My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer
Robert Burns, ‘Farewell to the Highlands’
‘Gone for a song’ aptly summarizes my recent Scottish adventure. I spent the first week in July walking the West Highland Way, Scotland’s first long-distance footpath that runs ninety-six miles from Millgavie, north of Glasgow (or from the city centre if you prefer) to Fort William – a dramatic trek which stretches from the Lowlands to the Highlands, from the ‘bonnie banks’ of Loch Lomond to the bleak wilderness of Rannoch Moor, and through the epic mountainous backdrop of Glen Coe and Ben Nevis. I had ridden on my Triumph Legend through parts of the route over the last three years, and earlier, by train, on the stunning West Highland Line, and I vowed that one day I would walk it, for it is just too beautiful to pass through in an hour or two. Such majesty deserves to be lingered over, indeed, deserves to be earned.
Having planned, prepared and packed over the last few weeks I set off with much anticipation and relief – embarking on a solo holiday marking the end of my academic year, a much-needed ‘detox’ from the demands of academe and the maddening din of daily life, depressing news, and soggy summers. Yet I left in a heatwave and was relieved to be heading north – although it was a long, hot ride up. I took the scenic route up the Welsh Marches, and broke the journey at the foot of the Lakes, at YHA Arnside. I pushed on the next day and finally made it to the start of the walk, parking my bike at the only campsite on the edge of town after leaving my heavy backpack with Travel-lite, a baggage transfer company who can take your luggage to each day’s destination for a minimal fee. I would be camping along the way, and this option made all the difference, meaning I need only take a small day-sac with packed lunch, water, waterproofs, and guidebook. Other walkers I saw slogging along the Way burdened with oversized packs and I did not envy them, although they had my respect, for the walking was challenging enough (at times) without having to lug all that extra weight as well.
And so, after much effort, I was finally able to begin the walk – setting off from Millgavie mid-afternoon for the first leg, a modest eight and half miles to Drymen campsite. The official start is an impressive looking archway on the High Street. It delighted me to think you could step through this mundane portal and end up in the Highlands amid majestic scenery. While I girded my loins with some late lunch, three young local kids, all cheekiness and freckles, buzzed around me, asking me if I’d seen a golden eagle. They were particularly keen on birds of prey. Only in Scotland can I imagine such a conversation taking place – it was heartening to hear kids interested in nature more than the virtual worlds they predominantly inhabit. I was interrogated about what raptors I had seen and where, before finally being allowed to set off. I touched the obelisk for luck, and struck out, stick in hand. I was on my way, and song soon filled my heart and lungs – setting the keynote of the whole trip.
The West Highland Way was to become my songline.
Each day I chose a ballad and sang it along the way – not non-stop, of course, but just now and then when I felt myself flagging, or enthused by the scenery. And the rhythm of the song kept my legs moving. One could see why many songs emerged out of repetitive tasks – weaving, digging, fishing, rowing, and marching. There are exhaustive taxonomies of ‘work songs’, collected by Lomax and his ilk. My ‘work’ of the day was to hike – between ten and twenty miles. This was pleasant, satisfying toil and my ideal choice of R&R. I find walking in nature nourishing in many ways. It is the best medicine – easing the stresses of life and restoring a sense of self. Away from the madding crowd, one could hear oneself think. You get a perspective on things, a clarity, which is hard to achieve in an urban environment. With (natural) movement comes, paradoxically, stillness – a stoic, calm centredness, feet firmly planted on terra firma. One achieves direct results for one’s efforts – climb that hill and win a great view; don’t like the view, move on to a better one – a reciprocation rare in our digital, disembodied lives. One’s progress is a direct result of one’s toil – and it is clear how ‘travel’ and ‘travail’ arise from the same word. Work and walk become one.
Yet the effort is eased with song.
On my first day, quite spontaneously, I found myself singing the Scottish ‘classic’, ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, and however hoary such songs, in situ they take on a new vitality and meaning. One feels connected to the landscape and its history – the romanticism balanced out by the mud and mizzle, sweat and blisters. And the ‘soundtrack’ is not endless – but often punctuating long bouts of silence: not thinking about anything in particular, just in my body enjoying the mute joy of walking.
‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, also known as ‘Purple Heather’ and ‘Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?’, seems as old as the hills, but was in fact written by Francis McPeake, from Belfast, in the Fifties, who dedicated it to his wife. It was first recorded by McPeake’s nephew (also called Francis McPeake) in 1957 for the BBC series, As I Roved Out. McPeake’s lyrics are in fact based upon ‘The Braes of Balquhidder’ by Scottish poet, Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), a contemporary of Robert Burns; a troubled soul who committed suicide, unaware that his song would later gain such popularity. Tannahill himself seems to have adapted the traditional song ‘The Braes o’ Bowhether’. When Bob Dylan recorded it, he cited McPeake’s song as ‘Trad.’ – and so the layers of invention and tradition interweave, like flowers piled upon a bower.
It was late in the day to be starting the walk, so I didn’t pass any walkers on this first day – only seeing a couple of lycra-d bicyclists and runners whizzing by while I stopped for a cuppa at my first stop, a little grove just off the route which happened to be a memorial. A mock-fire pit was marked with a plaque, which read:
Here burned the Craigallian fire during the Depression of the 1930s. It was a beacon of companionship and hope for young unemployed people who came from Glasgow and Clydebank seeking adventure in Scotland’s wild places. Their pioneering spirit helped to make the Scottish Countryside free for all to roam.
By the end of the first day I was afforded my first glimpse of Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond in the distance, which marks the true start of the Highlands. The landscape opened out, the first of several shifts of scale over the next few days. Millgavie’s high street, Glasgow’s ring roads, the motorways and service stations, traffic and hard miles were far behind. I was living my dream, and all the effort had been worth it.
After a noisy night at Drymen campsite – a small site attached to a farm at Easter Drumquhassle, just a mile and half shy of Drymen itself, idyllic except for a group of German teen-hikers who decided to make merry next to my tent way past the 10pm curfew until heavy rain sent them scurrying to their tents – I experienced a peaceful and satisfying day’s hiking.
The high point, literally, was Conic Hill (361m/1184ft), a landmark of the Highland Boundary Fault, which sunders the Lowlands from the high country to the north. From its summit, one is afforded breathtaking views over Loch Lomond and its many small islands. Reaching its scintillating waters, I bathed my hot feet – a blissful respite. For the rest of the day, I followed its wooded shoreline. The Loch would be my sparkling companion for the next three days, as I traversed its eastern shore. At twenty-three miles long, up to five miles wide, and 190m/623ft deep, it is Britain’s largest area of freshwater, supplying 450 million litres of water a day to the population of Central Scotland. Over the day it changed its hue like the mood of a god, from quicksilver to beaten pewter. Wallace Stevens once said that ‘truth often depends upon a walk around a lake’ – and by taking two or three days to traverse its length, I was allowing myself a full measure of its wisdom.
One of the misty isles glimpsed from the banks was Inchcailloch, the ‘Island of the Old Women’, where it is thought St Kentigern, an Irish princess, settled and founded a nunnery, dying in 734AD. The chaste islet looked like it would provide a suitable sanctuary from the world of men.
Of course, along such a song-haunted shore it was hard not to break into spirited renditions of ‘The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond’, (Roud No. 9598) which has been adopted and adapted by many a football team around the world. It is thought to have been inspired by the execution of prisoners from the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, who were believed to be taken by the ‘low road’, the road of the Underworld and spirit, back to their beloved homeland, by the Fairy folk. Another theory is that it expresses the lamentation of a lover of a captured Scottish rebel, executed in London. The heads of the rebels were displayed on pikes from the capital to Edinburgh in a procession along the ‘high road’ (the most important thoroughfare), whileas relatives of the rebels had to walk back along the ‘low road’ (the ordinary road of peasants and commoners – something I could relate to!). Whatever its origin, it could not be more perfect to warble out along the shores, and yet it was to another Scottish classic that I turned to most at this stage of the journey.
Entering into this dramatic scenery I was inspired to sing Dougie Maclean’s modern classic, ‘Caledonia’, a song I love to sing, with its many great lines including: ‘I have moved and kept on moving…’ which seemed very resonant as I pushed along, my stick keeping time.
