Category: Scotland 7

For many of my Challenges, the event–if not the walk itself–began at Glasgow Queen Street Railway Station, which was always within a 15-minute walk of wherever I was staying to do the staging.

This year, I stayed at a place I’d always fancied, an eight-room hotel attached to the National Piping Center, Scotland’s museum of its national musical instrument, the bagpipes.

This was my first time in the hotel, although I’d visited the museum. The hotel dining room serves Scottish-themed dinners, always an adventure. I had venison stew.

After my second night there I got up early, rechecked my packing and decided what triaged-out items I was going to send on from Shiel Bridge, my starting place, and walked to Queen Street Station.

Queen Street is a clean, efficient station (I’d seen it improved over the years), and is the first chance to see one’s potential walking companions. And, inevitably, an opportunity to feel deficient.

Here is me in a window on the way there.

Here are the first two people I saw at the station.

What’s in their packs? Where do they sleep? What do they eat? Do they stay in the same clothes for two weeks? (It’s not as bad as you think, especially if you’re doing something productive. It’s the way life was until about 1500.)

The train ride to Inverness (changing in Stirling) was uneventful. In Inverness I queued for the bus to Shiel Bridge. The traveling population had shrunken to where backpacks were more signal than noise.

The two TGOC “coordinators”–organizers, advisors, hand-holders–for most of my Challenges, the selfless Sue Oxley and Ali Ogden, were both on the bus. I greeted them. Sue has retired from the job; Ali is still doing it.

Sue told me she’s taking an easy route this year, although in truth there are no true easy routes.

“It’s been a long year for me,” she said.

“And for me,” I said.

An hour and a half later we got off at Shiel Bridge and I walked a half-mile to the hotel. Some people camp the night before they go camping for two weeks. Not me. I’ll pay almost anything for a last night in bed. Plus, I had to mail two packages–2 kgs each, about 5 pounds in all–of culled items.

One of the packages was going to my hotel in Montrose, where I’d end up (God willing). The other was going to the Argyll home of my friends Deborah and Paul Richard, where I’ll go when it’s all over.

At the hotel, the clerk Glenn kindly helped me register and pay for the two packages I was mailing. Shiel Bridge has no post office, but the Royal Mail picks things up.

I also told him that I’d left my UK converter plug at the hotel in Glasgow (a bad sign), and asked if by chance they sold such items. He reached to an upper shelf and pulled down a cardboard box. “People leave a lot of stuff here,” he said, offering me a choice.

I found a duplicate of the white plug I’d bought at Apple three years ago on top of the pile (a good sign).

I walked around the end of the sea loch the hotel sits beside. It was beautiful, but like so many of Scotland’s maritime sites, a little sad. There were hardly any boats other than derelicts.

I finished packing and slept fitfully. I was the last one to sign out to begin the Challege on this place and this day the next morning. (Walkers can start over three days, and there are nearly a dozen starting points.)

I kind of wished this fuzz was walking with me. But dogs are prohibited on the Challenge–it’s lambing season, and too many routes go across pastures.

So I left alone.

On the way to the trail into the hills I passed this house. Scottish houses love chimney pots, no matter how humble they are. This one has three.

This will be the view of much of the next few days: a path treaded into a trench, surrounded by wild land.

There are views down into azure pools of icy water from peaks still melting their snow.

You meet wonderful people on the trail. This is a group from the Netherlands coming the other way. They were what you expect from Dutch folks–friendly, tall, and speaking almost unaccented English. One asked where I came from.

“Baltimore, in Maryland,” I said.

“I was just in Pennsylvania last week,” he said. “But I didn’t see any Pennsylvania Dutch.”

“They’re German,” I said. “The person who named that ethnic group missed it by a couple of countries.”

We laughed and moved on. In 10 minutes I could still see them below–a 20-footed caterpillar crawling along the treeless slope.

