The Pass of Gaick

It's been a busy old time recently, so apologies for my absence of posting for over a week.

Pauline and I have been continuing with our talk tour for Sleepless 'til Seattle, last Friday appearing at the newly refurbished Birks Cinema in Aberfeldy. It was first opened in July of 1939 but sadly only remained in operation until 1980. At that point, until 2004, like many old cinemas, it became a tacky amusement arcade. Now, thanks to generous donations, fund raising and grants it has opened once again with a 100-seat, 3D digital cinema.

This talk was quite different from all of the other venues we will be appearing at, mainly because of course it is a cinema and not an actual theatre. We were also not the only participants that night. Several amateur films were shown after us as part of the Highland Perthshire Cycling festival week.

It was a late finish when we left the venue, and it was midnight before we were pitching our tent on the outskirts of Blair Atholl, some 15 miles away. We had decided to make the most of being in the area that weekend by taking our mountain bikes with us for an off road run through the hills.

The following morning was bright as we pedalled out of Blair Atholl west, past the small settlements of Bruar and Calvine, before reaching our turn off for the start of the Gaick Pass that would take us 20 miles through the hills to Kingussie. The route is an ancient drove trail, a remote u-shaped pass through the Drumochter Hills.

It was more like winter instead of late spring, with a bitingly cold wind and frequent squally showers pushing through. Half way we were off the bikes and pushing for a mile and a half alongside a small loch callled Loch an Dun, which forms the pass, where in a previous year we had see whooper swans. This time there were no swans but there was a pair of oyster catchers.

We had anticipated three river crossings but in the end we only had to negotiate one, which was difficult enough pushing a loaded bicycle through knee-deep fast-flowing waters.

The run out at the north end was spectacular and fast. We popped out of the hills at the ruins of Ruthven Barracks at Kingussie, then turned west, three miles down the road to camp near the wildcat trail on the outskirts of Newtonmore.

Our second day, though dry, was hampered by a constant 20mph headwind. We had hoped that it would become a tail wind as we followed the curve of the Drumochter Pass back toward Blair Atholl. However in reality the wind was being channeled round the curve of the pass and remained in our faces for the entire 33 miles back.

It was great to be back out in the Scottish hills again, with Pauline, working hard on the mountain bikes, battling the elements and camping out.

This is the second time I have been through the Gaick Pass, once on foot with my friends Andrew and Pauline, and now by bike with just Pauline. Both times it has been entirely different, with the walking trip in a near white-out blizzard.

It is a fabulous walk or bike run, and I don't think it will be the last time I enjoy it's beauty.

Deuchary Hill

Just outside the small picturesque village of Dunkeld lies a small hill, just a little over 1500 feet, called Deuchary Hill. There's nothing hard about this walk, both in terms of physical effort and distance, but it is full of rewards.

I first walked up this hill last year with my friend Andrew, and last weekend we returned with four other friends on a glorious day.

Part of the joy of hillwalking for me is taking the train whenever possible to the starting point. Sometimes there just isn't that choice, such as for the mountains of Glencoe, but for Deuchary Hill it's a short travel time from Edinburgh to the outskirts of the village of Dunkeld.

The estimated time for a circular route of Deuchary is six hours, though in the end we took slightly longer. Even the reward at the end of food and a drink at the Taybank bar, overlooking one of the great salmon rivers in Scotland, the River Tay, couldn't tempt us to hurry.

At Mill Dam we were supposed to take a left on the advice of my friend Pauline, but we decided to continue on to the small body of water, Loch Ordie. We stopped briefly just after Mill Dam for a spot of lunch, soaking in the late spring sunshine and watching the birds flitting around gathering nesting material.

Doubling back slightly after Loch Ordie we found the path up to the summit, and 20 minutes later we were admiring the views from the rocky top. The unmistakable pointed peak of Schiehallion was visible nearby, still covered in late snow. As Dave passed around his hip flask of brandy we congratulated each other on a job well done.  For a while longer we sat silently, not from exhaustion but from quiet contemplation as we watched the few clouds there were drift slowly by.

We picked a direct, short but steep route off the hill and wandered back to Dunkeld for our evening meal, satisfied in our little expedition with old friends up Deuchary Hill.

Sleepless 'til Seattle - The Talk

Over the past three months Pauline and I have been pulling together film clips and photographs from our 4,000 mile cycle across North America in order to create a talk that we would take on a tour round Scotland.

Friday just gone was opening night.