At sixteen miles, this day was the second longest of the walk, and I arrived at Rowardennan SYHA (no camping is permitted on Lomond’s eastern shore) rather footsore. My body felt the shock of the intensified effort and I stiffened up and hobbled up (the ‘hiker-penguin’ walk a common sight at these way-stations), and yet after this day things got easier, as my body got used to the rhythm of the day’s exertion. Rowardennan is a handsome hostel with good facilities. That evening there was an excellent talk by Ben Lomond ranger, Fraser McKechnie. He showed slides of the mountain (974m/3195ft), Scotland’s most southerly Munro, which he knew like the proverbial back of his hand, having grown up in sight of it. His deep love of the place, his sheer sense of belonging and rootedness, was inspiring. He concluded his talk with a self-penned song, ‘The Grail’, and ended with a flourish on his flute-staff. He gave many useful pointers about encountering a mountain, but the piece of advice he offered that really struck a chord for me was: ‘Let [it] sing its own song’.
Over the next few days I took heed to McKechnie’s wisdom, treading softly and doing a lot of listening – walking in silence and solitude for hours on end, savouring peaceful nights camping in the middle of nowhere, all the while sinking deep into myself and into the Highland genius loci. Many insights were gleaned; many beyond words. Often I would just ‘stand and stare’. This ineffable profundity and animal ‘beingness’ is summed up well by John Keats in his ‘Lines Written in the Highlands after a Visit to Burns’s Country’:
One hour, half-idiot, he stands by mossy waterfall,
But in the very next he reads his soul’s memorial.
As I left the northern end of Loch Lomond I cast my eyes back for one last look along its majestic length, then crested a hill to be treated with a sight which was so beautiful it nearly brought me to tears – a grand view towards the Highlands, with a bothy in the middle distance, framed in perfection. It seemed such a picture of self-contained contentment. I resisted the temptation to get out my journal and write something for the moment felt beyond words. Yet afterwards, this quote from Kathleen Raine’s poem, ‘The Wilderness’, seemed to sum it up well:
Yet I have glimpsed the bright mountain behind the mountain,
Knowledge under the leaves, tasted the bitter berries red,
Drunk water cold and clear from an inexhaustible hidden fountain.
When I passed close, I realise what I thought was Doune Bothy was a private residence, fenced off and boarded up, while the actually bothy sat modestly beside it – open to all travellers to use for shelter, with its simple raised platforms for laying out a mat and sleeping bag, a fire place, a table and chair, and not much else. This prosaic truth (and time-and-time again the harsh clang of a gate, burn-flooded boot, or carelessly abandoned tissue at a viewpoint provided reality checks) didn’t make the Sublime I experienced any less visceral.
Yet much of what I experienced was grounded in quotidian actuality: the texture of moss on a trunk; the chill draught from a waterfall; the metallic glitter of naked rock; the pale rump of a roe deer, pausing to look back; the flash of a raptor, swooping low; the raw stump of a felled fir. The signposts – a bracketed white thistle – were discreet but reliable, and I didn’t need to use a map beyond the hand-drawn ones in the guidebook for the whole of the way. Without having to worry about navigation, I could simply enjoy the route.
One of my favourite Way-songs, which I returned to again and again, was John Martyn’s version of ‘Spencer the Rover’. It is a traditional ballad (Roud No. 1115), but Martyn’s lyrics and melody are particularly fine, and seemed to fit the contours of the walk and my mood perfectly:
In Yorkshire, near Rotherham, he had been on the ramble,
Weary of travelling, he sat down to rest,
By the foot of yon mountain
Lays a clear, flowing fountain,
With bread and cold water he himself did refresh…
For much of the way I followed old drovers’ roads, along which the Highland herds would be driven down from as far north as Skye to the markets in Falkirk and Crieff. I spent a night at one of their stances at Beinglas Farm, next to the coach honey-pot of The Drovers Inn. Such places, in their heyday, would have seen as much as 100,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle move past each year. Now, they just have to contend with the odd rowdy tourist group.
For the longest section of the walk, nineteen and a half miles from Inverarnan to Bridge of Orchy, I learnt and sang ‘The Skye Boat Song’, which seemed deeply appropriate on a day of relentless rain! This tune, about the escaped Bonnie Prince Charlie being taken to Skye to heal from his wounds after Culloden, was actually penned by an Englishman (Sir Harold Boulton), to an air collected by Anne Campbelle MacLeod (later, Lady Wilson). It is based upon a classic Gaelic rowing song: an iorram. An adapted version of it is used as the theme tune of the Amazon Prime hit series, Outlander – in Bear McCreary’s version, the protagonist changes gender like a fish in a polluted river, even though he has based it upon Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, ‘Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone’, which is often sung to the same tune. Artistic license!
