| The Kintyre Way | |
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Celebrity Death Lottery and the Flasher Of Saddell Town ....
I was awake at half past six and got up. Jo was already up and offered to make me some of his porridge, complete with soya milk. I hovered around a polite decline — it was a kind offer and I didn't want to seem ungrateful, but soya milk and I had history. I had tasted it once, long ago, and had recoiled. It had tasted as if it had been strained through old carpet. I accepted anyway, and ate the first mouthful in the manner of a French chef required to sample Bisto gravy. It was actually rather pleasant. The milk was creamy and kind to the palate. Jo explained that this was all in the preparation — he rejected the microwave and was a committed acolyte of the saucepan-on-the-stove method of oat preparation. I made a note.
We were up early because this was going to be the longest day — nineteen miles, and we were unsure enough about the terrain to want plenty of time for it. We left at eight. Mark had decided to drive us to Carradale rather than get Dean, which saved us some time, though the forty-minute journey reminded me of how mistaken I had been yesterday in thinking Carradale was just over the hill. It was just over the hill, but the hill in question had no road over it, requiring us to go via Campbeltown — where we would be ending up after walking all day. I acknowledged again that walking is a crazy pursuit.
While we waited for Bod to fetch something from the apartment, a piece of news came up. Pavarotti had died the previous day, at the age of seventy-two.
"Seventy-two?" I said. "He did alright for a fat bastard!"
Mark looked at me with some doubt. "I'm glad I'm not walking with you today. You're in one of those moods."
This observation carried a ring of tradition. Last year, during the West Highland Way, we had been on the trail when news broke of Steve Irwin's death. This year, Luciano Pavarotti. Celebrities everywhere should be shivering and booking urgent appointments with fortune-tellers as we plan next year's walking holiday.
The sun was making a valiant attempt to break through as we took the coastal road down the A83. An oval shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds and sent a beam down onto the Kilbrannan Sound to our right — bright as a searchlight, hitting the water to illuminate a spot as if heralding some divine event. Mark, who was driving, pointed it out. "I keep expecting a chorus of angels to accompany it," I said.
"In a minute, Mr. Bean will plop into the sea," Mark responded.
"Hang on," I said, suddenly alert. "You're driving us along a winding coastal road with a potential drop off a cliff. Watch the road!"
Mark was silent for a moment. "We were on a straight bit," he muttered.
The sea looked extraordinarily still — oily, thick, almost viscous. I stared at it at length and it remained that way. I felt that if I dipped a finger into it, the resulting ripple would radiate visibly across the whole Sound. That if I withdrew the finger I would find I had not broken the surface tension at all, but instead bring away a thick strand of liquid metal.
Mark dropped us at Carradale's primary school, said cheerio, and went off to explore Arran for the day.
Then Bod discovered what had been wrong with yesterday's filming. The camera had been accidentally knocked onto night vision. The entire day of baffling white footage had been entirely avoidable.
Before we set off, I should mention Carradale's most remarkable resident, a woman I had been reading about. Naomi Mitchison was born into an aristocratic Edinburgh family in 1897, the daughter of the scientist J. S. Haldane, who was no slouch himself — he made significant contributions to mine safety, investigated the behaviour of gases in enclosed spaces, devised decompression apparatus for deep-sea divers, and in 1905 discovered that breathing is regulated by the effect of carbon dioxide levels in the blood on the brain's respiratory centre. A bit of an egg-head. His daughter Naomi interrupted her Oxford education in 1916 to marry a barrister and Labour politician, and then became a writer. This is like saying George Best liked a drink. She wrote over a hundred novels and a thousand short stories and essays. One early novel, *We Have Been Warned* (1935), explored rape, abortion, enslavement and the loss of children with a directness that few writers of any gender would have dared at that time. When she returned to Scotland and settled in Carradale in 1937, she served on Argyll County Council for over twenty years. In the 1960s, at an age when most people are slowing down considerably, she was living in Botswana and was adopted as advisor and *Mmarona* — mother — of the Bakgatla tribe. She died in Carradale in 1999, at the age of a hundred and one. The sort of person who, had you seen her shuffling round the village to do her weekly shop in her later years, you might very easily have assumed had spent her whole life tucked away in a small Scottish fishing village, going no further than Tarbert on a good day. You would have been wrong in every direction. Lots of hushed corners of the world probably contain people with remarkable life stories. I had thought of Carradale yesterday as merely a village on life support. I was underestimating it.
