running gear. The vast majority of us can run but how many of us will find ourselves standing on a podium with a medal around our necks. This is true in any walk of life, to be at the top of our game takes hard work and the passage of time… there is no short cut. This principle is no less true when it comes to building our character…and as Frank put it…our destiny.

I sit quietly…glad to have the church to myself… there is no better place to be when reflecting on what it is to be good and how it is, we get to that place. Goodness I think starts as a seed planted by God in the invisible realm of heart (or as our outlaw would say in our thoughts), that is God’s responsibility. Our responsibility is to take care and nurture that precious seed that carries the DNA of God within it. The fruit of that seed is expressed in this physical world in the form of the good we do… living for the sake of the other. For that seed to grow to its full potential we also need to stay on top of the weeding. The weeds being our bad and self-centred habits, the smallest of weeds should not be tolerated, as anybody who has worked on a farm or has a garden will know the tiniest of weeds if left alone will take over.

I’m not sure how long I sat on that bench; the light coming through the windows was beginning to fade, the temperature had dropped a good few degrees. I say a short prayer to close the day…push myself up from the bench… hobble back up the aisle, open the door to the porch… the room is as warm as a toaster. I turn the heaters down to minimum; get undressed … which is not easy when legs do not want to cooperate. I climb into the sleeping bag… pick up my map to make a plan for tomorrow, only I can’t figure out where it is I am and then I realise the map is upside down…the plan for tomorrow can wait, I think it’s time for bed…