My Wild Scottish Adventure
2020 and 2021 had been one hell of a whirlwind for me. And not the good kind. And nothing to do with Covid-19 either.
I returned from Thailand in late 2020 and for the longest time since returning, I felt out of control. I thought I had a plan, a destined path in life that I was headed down, only for it all to disappear in a certain 5 am private Facebook message. Yeah, not even in a phone call. A Facebook message.
Then suddenly I was left with nothing. No responsibility, nobody to answer to and no plan at all. I was stuck.
Two months or so later, I opened up to my friend Rachel about how I needed to get off the beaten track and back into what I do best: travelling. Call it running away, call it whatever you will. But I needed adventure, I needed nature and I needed it fast. As it turned out, Rachel was in a similar position, feeling a similar way, and so a new plan began.
Scotland. We were going to travel all around Scotland together. I had only been once to visit a friend in North Berwick and I saw as much as Edinburgh. Rachel, being part Scottish, had been a fair few times but mainly to visit family or a few tourist spots. This time, we wanted to do it authentically. We wanted to pack up the car with supplies, camp in the wilderness and take in the beautiful sights of Scotland. We wanted to cook outside, hike in the hills and feed ourselves that sense of adventure that we so desperately craved, and for me personally, I wanted to laugh again. I wanted to experience that feeling of uncontrollable laughter that I hadn’t felt in nearly three years.
The last time Rachel and I travelled together was back in New Zealand, the same country in which we met. I’d entered New Zealand as a solo backpacker (I think Rachel had a friend with her originally), but we ended up forging a strong friendship which had us living together and, at one point, driving a van across the North Island. I should probably write about that adventure actually, that was hilarious. Then in October 2018 we said our goodbyes and packed up our stuff for our next travels; me to Southeast Asia and Rachel to South America.
But after a couple of weeks of loose planning, it was early July 2021, and we were finally back together.
Rachel and I continuing to smile regardless! At Glen Roy
I made my way up to meet Rachel in Manchester, we had a short stay in Carlisle where she is originally from, and then together we entered Scotland.
Initially, it felt exciting to be back on the road together! All the previous memories of New Zealand came flooding back and we spent hours upon hours simply reminiscing. But that excitement soon turned into the realisation of how underprepared we truly were. Sure, we’d packed the car full of camping equipment and whatever else we thought we would need for the foreseeable but it soon became apparent that we hadn’t thought the trip entirely through…
When we arrived in Scotland, we didn’t know that it was the Scottish summer holidays. English kids were still in school so we didn’t think the Scottish would be all that different. But nope, Scottish summer holidays it was. Meaning the kids were off and pretty much every parent in the country was taking their children out camping. For us, this meant many sleepless nights, surrounded by exhausted and irritated parents constantly shouting at their children, begging them to behave. Ferries to the islands were few and far between, if not booked out altogether, campsites were at capacity and what with it being Covid, a lot of them said no to tents completely. We did try our hand at wild camping for the first time, however, the hike was so strenuous and long in the blistering heat that we decided to knock that on the head until we were better equipped.
We also joined the Workaway site to look for some work placements. Thinking that it would be nice to have a base for a while, find our feet and acclimatise properly to this wilderness malarkey! But no matter how many messages I personalised to each host we were interested in, hardly anybody messaged back. Rarely would I get a reply, even if it were a ‘no’.
The following is an excerpt from a diary entry I had written on Sunday 18th of July. We’re in Fort William, not even halfway into the trip and we’re already moaning. Reading it now, I can’t stop smiling. I remember the day well and I remember how defeated we felt. On the morning of this diary entry, I remember recording videos of us belting out Cher songs in the car at the top of our lungs. This entry is in the afternoon of that same day.
We are currently in Fort William, having slowly made our way up the West Coast. We’re sitting in an industrial park, charging our battery packs and phones in a Costa coffee shop, heavily contemplating our next steps. It’s been a mission finding places to stay, trying not to overdo it on pricing and bloody hell, we are tired.
When we first sat down in Costa today, both of us looked and felt deflated. What were we doing here? Backpacking New Zealand had been a totally different story, we were young then. We would go walking in shitty old trainers and never worry about the pain. We’d never even worry about finding a place to stay because we just knew everything would work itself out in the end. This time around, we can literally feel our bones creaking. Getting out of bed is a complete nightmare and I fear that one day, I might just get stuck in a hunchback position or even pull a muscle. Rachel’s been bitten by insects from literally every place we’ve visited, her hand has even swollen up somewhat reminiscent of Mr Blobby. I’ve got blisters all over my feet from the walking boots I’d bought, trying to be ever so adult, and sores under my armpits from the stupid backpack digging into my sweaty flesh.
It’s safe to say, we don’t feel young anymore! However, luck changes. It always does.
Finally, a lady on the Isle of Lewis has replied to my message looking for helpers and she’d like us to visit. Suddenly, everything is alright again. It doesn’t matter how tired we are or how broken our bodies feel, we finally have a place to go and our experience (our long-awaited, true experience) can finally begin.
The funny thing is, our experience had already begun. We just couldn’t feel it yet. And that’s the beauty of travel, isn’t it? The things you have to go through in one place in order to get to the next. The pain of the journey, so to speak.
‘The pain of the journey’. That sentence can literally apply to anything in life. The pain is rough, but the outcome is so sweet and the next step is always bigger and greater than the one before.
I fell in love with my wild Scottish Adventure and over the next few blogs, you’ll hopefully, see why.
To start this series off, please read Scotland Diary: Galloway Forest