Bod and Jo conferred over the map, pursed lips and pointed fingers, and then we were off. There was road walking to begin with along the B879, through a little area of pleasantly-set houses. Some of the properties were pretty fine actually, as we rambled to the shore at Waterfoot in Carradale Bay. There were some fantastic sea views for the occupants through their kitchen windows, the sort that would make washing-up a hobby rather than a chore. One was called Robin Hood, which seemed an incongruous way to honour a thirteenth-century English outlaw in a Scottish fishing village. Jo disappeared at the insistence of his bladder. It had the cubic capacity of a sugar lump. He was back within a minute, however, wearing a disgruntled expression. There were caravans around the corner, he explained, and although their curtains were still drawn he was unwilling to risk exposing himself to a wife who would only have been opening her door to put the bin-bag out, finding herself being aimed at by a bearded flasher in a lot of PVC. It was actually more what the resulting screams might attract to her rescue that worried him. We walked past the silent caravans and the path took us onto the shore, where we had to pick our way across rocks lavishly basted with green slime. This was less walking than gliding. One rash move and you could be opening your head on a Scottish boulder, or sitting on the ground attempting to understand why your knee had swollen to the size and shape of a cauliflower before the pain arrived and removed all capacity for rational inquiry. Bod spent a while consulting the map with elaborate attention before confirming that yes, this was indeed the correct route. It raised the question of tidal levels — at low tide the path was crossable, if reckless; at high tide you would be hugging the cliff wall or swimming. I did some filming while Bod and Jo went ahead to confirm the way forward, and watched them through the viewfinder ranging about in what appeared to be a state of mild confusion — moving forward, backtracking, Bod gesturing in one direction and then walking in another, Jo following him after a pause as if pulled on a string. The silence of the scene, viewed through the lens, was absurdly funny. The slimy rocks gave way to bog, and its constant companion the hidden water-filled rut among tussocky grass, and we cut inland at Dippen Bay, scrambling off the beach without a visible path, forging our own way through ferns — their smell almost tropical, distinctive — up a grass rise, swearing as we went. We had been expecting rain again today. Instead, we were sweating and gasping inside our waterproofs within minutes. Bod observed that we were just getting wet from the inside anyway. We stripped off the outer layers, releasing billows of vapour that steamed in the morning air. The B842 took us uphill at a gradient that seemed simply unreasonable. This was the very road we had driven sedately up in the car without once registering what a killer it was. I began to titter
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Near Waterfoot |
At one point a diversion offered itself to Torrisdale castle . A leaflet I was carrying made no mention of it, which I took as a commentary on its wonders. We were also anxiously aware of the miles ahead.
"This is where we can divert to see the castle if you want," said Bod, pointing to a path peeling off toward what looked like an aristocratic mansion.
We all looked at each other.
"I'm not bothered," said Jo.
As one, we walked on.