My route took me over this col, marked with an enormous cairn. The wind was fierce and cold, but a hundred yards down the other side it was almost calm.

When I got down into the glen and looked up the loch I saw what appeared to be a house. This is the view at maximum magnification on the iPhone.

This is something one sees in the Highlands–unbelievably remote settlements, made of stone and meant to last. I got on a long imaginary riff of what a life there might have been like.

Did the man love his wife, or was she just there to cook, and keep him clean, and have babies? Did his wife somehow find happiness in this empty place, or did she flee one summer, children in tow and midges clouding her teary face?

I hope they were happy.

There is still snow on the tops.

This is something nice to see in the late afternoon. But like the sunshine it didn’t last.

My route was 14.43 miles, but it felt like 20. On and on, I passed Challengers–singly, in a pair, four in one place–who were setting up camp. I was tempted to join them, but I had 17 miles–17, with 2,000-feet of climbing–the next day, so I had to make my destination.

Which I did, nine hours after I started. (Of course there were breaks.) It was worth the work. I was alone, with a loch to myself–not a person in sight. The places to pitch a tent were poor, but who wants perfection?

It started to rain as I set up the tent and moved inside. I had a wee dram (spilling half of it) as I boiled the water for the pasta bolognaise that would soon cook (more or less) in its plastic pouch.

As I waited I pulled out an iPod I’d loaded with music about six years ago before one of the walks. When I packed for this one I’d confirmed it still took a charge and worked, but nothing more. I put in the earplugs and turned it on.

Dave Brubeck appeared out of nowhere. Almost any music would defile this place, but not Dave Brubeck.

After dinner the drizzle turned into a real rainstorm and it suddenly got cold. The roof of the tent was pulled tight enough to give a moment-to-moment report of the storm’s intensity. There would be no going outside for teeth-brushing tonight.

Thank God I have a bomb-proof tent! Thank God I brought my winter sleeping bag! Thank God I have a urine bottle!

I sleep poorly. But that night I slept pretty well.

Glasgow is a little like Baltimore.

It has a great industrial past, much of it involving shipbuilding, now gone. (In the19th and 20th centuries, one -fifth of the world’s ships were built on the River Clyde, which runs through the city.) It has a huge and distinguished medical school (University of Glasgow, established in 1751 and with 2,800 students now). They both also have well known art schools, although the Glasgow School of Art is far better known the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The GSA (as it’s called here) is also different in that it has a singular personality who helped bring it lasting fame—Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928). He was a polymath of the Art Nouveau era—a painter, a designer of furniture and interiors, and an architect.

The Willow Tea Rooms, opened in 1903, are a must-see destination in Glasgow. There’s a house that reconstructed the interior of the house where he and his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (also an artist), lived. The Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow and the V&A Museum in Dundee have reconstructed rooms and large collections of his work. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, he’s venerated for the completeness and intensity of vision of what a built space should be.

The public apotheosis of this is the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, designed and built from 1897-1909. It’s a little like the original dome building of John Hopkins Hospital—a visual symbol that was also where everything happened. (Two of the pictures below are of models.)

In 2014, the building suffered a fire accidentally caused as an art show of graduating students was being set up. As it happens, the fire happened while I was on my first walk in the Challenge.

I stayed in a hotel one block away for two days making the final preparations. I didn’t have time to tour the inside of the building, and in truth had only just learned about Mackintosh before I left. When I came back two weeks later streets were blocked off and the city was still in shock.

May 2014

When I came back the next year, this is what the building looked like.

May 2015

In 2018, as the building was near the end of a $33.5 million restoration a second fire happened that was far worse than the first. Whereas 60 percent of the contents were saved after the first, everything on the inside was destroyed in the second. (More than 6,000 tons of debris was removed over the next few years.) Worse, the building–which is on a hill–had structural damage. The downslope facade had to be stabilized and a tower taken down.

This is what it looked like a year later.