As I arrived at the charming Bridge of Orchy, the sun came out and I was able to pitch my tent (wild-camping) in bonnie weather, mercifully. Once my shelter was up – at a stunning spot by the effervescent waters of the river Orchy, with its wide stony bed sending the pellucid current chattering on its way – I went to the hotel and celebrated accomplishing the longest part of the walk with a pint of ‘Afterglow’, and ended up talking to a couple from Inverness who were ‘walking back home’ along the route. The weather clearly hadn’t put a dampener on their spirits either. I went to bed early, but awoke in the middle of the night – stepping out of my tent to be treated to a sublime vista, of the Highland landscape illumined by the full moon, the twin peaks of Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh discernible against the velvet sky. It was breathtaking: a Samuel Palmer moment. And the morning was equally glorious. This wild pitch was one of the highlights of the trip – and, of course, completely gratis.
In good spirits I pushed up out of the valley and onwards – to Rannoch Moor. I was looking forward to this section, crossing the largest area of wilderness in Britain (all 50 square miles of it). It felt truly epic, like something out of Middle Earth, and so it seemed apt to be singing Tolkien’s ‘Walking Song’, penned by Bilbo Baggins and first performed in ‘Three is Company’, the third chapter of Book One of The Fellowship of the Ring:
Still around the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
Well, the sun shone that day as I crossed the moor, so it felt like I was taking a hidden path to the sun. Now the scale of things was turned up to ‘eleven’ as I entered into the vast arena of Glen Coe, home of the infamous 1692 massacre of the Macdonalds, but on that day it felt nothing but benign (it’s very different in lashing rain I’ve found!). Ahead could be glimpsed ‘Mount Doom’, the distinctive arrowhead of The Great Herdsman of Etive, Buachaille Etive Mor. In high spirits I made my way to the Kingshouse hotel, where I pitched my tent by the river before visiting the Climbers Bar in the back. There I treated myself to some Hunters Chicken and a pint or two, talking to the other customers. The sunset was suitably dramatic – I described it in my journal as a ‘massacre of light’.
The next day I ‘woke up singing’. Heading towards the dramatic edifice of the Herdsman at the head of Glen Coe, I found myself creating a song to celebrate: ‘The Shepherd of the Mountain’. Even the fact the Way followed the A82, busy with tourist traffic, didn’t dampen my spirits. I was glad to be taking my time through this spectacular landscape. I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of what must be the most photogenic and photographed cottage in Britain, a tiny white dwelling dwarfed by the dark flank of the Herdsman.
And then I began my ascent of the ‘Devil’s Staircase’, the highest point of the West Highland Way. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds – I was up in half an hour – but the feeling of reaching this craggy zenith was satisfying and I found myself singing out the chorus of King Creosote’s ‘Pauper’s Dough’: ‘You’ve got to rise from the gutter you are inside…’ Perhaps it was just as well nobody was around to hear my wailing at this point!
The Way rapidly descended almost down to sea level at the ‘aluminium town’ of Kinlochleven, following close by the massive hydroelectric pipes. The hostel campsite was cheek-by-jowl to the power station – contrasting ironically with the ‘hobbit huts’ on offer, Mordor-meets-Shire-chic. But the showers were good (after 2 nights’ wild-camping much appreciated!) and the drying rooms just the job. The chippy was shut, but they had a Co-op – saved!
The next day I savoured the last full day of walking, from Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis, where I would camp at the foot of Ben Nevis. The main route was through the big pass, Lairigmor, which had little in the way of shelter. The day was another rainy one (only two out of seven days, so I couldn’t complain) and the climb out of the doldrums of Kinlochleven was steep. I put a spring in my step with Dick Gaughan’s ‘Both Sides the Tweed’, written in 1979 – when the vote for the Scottish Parliament was squashed by a shifting of goal-posts (the notorious 40% vote fix) . It was based upon a response to the 1707 Treaty of Union, but Gaughan ‘made some minor adjustments to give it contemporary relevance’. Many considered it to be of ancient ‘Trad’ provenance, which Gaughan called ‘the highest compliment imaginable’. I learnt it from a friend of mine in Bath, Marko Gallaidhe, an Irish singer and musician. The chorus I find particularly emotive:
Let the love of the land’s sacred rights
To the love of our people succeed
Let friendship and honour unite
And flourish on both sides the Tweed.
