yppahpeek

The towns of High Peak Junction and Dowlow are joined by a seventeen and a half mile long line. This largest of the large chalk line stretches over peaks and moors and dodges between trees, streaking past farms and ice cream factories. It is the countryside ideal summed up within seventeen and a half miles of railway-cum-cycle path. This pathway is known as The High Peak Trail and when I was 14 I rode it on a GT Palomar bicycle with one of my friends. So what? Why am I telling you this now, nearly ten years later? This bike journey has always stayed in my mind and not for the immediate good reasons normally associated with a nice amble through beautiful countryside. When I think of riding a bicycle I normally think of the discomfort; the uncomfortably damp back and the greasy hair, the flies that decide to check for tonsilitis from the inside and the runny, hayfever eyes. I remember the bicycle seat that always finds an uncomfortable place to prod, but most of all I remember how bloody...

Reading over my notes from the trip to the North West Highlands of Scotland that my family and I embarked on over a month ago I'm struck by how pretentious I sound. Now as a disclaimer, I can barely read the almost illegible knot of shapes that I wrote after half a bottle of red wine and far too many beers. The second entry in my notebook corresponds to day two of our quest through the back of beyond here, on our very own island. On this day, we walked near to our little house on the banks of Lochcarron. I remember my family with had the preoccupation of getting to the top of the jagged, molar-like hills that encased the loch. The pretentiousness makes me cringe when I read sentences like, "Why do we have to do ordinary things like getting to the top of a hill? Just enjoy walking through the alpine trees and jumping over babbling brooks!" Fuck that's bad, who did I think I was? Michael Palin? In hind sight, I think that could be the point of a trip to the Scottish Hig...