Wild light, eagle searching, rainbow making, an unexpected bible writer, and the remnant of an exile

It has been a stunning few days, with strange weather and unexpected encounters and findings. 

The night at the Aultguish was windy and wild, and I spent some time awake, anxious about the coming route. I shouldn't have been as I walked this bit last year, even earlier in the year, and in the other direction. I think it was mostly about the weather forecast, predicting high winds and heavy rain. But in the morning, after a sweet black coffee, I braced myself and headed out into the gale. The grey of the huge Glascarnoch dam above the inn almost blended with the sky, and Ben Wyvis to the east was even darker, topped with cloud. The first two miles had to be down the main road, with passing camper vans and delivery lorries travelling fast between east and west. At the Black Bridge (also not black, but concrete grey) I turned off northwards into Strath Vaich, into an unpeopled landscape. The sun was appearing brightly and disappearing again in turn, the high grey clouds making fast dark shadows between the light. The track turned to rough, and ascended, rounding a corner to meet the same large herd of Highland cattle and calves as I met last year (well, same family). I gave them a wide berth, edging into the trees, and most weren't interested apart from one who followed me a little way to see me off the premises. A red kite swooped in an unstable negotiation of the wind above me, as I ascended above the dam, and down beside Loch Vaich, the wind even stronger, the sun brighter, the green greener between the huge dark cloud shadows. I rested in the dip of a burn by the Lubachlaggan ruins where I had camped last year, not being able to summon enough courage to look inside the ruins until the morning then, as they had a mildly creepy feel about them. I'm glad I wasn't camping by them this time - they do have a touch of the Blair Witch Project about them. Beyond the Loch the track moves between the rounded high hills, over the shoulder and down into a sudden stunningly huge crossroads of three glens, high sided with black cragged ridges, and the seemingly tiny Deanich Lodge nestled by the river. The three glens made the wind funnel three times stronger, and it felt lonely, and I felt small. At the lodge, which is only used occasionally for groups, all was deserted and I sheltered behind a big metal container that provided a welcome windbreak. There was a big information board there for all the (very few!) people that pass through, about the work and the wildlife of the Alladale Estate, funded in a significant part by the EU Environment fund. I wonder how long that will last. It explained that there were eagles here, and wildcats, and I kept looking up, but I think the wind may have just been too much. Into the next glen the green was as bright a green as you have ever seen, and the high sides of the surrounding mountains closed in behind me, cracked with steep tree lined waterfalls. Highland cattle ambled around the flat grass by the river, their long fringes blowing into their eyes and tangling around their horns. The chance conversation I had before Inverness came in very useful as the rain caught up with me, because suddenly I found the secret bothy. 

As I was sitting inside, watching the rain sweep over the river, I heard voices approach, and two men and a dog appeared in the doorway. One worked on the estate, and after a gentle questioning I found it was definitely ok for me to sleep there as the weather front was coming in. He was showing the other man around the estate, who turned out to be Geoff Allan, the author of The Scottish Bothy Bible. I was suddenly embarrassingly effusive about his book, which is very beautiful - I was given it for my last birthday and it has never reached a bookshelf, as I am always looking at it at home. I apologised I hadn't got it with me for him to sign, but it is quite heavy. We talked about bothies and walking long distances, and I asked the estate man about the work. And then off they went and I was alone for the rest of the evening and night. To be honest, I was relieved that someone knew I was there as there had been no phone signal at all, and it was comforting to have permission as well. I cleaned around a bit, and then sat at the big wooden table against the line of windows overlooking the river. Swathes of rain came through the glen. It was strange weather though - a strong gale, and to the west constantly grey skies, and to the east constantly blue skies with high white cloud, which meant that there was a constant stream of rainbows. It was cold even inside the hut, and I wore as many layers as possible. I kept looking for eagles and wildcats, but none appeared. Only deer, coming down off the high tops, walking the contours of the deer fences, and a little fawn following. 

It never really got dark. I woke at midnight, able to look at my watch without a torch, the high ridge still clear. About an hour later it was a little darker, and then began to lighten again after 2. At 5.30am there was another rainbow in the glen, this time the other side of the bothy as the sun had moved round. 