The song’s message is as resonant now as ever. The last time I was up, in the late summer of 2014, the landscape of the Highlands and Lowlands was divided between the ‘Yes’ and the ‘No’ campaigns. There was still the odd Independence flag defiantly flying – like ‘Old Glory’ in the Southern States, although its message is very different. The blue-and-white signified no kind of bloodshed, except perhaps to non-SNP candidates north of the border.
I soldiered on, like the wounded Campbells fleeing the Battle of Inverlochy in 1645 who passed this way, pursued by Montrose’s Royalists. Further on I paused, halfway, with a view over ‘MacBeth’s Loch’. The King of the Scots (1040-1057) was said to have resided in its centre on probably a crannog. The misty loch is said to be haunted by a ghostly water-bull, which likes to snack on unlucky cattle now and then – a folkloric factoid I contemplated as I munched on my rolls.
Stoked up for the final push, I steamed ahead through the dripping conifer plantations, past weary hikers. It was with immense satisfaction that I arrived at the Glen Nevis camping and caravanning park – a primly-manicured place of hard, serviced plots for mobiles and caravans, and softer sward for tents. I sat and savoured the sensation of the soft drizzle upon my face. Almost immediately Travel-lite rocked up with my rucksack and the driver shook my hand. I had made it!
But there was one last mountain to climb.
A popular finale of the West Highland Way is to climb Ben Nevis, at 1344m (4406ft) Britain’s highest mountain. 75,000 people are estimated to climb it every year, but that didn’t make it any less of a slog (most I imagine haven’t walked a 100 miles before doing so). The ascent was more a case of stamina than skill – it was little more than a lot of steps – but the lashing rain lower down, and the freezing fog and snow higher up, made the way at times not just an effort, but dangerous. To give me a final much-needed boost, I listened to Martyn Bennett’s awesome swansong ‘Grit’ (Real World Records, 2015) on my headphones (not used on the walk until this point). This stomping fusion of traditional Scottish folk and electronica by musical prodigy Bennett (who died tragically young in 2005) seemed like a fitting finale to my Highland adventure. And, critically, it got my legs moving as the temperature plummeted, both external and internal. The Cailleach-blasted summit, with the ruins of a Victorian observatory, is not the place to linger – though that didn’t stop Victorian meteorologist, Clement Wragge, from ascending it every day for two years to take readings. The 1883 observatory was now in ruins, but provided some temporary shelter from the elements. The experience was surreal –an eerie stillness after the three hours of effort. I was fortunate to have it to myself, but couldn’t stay up there longer than it took to sip some coffee, shove some shortbread down me, and pull on a fleece. Already soaked, the dramatic drop in temperature could have been life-threatening if I had hung about, and so I descended as quickly and safely as I could, passing many eager day-visitors going up. I was asked about the remaining climb, and the conditions, and started to feel like the ‘shepherd of the mountain’ myself (or like the ptarmigan that seemed to guide me in the right direction on the summit, stopping every few feet along the path to check I was following). Unlike many I passed, I seemed suitably-attired and prepared for what lay above. Having been one of the first up there, I couldn’t help but feel pleased with myself to be descending against this surging tide of tourists.
After cooling my feet at the Visitor Centre, I made my weary way to Fort William and the official end of the Way – now at the far end of the High Street, so you have to run the gauntlet of its ‘goblin market’ . There a bronze statue of a wise-looking walker awaits to be photo-bombed. Next to it sat an elderly man in a kilt I recognised passing in the last stages of the ascent (emerging from the mist and snow he had told me I had ‘twenty minutes’ yet to go). He had climbed the ‘venomous mount’ several times, and to do it in his Highland regalia was impressive, especially at his advanced years. As so often along the Way one was humbled by those younger, older, faster, or more heavily burdened than you – but I was not in competition with them. I did it for myself, and what an incredibly rewarding experience it was! I walked down Fort William’s high street feeling twelve feet tall. It was a well-earned epiphany, one that I will take home with me and carry, like a shiny pebble, in the pocket of my heart.
By Kevan Manwaring