May 2019

As one would expect, there’s been a lot of haggling with insurance companies and with the company doing the original restoration. (The cause of the second fire hasn’t been determined.) The insurance settlement is now in arbitration. About $22 million has been spent since the second fire. No work to speak of has been done in eight years.

This is the way it looked in 2024 when I was last here.

May 2024

I hadn’t thought much about the Mackintosh Building in the last two years and was interested to see the progress when I got here. I was surprised to see there was none. The only thing different is that the plastic covering blew off in a storm and was replaced only on the roof.

May 2026

The Mackintosh is a “Category A Listed Building,” which means it can’t be torn down without government permission. In any case, the GSA says it still wants to restore the structure. Estimates for that are at least $140 million, and maybe twice that amount.

I walked up to the building just after nightfall my first night here. A janitor named David, who’s worked there for 24 years, was smoking a cigarette outside the Reid Building—a modern building opposite the Mackintosh in every way.

”I’ll be in the ground before that ever gets done,” he said. “It‘ll never get done. There’s nobody that’s got that kind of money.” He said he has a friend on the work crew who told him the rental of the scaffolding alone costs a million pounds a year.

Then he added: “It’s only a building.”

Notre-Dame in Paris is only a building, too. But it had God and government on its side; the Mackintosh has only art and a university.

Meanwhile, art marches on.

I went into the Reid Building the next day. The school’s museum was closed, but a show of student works from a silversmithing course was up. It was full of delicate, hand-wrought things that I suspect Charles Rennie Mackintosh would have liked.

This question is most relevant to me, of course, but I’ve gotten it from enough friends and family that it’s probably worth addressing at the outset.

The last time I walked across Scotland as part of The Great Outdoors Challenge was in 2024. I found it much harder than the previous five times and I suggestedin the last post (again, speaking mostly to myself) that I was done for good.

But here I am, back in Glasgow typing on an iPad mini, mailing padded envelopes full of camping meals to myself, and trying to figure out why my backpack weighs 10 pounds more than everyone else’s.

The principal reason I’m here is that what I’ll be doing for the next two weeks is a challenge (as the name suggests), and finishing it will be an accomplishment. At 74, my accomplishments are in the past, and I spend enough time going over them. It’s nice to have a new one, even if not in a new place or activity.

Scotland is a beautiful place with which I have some ancestral connection. (I don’t want to make too much of the latter; this isn’t a homecoming). The people here also speak a language I sort of understand, which reduces the psychic stress of traveling alone. While there will be no cell-phone service for some days, I’ll be out of touch with the rest of the world only for short periods. This is a snow-globe adventure, which is enough for me at this point.

Two years ago, one-third of the people in The Great Outdoors Challenge aged 70-74 dropped out, although the ever thoughtful and encouraging organizers of the event use the term “retired.” I’ve already retired and would prefer not to do it again, so I’ve set an easier route than my previous ones.

The digital mapping app says I’ll go189 miles; most of previous ones were more than 200. Many Challengers devise routes that let them “bag Munros”—summit hills of at least 3,000 feet, of which there are 282 in Scotland. I’m not going over a single one. My maximum elevation will be 1,738 feet, and the cumulative ascent is 18,236 feet.

When the Challenge started nearly 50 years ago, the rules allowed one night indoors each week—no more than two in the event. The days of giants! I’m sleeping inside four nights and outside in a tent nine nights, although some of the latter are in campgrounds, not “wild camping” as they say over here.

In my last Challenge the longest day was 24 miles—too long. This year the longest is 18, and there are a couple under 10. I’m also taking all of the allotted 14 days the event allows; some people will do it in 10.

If there’s any theme of this walk it’s sightseeing. I may never come back to Scotland again, so I want to see a few more tourist attractions this time than in the past. I’m going through Inverness and want to see the Inverness Castle at least. My shortest day (eight miles) is built around a visit to the Culloden Battlefield, of which you’ll hear more than enough. There are some “chambered cairns” along the route that I’d like to see. (I’ve never lived in a place that featured chambered cairns—or “standing stones” either, which I also hope to see).

