'Summer' in the Scottish Highlands 2014

I was introduced to hillwalking when I was at secondary school. I had two teachers who were knocking off the Munros (Scotland's hills over 3000' – 914.4m in modern currency) and our school 'expeditions' invariably took us to parts of Scotland that had hills they needed to climb, dressed up with names that excited the teenage imagination - the 'Trans-Highland Journey' seems to stand out for some reason. My first Munro was The Saddle in Glen Shiel, climbed on a sunny day in the early 1990s via the Forcan Ridge, which the Scottish Mountaineering Club guidebook describes as a 'superb rich ridge [that] involves some exposed scrambling'. I remember straddling a knife edged arête with several hundred metres of nothing beneath my feet. It was bloody good fun and I was hooked.

By the time I'd done my A-levels I'd climbed over 40 Munros – mainly in the Western Highlands, and including all the remote Knoydart peaks and pretty much everything around Glencoe and the Ben Nevis area. The great thing about Scotland's hills – Munros or otherwise – is that you can have a long day of walking / scrambling / climbing and still be back in the pub by closing time.

The downside, of course, is that the weather can be decidedly iffy, something that I experienced at first hand last week when I was stepped off the train at Loch Awe with my bike, camping gear and a week's food supply. The rain was lashing down, and the week of halcyonic summer walking that I'd envisaged wasn't exactly on the cards. This was rammed home after I'd stashed my gear under a bush and walked up Ben Eunaich. I could feel the wind whipping past and throwing me off balance as I climbed up, and on reaching the summit I turned around to feel the full force of rain and hail slamming into my face. I pushed on up Beinn a' Chochuill and raced down the mountainside to escape the weather – and savouring the wonderful moment as I emerged from the clouds to see the route down the valley floor. I spent a wet night sleeping under the shelter on the Loch Awe railway station platform, and caught the first train of the morning to Tyndrum, where the campsite has hot showers and a drying room. Bliss.


[On the train ride north from Glasgow]



[Halfway up Ben Eunaich]


[Feeder gates for the Cruachan hydroelectric power station]


[On the summit ridge of Beinn a' Chochuill]

[Coming out of the clouds on the side of Beinn a' Chochuill]

Scotland had been enjoying a glorious summer, and I'd planned to do a big off road tour down Glen Lyon, but the weather for the coming week wasn't great, with a particularly foul weekend forecast, so the comfort of the By The Way campsite massively outweighed any thoughts of wild camping – I even had WiFi in my tent. I decided to have a couple more days of climbing the few Munros I had left in the Crianlarich area – starting with Ben More, which had a couple of rock steps I had to climb over on my way up. Great fun with the wind buffeting me around! Ben Dorain was another hill on my list – again, the weather didn't allow for much of a view from the summit, which was a pity as it has a commanding position over the A82 and railway line to Fort William. I've passed it on my way north countless times, and so it is great to be able to look at it having been on the summit.

[Bike tucked away in the trees...]






[Climbing Ben More]


[Summit of Ben More – 1174m]


[Sheep near the summit of Ben Dorain]

[Looking down on the A82 and West Highland Way from the summit of Ben Dorain]

By this point I'd run out of enthusiasm for getting soaked and eaten by midges, and decided to make the most of the last day of good weather and ride down to see my relatives Ken and Shena in Stirling, with a lot of the 80km-or-so on the old Callander to Oban railway line which is now a fantastic mountain bike route. It was great fun – mostly coasting gently downhill, but with some steeper single track sections to liven up the ride.


[The old Callander – Oban railway track]


[Overlooking the Falls of Leny]

I spent a few days with Ken, Shena, Carrick and Jodie. We climbed Ben Vorlich and Stùc a' Chroin on the last day before I headed back to London. These can be seen from their kitchen window, so Jodie and Taiga (the family labrador) joined me for the day. Jodie is a ferociously good tennis player and pretty much raced me up both summits. It was the perfect day for her first Munros – the weather held out and we could just about work out where her house was to the south-east, and the traverse between the two summits was steep enough to get a sense of how big the hills really are. I didn't want to spoil things by pointing out that on the basis of the past week this was a bit of an anomaly!

[Taiga spoiled the party by not wearing a headband]


[On the steep eastern side of Stùc a' Chroin]


[Taiga and Jodie on the summit of Stùc a' Chroin]

Bluebell Railway with Rich

This is a slight interlude to the normal run of my adventures, but I want to write up some of the days out I've had with my cousin Richard, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. We had a lovely day out on the Bluebell Railway today, which has fantastic facilities for disabled visitors – not bad, considering it was built in the middle of the 19th Century! Rich tends to do a bit of research about accessibility when he travels, and hopefully this page will be of use to other wheelchair users visiting the railway.

The drive from Balham took about an hour and a quarter. We arrived at East Grinstead, where there is free all-day parking for disabled visitors: lots of space around the van to make sure people don't impede Rich's ramps. Just make sure you have the parking coupon (issued by the ticket office when you buy your tickets) visible on your dashboard.

The trains run by the Bluebell have amazing disabled access. Back in the day Rich used to travel in the cold, unheated parcel cage when he went between London and Tunbridge Wells – a pretty miserable experience. The disabled access carriage is light years away from that, as you can see. Great for the three of us travelling together, and it matched the other period carriages perfectly.

The line runs through the heart of Sussex for 11 miles, and takes about 45 minutes from end to end. The countryside is beautiful – I grew up in the High Weald and find the landscape stonkingly pretty, regardless of the time of year. The staff were incredibly helpful (and friendly) and were happy for us to get on and off along the line. We stopped off at Horsted Keynes where the station has a bar: a couple of hours of drinking Harvey's in the sun seemed like a very good idea.

The stations are rather beautiful with lots to look at – and they are all fully accessible for wheelchair users. Sheffield Park has the best disabled lavatory facilities – at East Grinstead we popped into the Sainsbury's opposite the station. Apparently there are plans to build a disabled-access lavatory at East Grinstead station this winter once the summer tourist traffic has quietened down – this is the railway's newest station (it opened in Spring 2013) and improvements are ongoing.

The workshops and sheds at Horsted Keynes and Sheffield Park are also accessible, and the fitters and restorers were happy to talk to us and explain their work, which is pretty impressive when you realise that some of the locomotives are over a century old! We were also allowed to have a look at a shed at the back of the yard where volunteers are building a brand new steam locomotive. Their enthusiasm and love for their work really came across.

Well done to the Bluebell Railway – for something run substantially by volunteers they've made the experience incredibly wheelchair-friendly.

Click here for the Bluebell Railway's accessibility statement.

Finally –  I'll tag future posts on accessibility as wheelchair adventures.