When Does A Trip Begin?
The day before I set off to Cape Wrath, I was returning from a canoeing trip with my family on Loch Ericht.
I was already starting to separate gear on the drive back to help with the rushed clean and repacking I would need to do once I got home.
With only a couple hours to prepare, and knowing I had only a day or two after returning before I set off on another adventure to Norway, This trip started with nothing but stress.
Having spent all morning canoeing back to the car, I was exhausted and ready for bed. Trying to ensure I packed all that I needed was chaotic, only limited by the small amount of prep I managed to pull off on the ride home.
The next morning I stepped onto the bus north and the stress slipped away. At this point I was no longer rushing to get ready, or get somewhere, I finally had space to slow down. So, I made the most of it and immediately fell asleep.
As I woke up and changed to the second bus of the journey, I was able to at last take it all in. I watched the views of rural and remote Scotland passing by out the window before arriving in Inverness. Only now calmed down.
Once in Inverness, I met up with my friend Harry, and we set out to find our last minute supplies and decide to take with us for food. This is when the trip first felt real, and the excitement slowly started to build up inside.
It was now only one last bus ride across some of the most beautiful parts of the country to prepare myself before we set off.
What We’re Really Searching For
The purpose of this trip was a relatively simple one- find the flight recorder of a broken rocket, but in reality this is far from the expedition I remember.
Right from the initial planning discussion, when we covered the most likely areas the black box might have landed, we knew it was unlikely we would come up with much luck. As we looked over the area on the map and calculated the radius our objective could’ve realistically landed in, it became abundantly clear that the chances of two people coming across it in a handful of days was very low.
However, to us this didn’t matter- we had still found a reason to go explore, and a challenge to work towards requiring us to put our skills to some use. A perfect excuse for some remote fun and expedition practice.
As we then searched through the hills, valleys and rivers, it became obvious that the search was not in fact where the value of this trip would be found.
The trip had many small but memorable moments- like stopping for lunch on a small stone bridge, watching Harry accidentally dunk himself in the river mid-search, and discovering a crater kindly left by the MOD that was big enough for us both to jump in for a photo and joke about how good it would be for a shelter in a survival situation.
As we carried on and had moments like these, the search for the rocket part became a background activity. We were in a landscape with a story of it’s own, from the sea cliffs filled with life, the occasional practice naval and air bombardments, and the swarms of people completing the ‘cape wrath trail’. The failed rocket launch had simply become a footnote in a chapter, and now was our chance to move on and read the rest of the book.
When The Search Stopped
One of the most memorable moments we had was while walking up a hill on a roundabout route to the lighthouse.
We stopped to take in the view half way up the slope. The weather was perfect, the mood was high and then down below we spotted movement in the water.
Harry had brought a pair of binoculars with him, and with their help we managed to confirm that directly below in the bay we were swimming in no more than a couple hours previous, was a porpoise and its calf.
For a moment, we simply stopped everything and sat there to watch these two swim around the light blue water.
For this moment, every objective, desire and background thought simply faded away. Before us was a mother and calf living their life completely indifferent and unaware of us, and yet for us in that moment, they were everything.
Moments like this one I find hard to explain, because nothing actually changed. When we finally stepped away no achievement was accomplished, or goal completed, or major lesson learned.
But for the time we sat there and watched, we felt connected to the wider world around us- it was no longer a nice back drop but a living environment. It was a great reminder on why we both keep returning to places like this.
Conversations Around The Stove
One of the things I love the most about expeditions is the difference between day and night. The day is filled with purpose, whether it is simply get from A to B, or in this case look for a rocket, everything is typically focused on that task.
However, when night comes around, and the stove is lit up for dinner everything changes and time slows down. When alone this is my period for reflection, when with others, time for the conversation to go deeper.
Each night we stayed up later than planned, talking away in the bothy, initially over dinner, then a hot drink, then simply our won company.
Some nights we talked for hours about our time together in Canada. Reminiscing on the stories we shared, and remembering all the experiences that made us fall in love with the outdoors.
Other nights we dug in deep about faith, Christianity and the way we see the world. Harry had many question about my beliefs, and for the first time I tried to explain in words the faith Ive tried to live out for years to someone who can’t relate.
neither of us changed our minds on the topics we discussed these nights, but we each gained something nonetheless.
The conversations we had helps us understand each other, and we left appreciating the way the other views life and the world.
Conversations That Change Our Direction
When working through the significant parts of this trip I cannot forget the walk to the lighthouse which sits on the tip of Cape Wrath.
Somewhere between the cliff we spotted the porpoise, and the path ahead, the conversation turned to our futures.
I had already mentioned my intention of pursuing a career as an expedition medic, but this trip was the first time I was able to delve into this in detail in conversation.
Harry then responded by confessing, since our time in Canada, he too had a change of heart. Canada had a strong effect on both of us, and now we separately striving to make the outdoor life we had a glimpse of the centre of our life and not just the occasional get-away.
We had both agreed that expeditions was something we wanted to aim for in our careers, instead of our dreams. The following conversation allowed us to unpack all we hoped to do, how we might get ourselves there and what this means for our future.
We agreed we would do what we could to bring each other closer to that goal each year, step by step.
Looking Back
We never did find the flight recorder- for now it is lost amongst the jungle of shrapnel that made our search so hard. But, in all honesty, I don’t think it would have changed much if we did.
Don’t get me wrong, if we managed to track it down, and dig it out of the ground that would’ve been great. The excitement of accompanying Harry as he returned the flight data the rest of his team thought they would never see again would have been fantastic.
But even if this did happen, when I looked back, would it even be in the top highlights of the trip? I don’t think so.
The moments which stayed with me aren’t the search, or the cool items we did find- it’s the conversations, the time spent with a close friend, the wildlife and the sunsets.
Our trip may have started with the search of a black box, but I can say now I am back that Cape wrath was not about finding a lost rocket part. It was about bringing together old and new love of adventure and the outdoors, and exploring what that means for our future.