http://www.digitalcameraworld.com JUNE 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^103the way to Mallaig. He unfolds a map
on his kitchen table and outlines the
best route to his survival school in
Ardintigh. “Bash on, go steady, you’ll
be fine,” he says warmly, with a firm
handshake. Next day I descend the
rough ground to Ardintigh after dark,
where Tom greets me with a curt “We’d
given up on you a couple of hours ago,
but I suppose you’re not in a hurry”.
Later on, I discover the last guys who
came this way were so exhausted they
had to help them take their packs off.
”So you’re the torch guy.” says a man
in Inverie. “We watched your light for
a bit coming down the mountain
to check you were OK, and then we
decided to go to bed!” There’s another
chap with his foot in a cast: ”I injured
myself at the cèilidh last week”.
In the pouring rain at Inverguseran
Farm, I’m invited in for tea by the
shepherdess Anna Wilson, who shows
me her fine pencil drawings as her
grandmother places a towel below
my chair to stem the pool of rainwater
spreading below me. “Oh, don’t you
worry, this is a working kitchen!”
I’ve just enjoyed a coffee in my tent
to discover a juicy, highly caffeinated,
slug curled around the bottom of the
mug. When I try to walk, the force of
the wind pushes me to my knees on
the path. I’m so weary I have to have to
psych myself up to climb the last deer
fence by torchlight. I wake at 1am with
an itch on my waist, where I remove an
engorged tick surrounded by a rash.
Five more days go by, in a blur of
cold and wet. Each night, I pour water
out of my boots before getting into the
sleeping bag. After strong gale-force
winds and heavy rain my tent starts
to leak, so I cover my sleeping bag
with my jacket to protect it. I pack
up as much as I can, in case the tent
collapses in the middle of the night.
I write in my diary at 3am: “If it gets
any harder, I can’t go on.”ach gnarly peninsula of the
rough bounds, I’m learning,
is more remote and rugged
than the last. By the time
I reach Knoydart, the weather
becomes wilder, in harmony with the
increasing drama of the landscape.
The elements decide when I can take
a photo, not me. When the weather
softens enough to let me take a photo
the subject is sublime: mountains,
mist and vertiginous terrain, like
a Caspar David Friedrich painting.
I meet Tom McLean, adventurer,
transatlantic rower and former SAS
soldier: he invites me in for tea onQuintin Lake nears breaking point as the
wind and rain obstruct his epic photo walk
Perimeter
E
Perimeter
Quintin Lake
Roving photographer
Quintin is past halfway in his
6,000-mile photo walk around
the whole of the UK coast.
http://www.theperimeter.ukThe first glimpse of Knoydart
is framed by an operatic
performance of ‘hailbows’,
revealed and then hidden by
passing hail flurries. The rapid
play of light meant I took over a
hundred frames in a few minutes,
as I was unsure whether the light
would get more or less dramatic.
This was the frame I selected, as
the contrast of the illumination
and the darkness outside the
bow is strongest.This month’s route
Beasdale to Glenelg
10 days, 103 miles
Total so far: 4,262 miles