We stopped at Whitestone for drinks and to admire the view — a fair altitude, maybe three hundred feet, the Sound of Kilbrannan keeping us company to the left. As we set off again I became aware of rawness on my left inner thigh, in the same place it had troubled me during the beach walking two days before. Within a few paces it was chafing on a vigorous line of attack. I also needed to urinate fairly urgently. Jo, it appeared, needed to go again too. The village of Saddell appeared ahead. My notes described its main attraction as *the haunting ruins of Saddell Abbey, a 12th-century Cistercian foundation with superb carved stones on display for travellers to marvel at*. The only foundation Jo and I were interested in was the alleyway in front of us, which we nipped into to empty ourselves. I felt horribly exposed by the ring of terraced houses surrounding me. Whilst hurriedly urinating I got powerfully entangled in brambles and was still in the act of ripping thorny creepers from the seat of my trousers when a local man walked by. I knew he had seen me and tried to be as friendly as the situation allowed, given that I was still tucking my apparatus away. "Awright, mate?" It had sounded hollow even to me, and he didn't respond, but I received a strong impression of his disapproval in the averted gaze and the deepening lines of his face. Bod walked away, probably laughing. I hated to impose myself on this inoffensive little village even further, but I really had to sort my groin out as well. There was no real cover available, so I had to retire to a bus shelter and drop my trousers. The shelter had, as Bod helpfully pointed out once I was established within it, more glass than a greenhouse. I inspected my thigh. There was a weeping sore adjacent to my wedding tackle which glistened red and shiny, reminding me unsavourily of a strip of raw bacon. I was applying a dressing when Bod spoke again.
"I'm just waiting for the next bus to arrive."
He had a definite point, and I redoubled my efforts — which only led me to tape my thumb to my leg. Finally done, I performed a short experimental stroll. Perfect. The relief was immediate and significant.
The Cistercian Order of Saddell Abbey — sometimes called the White Monks, for the colour of the habit over which a black scapular was worn — was founded around 1160 by a man named Somerled, or *Somhairle* in Scottish Gaelic. We never gave ourselves the chance to look at the ruins, which is genuinely a pity, because they were apparently fine. We also did not detour down to Saddell Bay, where the video for Sir Paul McCartney's *Mull of Kintyre* had been filmed. Fancy declined to take hold, so we just walked on instead.
Lussa Loch Lunch ....
The road climbed again at twenty percent or more, unkindly. We closed in on a postman pushing his bicycle up the hill ahead of us. He rested, looked back, and saw us.
"Where are you going?" he asked, cheerfully.
Campbeltown.
"See you there, then!"
"I think you'll be there before us," I told him, as we turned off the B842 onto a smaller road.
A woman in a Range Rover was watching us from the entrance of a farm, a sandwich held forgotten in her hand, as we read an information board about the forest walking ahead. We had a lot of it.
"That's it!" said Jo. "I'm not doing any more!"
"Alright," said Bod, and walked off.
I glanced at the woman. Her mouth was slightly open, sandwich abandoned, her eyes gleaming a little as she tried to determine whether she was about to witness a fight. We moved off as a group and left her to the ambiguity.
The track continued to climb. At its zenith we stopped for photographs and filming, with a commanding view over the Glen of Saddell,
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Looking back to Saddell |
We reached the picnic table at the north end of this Loch and collapsed onto the benches. Conifer woods stood back respectfully from the shoreline. A grey heron hunched in isolation on the far shore, stalking a few metres left, then right, then stopping to peer moodily into the water with the air of someone who has been waiting for something for a long time and is beginning to lose faith in it. We ate and made lazy conversation, and as soon as I had refreshed myself I had to perform open-air first aid again. I opened a dressing. I opened my trousers. Jo and Bod pointedly looked elsewhere, though I noticed they both stopped eating until I had finished.
A group of horse riders appeared to our left, taking an alternative spur of the track heading west. The last horse in line had no rider. We speculated whether it was a spare horse, or whether it had waited for a moment of suitable terrain and professionally shrugged its occupant into a gully, the startled yelp lost on the wind.
The pain increases ....
Standing up when your legs have seized during a lunch break is a reliable reminder that the body is not a machine. We hobbled forward for a dozen paces until the internal lubricants redistributed themselves and something approaching normal walking resumed.
