June 2005

  • Well, one final post before heading off on holiday. I’m walking the West Highland Way from the 9th of July, with son J, and doubtless there will be adventures and pictures once that’s over. It’s been a tiring and in many ways very difficult and demanding past six months, and I’m looking forward to the…

  • Tom’s Tour II: West Highlands and higher still…

    …and on the way home. Possibly the best sea trip north ever on Sunday (last night). This is the ‘simmer dim’, about 10.45 pm, with the Hjaltland approaching Kirkwall. It all ended badly this morning, when merely brushing the brakelever of the Harley against a brand new Honda Pan European ripped the mirror and indicator…

  • Pink castle – Raven’s Craig above Achmore 

  • Now that’s what I call an imaginatively-named bar… 

  • Ullapool, the Stornoway Ferry and, err…me. 

  • How gorgeous can Scotland be? This is Calgary Beach on Mull. 

  • Mull Roofing techniques 

  • Tom’s Tour II…after a brutal run from Aberdeen via the horrendous Lecht, sunshine in Ardnamurchan. Waiting for the Lochaline ferry to Fishnish in Mull 

  • Harleys in the Highlands…the dampness factor

    Tom’s Tour II is half way through as I write – I’m in Inverness and my leather breeks have not yet quite dried out after yesterday’s horrendous trip from Fort William.Tobermory was lovely, and the run over from Aberdeen fine once I got past Grantown on Spey. The Lecht was atrocious, but grimly spectacular. The…

  • The Chronicles of Seagirt – parts one and two

    This is the new, somewhat whimsical I admit, column I’m writing for The Shetland Times . Possibly of interest only to those connected to The Old Rock. THE CHRONICLES OF SEAGIRT Part the First: The sinking of the Lachrymose. THE pirates slew everyone on board, and stole every stitch of our cargo. The northern European…