Kintyre Way Summary

The Kintyre Way

By Colin Walford Epilogue Route: Bedroom to Kitchen Date: Some weeks later Distance: 21ft (17m) Prev

My feet have healed. They are so obviously pink and healthy now that I feel something of a wimp reading back over my observations of three months ago. It is genuinely hard to recall the discomforts I faithfully recorded at the time.
It hadn't been that bad, had it?
About six weeks after we all returned to our respective homes, I was in the shower one morning when I watched with quiet amazement as thick crusts of skin disengaged themselves from my heels in a peeling-back motion. I was left with what looked like pieces of naan bread dangling from my feet, pulled them away and flushed them down the toilet. The skin underneath was soft and vulnerable-looking, and I realised I was back to square one. If I go walking again next year — which is a strong possibility — I will be doing so on feet whose soles possess all the durability and toughness of a softly-boiled egg.
It doesn't help that during the eleven months between each walking holiday I choose to wear soft, moccasin-like shoes that pamper and caress my feet. I am then surprised and offended that they behave in a shocked manner before falling apart, when I insist on strapping them inside big old walking boots with their concrete liners and inflexible contours.
Bod's advice is to wear the boots throughout the year — into town to do the shopping, in the garden, whilst in bed. He wears heavy boots at work and suspected this was why his feet remained broadly unconcerned while the rest of us were suffering. This theory carries a certain logic and will be completely ignored.
All of my blisters and bruises, earned so painfully on the Kintyre Way, have faded both in physicality and in memory. The only remaining evidence that my feet were put through their paces is a toenail which went black overnight — fourth toe, right foot. I went to bed with a perfectly clear nail and woke to find one that was purple-black, though curiously painless. It is still there now, slowly rising up the digit as it grows out.
So had it been that bad? My memory banks are sceptical. But it is when I watch the video footage I took at the time that I begin to appreciate what it had all been about. Memory has the gratifying gift of blurring unpleasant things, possibly so that we don't wake screaming in the night. Hard, factual evidence on film tells it differently. So yes. It was that bloody bad.
After Dean had taken what was left of us home that final evening, we met up with Mark, who had enjoyed a brief but satisfying foray to Gigha and was ready to celebrate. What emerged from Mark's car and shambled into the Hunting Lodge Hotel looked like a group of cripples searching for Lourdes. We drew curious looks from every room we passed through. I had warned a group of fairly elderly ladies not to ask why I was limping and walking with bow-legged care. They had assured me they wouldn't. We collapsed into comfortable chairs and three of us drank alcohol quickly, hoping it would function as a pleasant anaesthetic. A man played accordion with admirable skill and drew an appreciative crowd, particularly a group of clapping Canadians. Then a woman attempted to accompany him on a recorder, putting in a performance broadly equivalent to somebody's eight-year-old niece at her third lesson. The smiling and applauding group was reduced to a bank of strained but polite expressions within two tunes.
The canny owner of the lodge attempted to sell Mark a glass of whisky for eight pounds. Mark declined. The owner produced a cheaper glass at four pounds. Mark agreed, but only if he could have a free taste first. The owner hesitated, then acquiesced with a rueful smile and a gleam in his eye. He knew when he had met his match. Mark eventually drank too much to drive legally, so we got a taxi home. The following day he cadged a lift from a friend who happened — in the wonderful small-world way of things — to be staying at Muasdale at the same time as us. Then it was time to say goodbye to our apartment, to Jura, to Muasdale and to the Kintyre Peninsula. We packed with the usual chaos and confusion, though at a considerably slower pace than usual as we all shuffled about and clung onto furniture. Then the long journey back to England: me to Bristol, Bod dropped in Southport, Mark and Jo back to Birmingham.
If this is the space for reflection, then what can I say?
I could note that my cousin Jo has a hyperactive bladder and a definite flair for narcolepsy. I could voice my suspicions that Bod may be an android, a covert SAS operative, or someone who has had all his pain receptors removed on the NHS. I could mention that my brother Mark is still, at the time of writing, awaiting skin grafts on his heel, and that he discovered — by the innocent act of telling a barman on Arran where he was staying — that a little-known state of quiet enmity appears to exist between the island and the Kintyre Peninsula.
But what I really came away with was the knowledge that the Kintyre Peninsula is a magnificent place — a mainland island with remote and wonderful scenery and a walk that exists to try and show this off in its entirety. It can be a bastard of a walk. It is harder going than the West Highland Way, perhaps because it is so young and raw. Without doubt, there are parts of the Way that need addressing and altering, but it is a very rewarding walk nonetheless, and I would recommend it to anyone inclined toward this sort of thing. It will challenge you and reward you in equal measure. You will discover exactly how tough your feet are and how you respond when the going gets hard.
I'd like to know how it walks in about twenty years' time. Perhaps I'll make the effort to find out, though at sixty years of age I'll probably be using a stairlift just to get myself to bed each night.
The Kintyre Way website has a roll of honour for walkers who have completed the route. I put our names up there — mine, Bod's and Jo's — along with the date. In actual fact, I made an error with Bod's date, and the record shows him completing the walk a full month after Jo and me. Ironic, really, when you consider the pace he set throughout and how far ahead of all of us he was at any given point. The roll of honour also contains the names of people who completed the route in four days, and I believe one group of dedicated head cases finished the whole thing in seventy-two hours.
Good luck to them. They obviously have more about them than I do. It was enough that we finished, and that we did so in six days.
I value my stop-and-stare moments.
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