We traversed the northern end of Lussa Loch, crossed a bridge over a shallow, cheerful burn, and continued south-west down the western shore past the cottages at Corrylach, then due south into forest. The conifer infestation was comprehensive, crowding the track on all sides and occasionally sprouting immediately beside it in a vivid, almost dizzying green.
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South along Lussa Loch |
My feet had by now developed voices. Each step produced a small internal cry of protest — *Ouch, Urk, Eeek, Ya bugger* — a running commentary of indignation that I was doing my best to ignore. I tried to divert my thoughts.
"This is Gobagrennan," Bod announced from a few metres ahead.
I looked around. "What — all of it?"
Jo laughed. Gobagrennan appeared to consist of a house, a yard, a chicken coop, a small warehouse of some kind and a rusty-orange tank of no discernible function. There were more letters in the place name than organisms currently resident.
We climbed a sudden, feisty rise beyond Gobagrennan and broke free at last from the grip of the conifers. A spur of the Way peeled off south-east toward the east coast. We continued south on a minor road that undulated and took unnecessarily spiteful bends, or so my tender legs decided.
Bod began to pull ahead at this point — sometimes by twenty or thirty metres, sometimes more. He seemed tireless and implacable. Jo followed, his stride remaining steady whatever his private discomforts. I brought up the rear, partly from choice — stopping to film whenever a scene presented itself — and partly because my feet were filing supplementary complaints at intervals: a sharp jag in the sole, a piercing sensation at the ankle, as if they were rummaging through their repertoire and selecting new offerings. I would then have to break into a shambling jog to close the gap, which provoked fresh levels of protest.
Jo witnessed this at one point. "Noooooo!" he wailed, in what I choose to interpret as sympathetic dismay.
Now and then, Bod would stop, unfold his increasingly battered map, take a drink, and wait for us to straggle up.
"How you doing, John?" he asked at one stop.
"John?"
"John Wayne. You're walking like a cowboy."
The sore on my thigh had become very inflamed and was encouraging a bow-legged approach to the whole enterprise. I laughed weakly. "Bastard."
Bod grinned. "I'm running on empty."
It was a relief to hear this. "How far have we got to go?"
"Four miles."
Jesus Christ.
Jo and I moved together now, passing places that had become merely names on a map — Skeroblingarry, Skeroblinraid. Jo noticed a residence called Home Place. It stood out among the absorbing Gaelic names in its complete English plainness. We were later to learn from Dean that this is Sir Paul McCartney's remote farmhouse, where he reportedly spent time after the break-up of the Beatles, saying of it: *"I can sort of breathe when I get up there, breathe pure air."* We breathed the air as we walked past and it was indeed very pure, albeit laced with sweat and liniment.
This area also offered the walk's only black sheep among an otherwise white woolly population. I noted this in the manner of a man who is noticing things as a distraction from the misery of his feet.
"There's Campbeltown," Bod said, pointing.
Far away — still seemingly very far away — the sprawl of it. Jo raised his arms to the sky in silent celebration and followed Bod, who had already moved on. I pointed my camera at the town, on maximum zoom — the only way to get a clear image from this distance — and tried for a piece of commentary in the style of David Attenborough. *And there, at last, is Campbeltown* — delivered with what I felt was just the right note of humble triumph.
A monstrous piece of farm machinery chose this precise moment to bear down on me and roar past. The noise swallowed my speech entirely and any impression of brave, weary walkers closing in on their destination was overwritten by several metres of canary yellow steel. I glared at the driver. He appraised me truculently, wearing an expression that made the local sheep look shrewd by comparison.
I walked the last two miles on willpower alone.
The Mad Lady of Campbeltown and the Incident At The Argyll Arms ....
