Scotland End-to-End ... Something Else To Watch Out For....

The Spey Dam loch

Films seem to be in my life at present. After posting a hint about a proposed film on the Cairngorms in winter with Terrybnd (see last post) I spent yesterday with Triple Echo Productions and Cameron McNeish filming for a BBC programme on Scotland End to End. Together with producer Margaret Wicks and cameraman Dominic Scott, Cameron I went up to the Spey Dam loch and Garva Bridge and then walked most of the way up to the top of the Corrieyairick Pass (I reckon Cameron and I covered three times the distance as we repeated sections two or three times for different camera angles). The weather was reasonably kind with a fine dappled sky early on and then touches of sunshine and a slow build-up of cloud with the first rain drops falling just as we finished filming. Stags were roaring in the corries, the hillsides were golden brown and wreaths of mist curled across the slopes, making it a real autumn day.

Filming beside the Spey Dam loch

In between the walking Cameron chatted with me about long distance hiking, trails, Scotland, wild land and more. I set up a brief camp near Garva Bridge, finding it hard to concentrate being filmed pitching my shelter. How much of this will appear in the programme is another matter of course.

The End to End route, which runs from Kirk Yetholm to Cape Wrath, looks a good one, passing, as it does, through some of Scotland's finest and, so far, still unspoilt landscapes. The book of the walk, by Cameron McNeish and Richard Else, Scotland End to End, is already out. Rather than a simple guide book it's full of anecdotes and stories with just short route descriptions. There's plenty of colour photographs to inspire you too.

By Garva Bridge

The film will be shown in two hour long episodes over the Xmas and New Year period. Mine will only be a small part of course. The whole route is 470 miles long. The Kingussie to Fort Augustus section, of which this filming was a part, is only 32 miles of that. Cameron has many other guests on the programme, one of them being photographer Colin Prior, who was filmed on An Teallach. You can read about that on the Mountain Media blog here. I must admit being envious of Colin, An Teallach being somewhat more attractive than the Corrieyairick Pass! Especially as the latter, already spoilt by a line of pylons, is being further disfigured by the construction of much bigger pylons. None of these are actually in place yet but the ugly wide bulldozed roads needed for the construction vehicles are already there.