The year 2012 started well when friend Jean and I caught the warm weather at the end of March for a short week camping in the Lakes. How often can one sit outside at 10pm in March with just a light sweater on and watch the stars and planets blazing? Seven western Marilyns were done ranging in height from Pillar to Long Barrow.
I then met up with David and we based ourselves in Oswestry to do my last three Welsh Marilyns. It was a bit of an anti-climax finishing on Carnedd Wen, which involves a plod up a track to a clearing in the forest. But never mind, the rain highlighted the colours of the tawny bracken, bleached dead grass, red moss edging the track and green of the rushes, all of which glowed like the David Hockney paintings at the Royal Academy.
On the way up to Scotland to fit out the boat in May we took in Shillhope Law in the northern Pennines and the Graham, Meall Buidhe.
The weather was cold and wet for the next couple of weeks. However a night camped at the head of Loch Arkaig enabled me to fill in the final ten miles of a walk from several points on the south coast of England to Cape Wrath. I started it in 1981 with the Dales Way but it was not until 1991 that I realised I was well on my way. I then began filling in the gaps and working up through Scotland.
Cape Wrath (photo: Tony Deall)
Launching in mid May, we went across Loch Linnhe to Kingairloch. I did the Creach Bheinn horseshoe, bivvying overnight. It was the warmest and most agreeable bivvy I have ever experienced.
The boat engine gearbox was playing up, so it was back to the boatyard to take it out. While it was away for repairs, we went off with the car and tent to the Pitlochry area for a raft of Marilyns large and small. The weather was mostly kind. We had a fabulously sunny but cool day doing Beinn Iutharn Mhor and Glas Tulaichean (both of us) plus Carn an Righ (for me). For a couple of days after that David, having done a personal best for both distance and height, had to leave me to pop up a selection of smaller hills.
With the gearbox restored to health we set sail for the Small Isles and the west coast of Skye. I did Sgorr an Fharaidh on Eigg from the small bay just west of Baigh na Traigh, famous for its singing sand. In my bay the dry sand at the top of the beach not so much sang as squeaked very loudly when disturbed. Interesting.
On Skye I did three Marilyns including Sgurr na Stri from Loch Scavaig, which the pilot guide describes as 'the most dramatic anchorage in Europe'. On this occasion there were so many yachts at anchor, so many visitors landing from trip boats, not to mention people in residence at the bothy, that the place was overwhelmed. Sgurr na Stri was quiet enough and memorable for a couple of hinds letting us pass within twenty metres of them without pausing in their grazing and also for David falling off a very small craggy bit and drawing blood on his knuckles and head. It was lucky he was wearing a hat.
In Stornoway I left the boat for two weeks, picked up the car - yes, a couple of years ago I let loose a polemic in Marhofn about the evils of cars and since then I have done more Marilyns by car than ever before - and went back to the Pitlochry area.
It was now the end of June/early July and the rain gods were working overtime, plus I was feeling out of sorts. At the time I thought two Corbetts, eight Grahams and five lesser Marilyns was pretty feeble but from this distance in time I am not so displeased.
I rejoined the boat in Shetland and later in the summer picked up three more Marilyns as we sailed back to Oban. In early September I left David putting the boat to bed for the winter and went to Wick by bus and train. I camped for three northern Marilyns and took in a play at a remote arts centre.
That was it, until a trip to Inverness YH by sleeper in November. The weather was kind but I lost my purse on the Friday afternoon and, being cash-less and card-less over the weekend, I could not ride buses or trains until Monday to reach the planned Marilyns. Thus I came home with just two added to the list but a grand total of 55 for the year compared with 39 in 2011, leaving just three to do in England and just over 300 in Scotland. Pity I live in Guildford.