At a stop for drinks, Bod revealed his method for managing pain on the walk. He counted his steps, focusing on the count rather than the feet, allowing him to zone out from the discomfort. Right foot for one set of numbers, then switching to left for variety. I listened with interest — after all, I felt no shame in adopting his method if it would help me ignore my feet and concentrate instead on the biting rawness of my thigh. Then I thought: *this man is voluntarily focusing his attention on his feet?* And then it all became clear. Why he set a constant pace, was restless when we stopped, never visibly altered his stride for pain. I had never been friends with a masochist before. I didn't have to feel wimpy about my suffering anymore. Bod was used to pain. He probably revelled in it. He probably had broken glass sprinkled inside his boots.
"The trouble is," Bod added, "I can only zone out for so long and then I remember that my bloody feet hurt."
Not entirely infallible then. But it got him through.
I stopped looking up at the hills ahead and looked down at my feet instead. I counted steps. I missed a lot of beautiful scenery, but by this point I couldn't give a sod. At last we joined the A83 for the final half-mile. We were hobbling across it near Mill Knowe when a fairly elderly woman hailed Bod from her back garden, just visible over a length of blackberry brambles. She beckoned him over and asked him to pick something up. The only thing we could see in the road was a plastic shopping bag, so Bod scooped it up stiffly and offered it to her with mild perplexity. She immediately pulled an exasperated face.
"Och! Not that!"
She pointed to a wicker basket on our side of the hedge, brimming with harvested blackberries. Bod handed it over. She seemed keen to prolong the conversation and I sighed inwardly. I would have preferred simply to finish. She asked where we had walked from, then, detecting alien accents, where we were from.
"The Midlands," I said, then realised this would mean nothing specific. "Birmingham."
The woman had already started her next sentence but sputtered to a stop and stared at us.
"..Yerr English!!"
She managed to inject the word with roughly the same horror as if she had just discovered we were paedophiles. Aghast and outraged simultaneously, she actually rolled her eyes to the heavens whilst clutching her basket of blackberries protectively in front of herself, as if we might take them too.
"Yes, we're English," I replied, in a level tone.
Something must have alerted her to the possibility of mild rudeness and she recovered her manners, adding, a little listlessly: "Och, ah knew some English people from Birmingham and they were very nice."
This concession was instantly too much for her. She rallied. "Mind yew — the trouble with yew is what ya do with our munn-eh!" She demonstrated by raising both hands, forefingers and thumbs pinched together, miming somebody peering with suspicious scrutiny at currency of dubious provenance. We could only gape. She summarised her views in a final statement, face quivering with indignity:
"And that Margaret Thatcher!!"
This was enough. We said goodbye, and to her credit the old girl wished us good luck with our walking. *Back to England* was presumably what followed once we were out of earshot.
Jo was in tucks as we walked on. A vein stood out on his temple with the prominence of a rune as he sniggered and gasped.
"She's probably on the phone right now, spreading the news," said Bod.
Which meant we could expect a line of infuriated villagers outside the apartment with burning torches by midnight.
I should note, in fairness, that the delay in service was probably connected to a frail elderly lady at another table who had a funny turn during dinner and pitched face-first into her baked trout. An ambulance was called and we were relieved to see her walk steadily out of the premises. This was considerably more than Bod or I could do, and she was lucky we didn't knock her out of the way and get in the ambulance ourselves. We must have appeared to the watching room as contestants in the paralytic hundred metres stagger. Mark, limping heavily, completed the picture. We were given a wide berth but considerable attention.
Back at the apartment, Mark — bless him — suggested I take the bedroom and sleep properly. He would use the lounge. Alone in bed, I had time to fret. Did I have it in me to do twenty-two miles tomorrow, over what was supposed to be the toughest terrain of the six days, with two serious climbing sections that Dean had specifically mentioned? A two o'clock visit to the toilet settled the question firmly in the negative. I minced across the room on my toes — which were not feeling particularly cooperative themselves — because I simply could not put any pressure on my heels. The right one in particular.
But I wanted to finish the damn thing. I knew it would stay with me if I didn't at least try.
I would see how I felt in the morning.
See Route on ......
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