Stefan Durkacz

Tracing out the boundary of the Tay catchment was easy. The watersheds are clear on the maps, everywhere except for an area west-north-west of Kirriemuir. It's the mystery of the Quharity Burn. This water flows out of the southern fringe of the Mounth, only to be lost in a bog and have its waters stolen and rustled into the Loch of Lintrathen (off the bottom left of the map below) and eventually the River Isla. However the burn and its name are resurrected a short distance further on, re-starting the journey from small beginnings towards the River South Esk. Humans are probably the culprit here. The Inzion Burn, which steals the original Quharity Burn's waters and takes them south-west, is suspiciously straight. It looks like a channel deliberately cut to drain the bog. Newton Moss, at the head of the Inzion Burn, is still marshy according to the map. So here's an example of where the watershed has been altered by human intervention. What implications does it have for my ro...

My Trailstar tarp arrived just over a week ago, and had its inaugural pitching this morning. It requires a bit of work to get it ready for use. The parcel contained the tarp itself in a yellow stuffsac, a bag of stakes and pegs (five of each, which I'd added to my order as they're not included when you order the Trailstar), a tube of Silnet seam sealer (included), and a very long length of yellow cord for the pegging points (also included). There are no instructions provided. This is about as far removed as you can get from buying a pop-up tent from Decathlon: the customer is assumed to have some practical nous and not to need their hand held. Once you apply the seam sealer, the tarp is non-returnable, so taking care and having a reasonable idea of what you're doing at this stage is particularly important. This is a tarp designed to withstand stormy weather, and the stakes provided are therefore very substantial. The pegs are also bigger than I expected, much bigger than th...

Last week my mum and dad were down from Scotland for a few days' visit. The occasion was the birth of our second daughter, who arrived right on time at 9.30am on 10th September. Once things had settled down a bit I took my dad down to Kent to walk part of the North Downs Way . We covered about 10 miles, taking the train to Otford just north of Sevenoaks and following the route east to Vigo Village, before doubling back and heading for Borough Green to catch the train back in to London. Sadly the weather was terrible and it rained almost non-stop all day. Still, it was a good to get out and I saw enough that made me want to come back again for more regular walks along the many trails that criss-cross this area, once the first few difficult months of caring for our newborn are over. Our oldest should be ready by next year for little walks on these fairly undemanding trails as well. Also it was a good test for my dry bags and trekking poles, and to further wear in my North Face Hedgeh...