The key to people attending is of course, publicity. Lots of it. You name it, we did it: local radio and  press, hundreds of posters, thousands of fliers, a giant three-foot wide poster on a disused phone box, Facebook, Twitter, cycle club forums, cycle shops, and lots of other websites such as Gumtree and The List.

I couldn't have done anymore, short of paying thousands for a TV advert. I did try. I approached The One Show, but alas they didn't pick up on it. Yet.

It took over a month to narrow down which theatres we would take the show to. We decided to concentrate mostly on small rural communities. Then it was a matter of finding out availability and trying to create a schedule with approximately two weeks between each show. Booking was next, signing contracts, assessing the technical needs and creating posters.

Of course we also had a script to write. Luckily we knew the story well, the key to any presentation. Using a great programme called Keynote, we  assembled the photographs and the film clips from the feature film, then rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed.

It paid off. The first night sold out with sustained applause and cheering at the end. There then followed a great Q&A. A fantastic start.

Ten more venues to go, which you can find out about by going to the website. Click on the tour picture of us on the right, or here

In the final week of preparation we also created an online shop to sell the now complete DVD of the feature film. Within just six hours of it going live we had sold the first one and sold many more on the night of the show, including a CD of all the music.

Fingers crossed for a successful tour.

Changing course

It's the London marathon tomorrow, and with recent events in Boston still fresh in peoples minds, you can imagine the organisers and creators of the event will be dedicated to ensuring all goes according to plan. The course twists and winds its way through the capital city, and clear markers must be in place to advise the runners of where the course goes so that there is no risk to anyone losing their way, whether they are in a large group or out there by themselves.

When you work on your own, as I do, at times it's difficult, almost impossible, to judge your work objectively to ascertain if it's actually any good, to know if the course you are following is the right one. Sometimes you become so absorbed in a project that you convince yourself it's the right thing to be doing. Of course it can't fail.

I have a great circle of friends, and a number who are very honest with me and who I rely upon to give me truthful responses when I ask their opinion of projects I'm working on. Last year I gathered a number at a local cinema who helped me refine a feature film.

Understandably, as well as the passionate critics, there are many who are also just polite and congratulate you on your achievements. That's nice, and comforting, and a moral booster at times, and just as valuable as the constructive criticism.

It is true to say that I became completely absorbed by the film project and it became difficult to know what decisions to make anymore. To quote the old saying: I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I continued to tweak it here and there. I should have remembered the great director Woody Allen, who once said, you never finish a film you just abandon it.

It has now absorbed a large part of my life, and finances, for almost three years. The latter part of last year was all about entering the film into world-wide film festivals. 12 in all. One by one the rejections came back. This morning one of the festivals I had pinned my hopes on, Seattle, also rejected the film. There remains only one to return now, my home town of Edinburgh.

It would be easy to bury my head in the sand and ignore these results, but these decisions and opinions are important. Having your work judged by people that don't know you at all is not only the hardest critique but the most important.

So it would appear, despite all the hard work and dedication, that my work as a film maker does not make the mark.

The film has recently been turned into a talk, and together with my adventure buddy we begin a tour of 12 venues this coming Friday round Scotland, the first of which is in my home town Portobello. It's looking good and we've created a very entertaining performance. In terms of hard work and dedication I couldn't have done more. But in seven days I'll find out if there's a demand for it and if my peers judge it to be any good, or if it's time to change course.

Vandalism

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe in the 5th century, who settled in Africa and pillaged Rome around 455AD. It is because modern writers characterised the Vandals as barbarians that today we say a person who damages things through ignorance and wilful disregard is known as a vandal.

Over the past three months I have been constructing an entertaining visual presentation for Pauline and I to give a talk on our 4,000-mile cycle across North America. It's quite an undertaking as we're taking our show to ten venues around Scotland over the next four months.

Publicity is, of course, key to the success of this. With this in mind I designed a colourful and fun poster, of which a local printer produced a giant version, three feet wide and five feet deep. It looked fantastic, a real eye-catcher. So we put it up in a prominent position locally.

It lasted less than 24 hours.  The following morning we discovered someone had ripped it to shreds overnight.

A number of years ago the city council planted around 20 new trees in a local park. Less than one week later and all but one had been snapped in half.

Just last week a local community orchard fell victim to a far more cruel side of wanton destruction. Within the orchard were two very productive bee hives. One morning they were found destroyed and all the bees were dead.