It took a while to get going in the morning, fuelled by black coffee, watching the wind still bending the trees and the remnant of the rain still being blown through. The sun was making its best effort to come through though and it was a beautiful bracing morning to be out again. The glen became more wooded with native Scots Pines, Rowans, and many others, between which grew blueberry bushes, bracken, and tight dry heather. I ascended past the lodge and eventually out and to the tarmac road, past the entrance to Glen Calvie, and up to the crossroads. I passed a lady walking her dog and we politely remarked on the beautiful morning. Back at Aultguish the man from Lancashire had told me about the church in Croik, so I made an intentional two mile detour, which is quite an effort at this stage, particularly when it's added to a long day. But this was worth it. I took a left, facing into the wind, realising how lucky I had been that the wind had been behind me all this time. I found Croik church, with an information board outside, and thankfully it was open. It's a large and undecorated church, white walls, and long dark wood pews, with a long table the width of the church at the front and benches around all sides of it. And all is dominated by an imposing central pulpit. But the thing that makes this place different and special is the east window. On the 2nd June 1845 the crofters and shepherds along with their families, every resident young and old and in between, were cleared from Glen Calvie as part of the Highland Clearances. They took shelter in the churchyard at Croik - not in the church as they believed that would have been sacreligious - in home made tents and shelters, and carved their names, dates, and thoughts on the outside of the east window. The wind must have been coming from the west, as it was just when I visited. You can still see a lot of the writing, although it has been protected by Perspex which is itself dirty. Inside the church are transcripts, and a copy of a Times article written with great sadness, empathy and some anger. It detailed an elderly frail man who was left in his house in the glen as the move would have certainly killed him. But all of them would have eventually died, exiled and far from home, with broken hearts, broken homes and families, broken stories and histories. The writer said that if this had happened in England there would have been riots. But these people came quietly and submissively. I'm not sure that that was maybe just his opinion, but I wondered if this was the resignation of a voiceless, powerless people, speaking a language that power did not understand. And how much does this speak into our own times? 

The work of the estate I had just left is very good work - re-wilding a place with native trees and plants, and native bird and animal species. And in doing that running education projects, giving all kinds of people from all walks of life, young and old, an opportunity to be in a wild place. It is returning the glen to what it originally was. But when? The deer fences surround the estate as they do so many estates all over Scotland, keeping the overpopulated deer out as they are and have long been destructive in all sorts of ways. The fences disrupt their natural life cycles, preventing them from coming down into the low glens. I just wonder if the Clearances hadn't happened, creating vast swathes of unpeopled land, where only sheep were put to pasture, and all the native species were eventually cleared as a result of the grazing and the blood sports, that maybe the deer wouldn't have overpopulated as they unnaturally did. It's not their fault. Can these places ever be returned to what they originally were - people working in harmony with the land and the creatures, co-existing? You only have to read something like the Carmina Gaedilica, a collection of poems, conversations and prayers from the Western Isles and the Highlands, made by Alexander Carmichael in the 19th century, to realise how life was so intertwined with the natural rhythms of nature and light and seasons. 

I wonder if there is something in the collective unconscious of the nation that caused the independence lobby that was about being given an opportunity not to be associated with historical power and empire. 

But I am just an amateur walking vegetarian English townie. I do think about more than socks and cat names though, in spite of my previous piece. 

Croik church was an incredibly poignant and sad place, however you look at it. And it's difficult not to think of all that takes place in the world today, and how evil and cruelty just keeps reinventing itself. On a table on the other side of the church was laid out a whole collection of visitors books dating back to the 1960s. A lot of people come here, many from far and wide, tracing their lost histories. 

I left, the wind thankfully behind me now, beginning the long, long road down the glen. It's a very quiet road, dotted with farmhouses and cottages along the ten miles, the hills lowering and the view widening, until eventually I turned up the west side of the Kyle of Sutherland and the wide water came into view, that runs down into the Dornoch Firth.

I had been offered lifts twice along the glen by concerned ladies, but I very politely and gratefully declined, even though I was plodding. 

Eventually the huge Carbisdale castle appeared high over the water and I crossed the railway bridge into Invershin, and the hotel and bunkhouse. 

I have had a rest day today, with a little trip to Bonar Bridge, and the rest just hanging out here, looking at my next bundle of maps picked up. It's a funny and lovely little place. The hotel has a lovely fire-lit bar, and the place is run by very kind and friendly people, with two red haired children bobbing about, and a dopey old golden retriever called Sonny, who has had a recent homemade rough haircut probably with the kitchen scissors. The bunkhouse behind the hotel is quiet, and I have a room to myself, which is very nice. There are no electric sockets in the rooms, nowhere even to make tea; and an electric shower, but no hot tap or plug in the bathroom sink. It leaves me wondering what they think we'll do, and whether each room should be padded and each guest be provided with a straitjacket. Last night there was just one other cyclist in, but tonight there are a few people about, from many places, all with stories to tell. 

I have seven days left to walk. Tomorrow I will head into the far northeast flow country wilderness, with no settlements, shops or probably signal for five days. But tomorrow night I will camp at the Crask Inn, probably the remotest inn in Britain, and it's midsummer. 

Not far to go now...