We’ve been talking about big dreams over on the wondering wanderers blog for this year.
Our biggest ‘we will..’ is that we will be in a house of some description by the end of this year. It might be a nissen hut here on Croft 3, it might be one of the houses here on Rum (if one came up we would go for it at this stage and then throw everything at getting a house built here on the croft) or it might be that life takes a different turn in which case I have no idea where that house might be but we won’t be ending 2014 in the static.
There are other hopes and dreams for the croft, some different livestock ambitions, some more infrastructure improvements, planting up an orchard and various other trees, we’ve put a note of interest in regarding renting some woodland here on Rum and have hopes to grow more food both for us, for the animals and for selling.
Personally I would love this to be the year that I actually start earning some money for writing. I’d like to learn more about foraging and firm up my plans for a house build by learning more about the sort of building style and materials we’d use. In the winter it all feels too unachievable to work on, in the summer we are just too busy doing stuff. January is a busy month for us with a mainland trip planned taking us off Rum for 10 days but when we get back we’ll be really taking stock of things and putting a proper plan for the coming year down on paper to direct us a bit more.
But it’s not all about working and dreaming big, we also have a list of things we want to see and do here on Rum this year. We have climbed Hallival, seen the rut at Kilmory twice and had lots of wildlife encounters but there is a lot of Rum we have yet to explore and experience so we’ve made a list of the things we’d like to tick off this coming year.
Stay in a bothy – there are two bothies on the island, both owned by Mountain Bothy Association. They are free to stay in and you don’t book them, just turn up. Davies has been wanting to stay in one of them for ages and we had planned to do it for his birthday this year but then my parents came up and we just never got to it.
See sunset at Kilmory – sunset on Rum is pretty spectacular, the sky turns pink and orange and the loch out to the east changes colour. Many of my favourite photos from the croft are at sunset. But sunset at Kilmory is supposed to be stunning. Skye and Canna sit to the north and west of Rum along with gorgeous beaches and miles of sea. We’ve been meaning to go there to see it ever since we arrived here, this will be the year we do it.
Harris in a storm I know there are cautionary tales aplenty against beaches in strong weather just now all over the media but Ady and I always used to head to the beach in Sussex in extreme weather. Harris is a very wild rugged beach on Rum where all sorts of interesting stuff gets washed up. The foam created by a wild tide is supposed to fill the beach like a party in an Ibiza nightclub and be a real sight to behold, from the relative safety of up next to the lodge high above the actual tide line and beach. As soon as we have a car reliable enough to make the journey there and back we’re planning to head over there to experience it for ourselves.
Shearwaters The manx shearwaters returning to their burrow on Hallival to feed their young is supposed to be one of the most exciting wildlife encounters here on Rum. They swoop low, ignoring people and making eerie sounds as they call to their mates. Their wings brush your face as you sit in the darkness experiencing it with all your senses on high alert. You can either come back down the hill in the darkness or head to the Shearwater hut to spend the night. We were meant to do both this and a daytime visit to pull baby shearwaters out of their burrow as part of the monitoring that SNH do and missed out on both for various reasons. We’ll make sure we do both this year.
Red Deer Rut If you live on Rum you experience the red deer rut for weeks every autumn whether you mean to or not. The stags roar all hours of the day and night and lose all fear and inhibitions of humans. It is a really exciting time but despite living in among them we have yet to actually see any antler clashing. It is always a case of right time right place to get that Autumnwatch moment but we’ll have another good go this autumn.
Canna, Muck, Eigg Our Small Isles visits have been woefully few since we arrived here – a brief trip to Canna, a single meeting on Eigg for me and still not a foot set on Muck for any of us. The Small Isles games is on Muck this year so we’ll definitely head there for that and we’d like to spend some time on both Eigg and Canna too, either daytripping on Summer timetable Saturdays or maybe taking the tent and heading there for a couple of nights. Once Gav and Laura are back leaving our croft will be much less of an issue with someone else living on the same field happy to chuck food at the animals twice a day.
Ridge Walk This is a maybe rather than a definite as it is a big adventure and one which would definitely require a soak in a bath at the end of it so depends very much on other things falling into place. The ridge walk on Rum takes in all of the peaks and is much written about. It is fairly challenging, a full 14 hours of walking and scrambling and would realistically require someone who has done it taking us along to point things out as we go. But the views are stunning and it is another part of our island that I am very envious to know others have seen and we have not. I’d like to do it.