Easter Hebridean Island School Trips

The bags were loaded into the school minibus and it was time to head off on the long drive to the Isle of Jura in Scotland. This was to be my first of many Easter school trips to the west coast of Scotland; along with the beginning of my love for the Scottish Highlands and Islands and a path to adventure further afield.

My memories from this trip are mixed, I was ten years old and one of the youngest and smallest on a trip that was predominantly a walking holiday. I remember the stunning beauty of the landscape, walking down to the red telephone box to call home, the excitement of an overnight trip to an MBA bothy along with the struggles of carrying a big rucksack there. I learnt so much on this trip and started to get an understanding of the skills needed for trips away that would serve me well as I continue to head out on trips both on my own and with other. I loved the feeling of freedom and started to learn about group dynamics including that demotivating moment when you catch up with everyone only for them to set off straight away without the chance to catch my breath.

The overall experience must have been positive as the next year I was heading off again to Scotland with the same group this time by train, boat and minibus to North Harris. The pattern was the same with lots of walking, an overnight trip to a bothy. The bothy trip was made considerably easier by my father joining us on the trip, I suspect it was just an excuse to get out into the Scottish Islands. It was lovely to share this expertise with him and is was to be one of many father son trips memories that will always be with me, including later scrambling bivi trips we did together. North Harris and Lewis was a fascinating place, there was a trip to see the famous Neolithic standing stones at Callanish, a memorable walk to look at the impressive rock climbing cliffs at Sron Ulladale. A cliff that some year later would mark the start of my multipitch climbing experience.  One of the days we were beach combing, when we were very politely told that we should not be working on the sabbath!

As the years went by there were more trips. Next it was to the Isle of Rum. This place will always have a special place for me as five years later it would mark the start of my fell running journey. Although the memories of the first trip were a little different. Yet again it involved lots of amazing walking in lovely rugged scenery, a trip to a bothy and what, from my memory felt like days of volunteering. This volunteering involved cutting down and clearing a large area of rhododendrons that had spread from the estate gardens. I can fully appreciate these are a very beautiful flowering bush and during my later trips to Nepal they looked lovely. Just after these days of cutting them down and the hard labour done by a bunch of relatively young school children; every time I see them in the UK I remember these days of clearing them.

Soon enough I had left the school and I was lucky enough to be able to continue attend and provide support to the trips with packing, preparing, sorting and maintaining the mountains of kit we needed for these trips which were only grew in popularity.  It was always quite a sight our mountain of equipment sat on the platform at the train stations, this included a large amount of the food for the entire trip along with flour for baking bread every day. Moving the equipment on and off the trains made use of chain of children and staff quick passing the bags along the line into the guards van on the sleeper train or trying to distribute the bags into the racks in the carriage of the trains.

As the years went on we went to more amazing places including: Knoydart, a very wet and windy Colonsay with a day trip to Oransay. Then South Harris, North Uist including a trip over to Bernerray (before the causeway was build) along with a trip over to Boreray, on a rib, my first uninhabited island for a night camping.

The second trip to the Isle of Rum will always be for me the point where I discovered that all this cross country running I did at school could be applied to running in the mountains, a realisation that with appropriate specialist kit meant that longer journeys were possible, giving access to amazing places and challenging days out were born. One of the adults on the trip was planning on doing the Rum Cuillin Traverse, and I took a break from studying for my GCSE to join him. In true mountain weather we completed the 20 mile route with over 5000 ft of ascent in around 9 hours over Barkeval, Hallival, Askival, Trallval, Ainshval, Sgurr nan Gilleah and Ruinsival. Following years this would lead on to more running in Knoydart, then the welsh 3000’s and I was hooked.