There are other forms of vandalism as well of course. Those of a psychological nature. I have friends who campaign for the protection of vulnerable places and environments and are at the receiving end of intolerable cruelty in the form of psychological abuse by those who disagree with their views.

Whatever happened to free speech?!

I feel both ashamed, and angry at the same time, that all of these events have happened within a small radius of where I live. It is a beautiful place, right by the ocean. I take great pleasure listening to the crashing waves as they roll onto the mile-long beach just yards from my front door. It's a shame that there is an ugly side, but that ugly side is, like so many negative things in this world, man-made.

For four months Pauline and I cycled through many, many towns and landscapes, as we ate up the 4,000 miles across America. We met so many amazing people both young and old. Not once did we witness the kind of vandalism written about here. People were proud of where they lived, and looked after it.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Seven Years In Regret

The weekend just passed marked seven years since I sold my deli and coffee shop. Obviously I would remember but it was a shame no one else did. At times I regret letting it go.

It was a great 15 years in the deli. So many wonderful memories. I had so many great staff, and so much help from close friends. It went from small beginnings to a medium sized business with 9 staff, and I miss it and all the people so much.

I can't honestly say I've replaced it successfully with anything, and I continue to feel a bit lost in direction. I still find it amazing that virtually every week someone from the local community will stop me and chat, recognising and still associating me with the deli. It's sad the subsequent owners made such a mess of things that today it is a shadow of its former self.

The most important friendship in my life started when I had the deli as well, which has endured for almost 20 years. I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost that. It's my pillar.

When I look back over my working life I'm surprised, and a little shocked, at the different career paths I've taken so far: a graphic design company; the Royal Air Force; advertising agency; printers; deli & coffee shop; handyman; film maker, most notably for the Dalai Lama; property landlord; business consultant, and most recently, teacher in film.  I turned self-employed in 1989, and I've made it this far, so hopefully I'll continue to create profitable business, though it is increasingly tough in these times.

Though my main goal just now is, following the great success of the trans-America cycle with Pauline, to return hopefully next year for another long-distance route, the Underground Railroad. I say hopefully because it looks increasingly uncertain as time goes on.

The important thing for the future is no regrets.

Guest blog

I was away in the Scottish Highlands last weekend with my best friend Pauline and her boyfriend  with mountain bikes and tents. Pauline writes superbly and so this week I bring you last weekend's adventure courtesy of Pauline.

Blair Atholl - Bikes, blizzards and Belgians

I can’t say I was looking my best at the weekend. My hair was matted like fuzzy felt under a hat under a helmet; my jaws were so frozen that I could hardly speak or eat my chocolate-coated peanuts; and the biting cold winds had given me a face like a pizza. And to top it all my Belgian lover had arrived for a spot of romancing.

A plan had already been in place with my friend to bike a circuit through the Gaick Pass and return over the Drummochter Pass. But the best laid plans aft gang agley and winter, snow and blizzards returned to Scotland to scupper this one. Not to be put off we set out biking up through Glen Tilt, today a deserted Arctic landscape where drifts of sculpted snow grew to several feet in the wind and clouds of spindrift reduced our view to just a few feet of the track ahead. 

Anybody seeing us setting out from Blair Atholl with bikes and camping kit might have thought we were a little bit crazy. And maybe we were! But sometimes you have to struggle and take on a challenge to feel good and alive and invigorated. And so we battled through the snow on our bikes, enjoying the brief moments when short sections of trail passed through the shelter and calm of the Glen Tilt woods. The only imprints in the fresh, powder snow were three bicycle tracks and the footprints of hare, deer and pheasants.

In the late afternoon we pitched our tents in a little copse of trees, sheltered from the worst of the icy blasts, where snowflakes fell gently to the forest floor and a little robin visited our campsot for crumbs of cheese. We risked life and limb, or at least a severe dunking, picking our way over snow and ice-covered rocks in the gorge of the river to collect water for cooking. But boy, did I enjoy my cup of hot tea that evening!

Next day we biked another track out onto the open wind-scoured, snow-blasted moors and pushed our bikes through deep snow before abandoning them and walking on a little further. In a brief moment of sunshine the light illuminated the slopes of Beinn Dearg ahead and we soaked up the beauty of the winter landscape before jumping back on our bikes for a fast descent to Blair Atholl. I finished the weekend off being wined and dined at a restaurant where my margherita pizza looked just like my face.

If you would like to read more of Pauline's writing then follow her at:

http://www.theoutdoordiaries.blogspot.com