Stefan Durkacz

Sunday's weather forecast went downhill all week. I looked on like a gambler who'd bet the farm on the wrong horse; lavish dreams of spending weather winnings on a long, grand high-level walk over the Mounth were scaled back until I found myself on a dark, wet morning at Spittal of Glenshee. The fairy glen has depth and history. Irish Celtic legends were transplanted here. There is a standing stone behind the church in Spittal of Glenshee. Remains of shielings and hut circles scatter the hills. The human connection here is long and misty, and Glen Shee remains a working landscape. Yellow leaves skittered across slick black tarmac as I set off. The Shee Water, swollen and peat-stained, slalomed through its bouldery flood plain edged with scrubby woodland, and surged under the single high arch of the Caulfield bridge. Today on the cusp of winter the land looked tired and worn. I traversed high above the grazing lands, following a deer fence. The Cateran Trail from the Spittal inv...

I sorely needed a break from marching up and down the Thames path for kicks, so two consecutive October weekends in Scotland have arrived at just the right time, allowing for a couple of day trips - slightly frustrating as I'm gagging to try out my Trailstar! That may have to wait until the Christmas holidays providing that the Express's annual prediction of The Worst Winter In Decades doesn't come true this time. For the first weekend I had cunningly arranged a work commitment in Glasgow for Thursday and Friday, allowing a day's walking on the Saturday and a return to London on Sunday. The in-laws in Glasgow had also yet to see our newborn, so we all piled on to the train at King's Cross on Wednesday afternoon. On Saturday, with work out of the way, Dad and I drove down to Glen Holm in the Southern Uplands near Broughton with the intention of climbing Culter Fell. The drive was a delight through autumnal countryside. After day upon day of rain and a forecast for ye...

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that I now have a fundraising page on this blog. I'm using the walk to raise money for these two terrific charities, and you can read more about them and why I've chosen to raise funds for them here. Links for making online donations are also up and running. Venture Trust have published an article about the walk on their website, and there will also be a piece about it in the next edition of Scottish Wild Land Group's ' Wild Land News ', due out any day now (if you download PDFs of their excellent magazine, please do consider taking out a membership!). The walk is still several months away and you might want to wait until nearer the time to think about donating, perhaps when you're more certain I'm going to go through with it, or indeed successfully complete it!. That's fair enough, but please do keep it in mind. I believe we're at a cross-roads now, both in our understanding of how important nature and wild lan...