I looked In particular, I want to see the ruins of Findlater Castle, near the village of Sandend on the Moray Coast. I looked down on it from a bluff on one of my early crossings, too tired, and with too little light left in the day, to explore. It looked like a monument unimaginable human effort—and the passage of time. If there’s one reason I’m back now, it’s to see it up close.

That last comment suggests, some of this year’s route isn’t new.

In fact, a lot of it goes along the Moray Coast, an east-west stretch of beach and cliff running from Inverness at the apex of the Moray Firth to Fraserburgh on the North Sea. When I first walked there in 2016 it was to see where the first rehearsals for the D-day invasion were held, and also see remnant World War II defenses. (You’ll hear more about both, I suspect.) Plus, who wouldn’t want to walk on 30 miles of beach again?

The event requires walking from the west coast to the east coast of the country. But as the maps below show, the definition of “west coast” is flexible. I’m starting in Shiel Bridge, one of the more popular of the dozen designated starting places. It’s on the water, but there is a lot of land to the west of it.

Shiel Bridge is on a “sea loch,” which is essentially a fiord (or if you’re in medicine, an invagination) of the Atlantic Ocean. There are many of these and they extend far inland. I was surprised on one of my early crossings to walk eastward for a day and camp next to what looked like a lake, only to find it had salt water and seaweed.

The first map shows my whole route. I charted it with different colors for different days, some of which are translucent and nearly impossible to see unless you blow and have spent more than two hours today trying to change the color of the route to a bold blue. I haven’t been able to. I’m having my usual battle with technology; stay tuned.

The we second map shows the Highland portion of this walk. (There isn’t a lot.) The third map shows the route from Inverness to Fraserburgh.

I’m carrying a lot of stuff. This has been a chronic problem. On my second crossing I walked for a day with a paving contractor named Stevie. He was taciturn and tough, but over the course of a day we became trail friends.

He was usually ahead of me, but I caught up with him at a mid-afternoon rest stop, which I left before him because I told him I was so slow and I needed to “crack on,” as they say.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, lying on the ground with his boots off. “You go’ qui’e a bi’ ki’ ”—You got quite a big kit. Which means: “You’re carrying too much stuff.”

This is most of my kit for this crossing. It doesn’t seem excessive. Two tee shirts, two pairs of underpants, two pairs of socks, two pairs of trousers (one a waterproof, as they say), one pair of long underwear, etc. I have mittens, because if you think you’ll need gloves you should bring mittens. I’m bringing a small pair of binoculars—Challengers have laughed at this indulgence—but decided at the last minute to leave the small thermos behind. That was maybe not a good idea, as a thermos was the gateway to the most memorable 30 minutes of my Challenges.

That was an interview with 91-year-old Challenger Jim Taylor about his time in the RAF in World War II, and how he had to go to the doctor to get a bigger shirt after gaining weight during training. (He’d gotten enough to eat for the first time in years.) Jim was famously taciturn, but I offered him a cup of tea from my thermos as he took a break, and he talked. This is a picture of him; you can read his story in the section of this website “Scotland 1 “Jim Taylor’s Story.’

I weighed two scarves on my kitchen scale and picked the lightest. I weighed two spoons and picked the lightest. Nevertheless, the pack weighed 35 pounds at Icelandair check-in—and that was minus the freeze-dried food I had sent to the hotel in Glasgow and the electronics I carried onto the plane because I was still using them.

The big tasks today were getting stove fuel (you can’t fly with butane canisters), a cigarette lighter, and mailing three packages of food to places I hope to reach.

Also a bottle of single malt, decanted into a Nalgene.

Tomorrow I get up early to take a 3 1/2 hour train to Inverness, and then a 1 1/2 hour bus to Shiel Bridge.

We’ll see what happens after that.