Technically Scotland has a “right to wander” policy, which means walkers have a right of way, and can cut through fields as long as they’re not disturbing livestock or crops. Stick to the code, as it goes. I’m not sue on the exact details but I think the same more or less applies to camping as well. Sounds like a great place to hike, right?
I don’t think those forward thinking folks who designed the policy had in mind the right to camp in the middle of a towns small beachside park. That is what I did last night.
I crawled into Ardrossan around midnight, since I started from Skelmorlie at 3:30 that afternoon after a leisurely morning in Glasgow with Siobhan and Shannon. I still wanted to complete a big section, and 22 miles later I was at my wits end trying to find an appropriate place to camp. I also needed water. (I have yet to see a water fountain in Scotland.)
There just wasn’t good camping that day, and not in the coming miles either, not from what I could tell. It was midnight and I was so tired I almost just snuggled into my sleeping bag right there in the grass. Literally. I was just about to lay down when I looked at the clouds and decided that maybe a tent would be a good idea.
This was not a good place to camp. From the looks of it we were in upscale , beachside neighborhood, with beautiful stone three-story homes overlooking a trim green strip of park, and a tidy stretch of beach. Streetlights lit up most of the park, but I found a little patch of darkness beside a decorative patch of bushes. I waited for the last dog walker leave the grounds. Then I set up my tent, hurriedly and unstaked. I felt like a kid camping in her backyard for the first time, with Mom and Dad checking out the window to makes sure I could handle the big bad outdoors.
This may have seemed like a bold move, for a bold traveller, and it may have been actually quite fun if a friend like Rachel had been with me, but honestly, when I’m alone I’m anxious and timid. I’m not that confident world-traveller that thrives at bending the rules. I would never be able to bribe someone, for instance. I’m just too bound by rules. And in the case when I’m not quite so sure what the rules are, I’m a nervous wreck. (This all changes when I’m with a friend, by the way. In that case, it’s a team sport!)
Although I constantly worried that I’d be woken by a disgruntled neighbor, nobody disturbed me, though it was nearly impossible for me to drift off into sleep. As long as it was dark, I felt more secure.
The thing about Scotland this time of year though, is that darkness doesn’t last very long. The sun rises at 4. Or maybe earlier, but that is the time I’ve been waking up for the past week, my body confused at all the light streaming into my tent. So now the sun has fully risen, revealing me in my makeshift campground for all the neighborhood.
I felt ok sleeping on until about 5:30, when I roused myself and hurriedly packed up. (And big thanks to those midges who made that so much easier by biting my face).
Now, there are two ways to torture me. Deny me sleep, or make it really hot. In either circumstance my brain short circuits and all my traveling wisdom is fried, and suddenly I will pay out my nose to sleep on a matress in a dark corner somewhere.
So, I was really tired. But this is not the point where quitting crossed my mind (but w’ere getting there, don’t you worry). No, I got up and walked on. I got a little lost, but I walked on still. I made outmeal in a park and got attacked by more midges, but yet I kept going!
The point when quitting crossed my mind was about when I was walking down an ordinary, paved country road.
“This is BORIIIIIIIIING!!!” My brain suddenly shouted at me. “How DULL is this trail?!!!” And I realized suddenly, as if I hadn’t noticed, that yes, this might have been the least inspired I’ve ever been while walking down a perfectly fine country road.
In 3o miles I had not seen anything worth walking 30 miles for. There were no places to camp, no grand vistas, no amazing culture, and hardly any people. I was bored and lonely.
So I sat down and panicked, because I wasn’t quite sure how to quit something so clearly stated in my plans.
I started thinking about challenges, and what this one means to me.
Challenges
Who is this for, exactly? What am I doing this for? Sometime pretty long ago I got it in my head that I wanted to do a long walk across new territory, because it’s a way to learn, to grow, and to push myself. So ultimately I’m doing this for me.
But I’ve also pledged my completion of something so others will feel compelled to donate to something I believe in (water filters for Cambodian children. Cambodia, now that’s a hot place).
Or do people donate towards my intention of completing a challenge? Is anyone even reading along, waiting until I fail, so that they can ask for their donation back? Pretty sure sane people don’t do that.
Or yet, do people care very little about what I’m actually doing, and are simply happy to donate to a good cause, which I brought to their attention? (I like this option the best).
Or more likely still, most donors so far are my friends and family who donated because they love me, and maybe I inspire them a little bit. And they could care less if I follow my plan mile for mile.
So what does it mean to me if I alter my plans? Do I lose something by losing a little bit of mileage? What am I after here exactly?
I believe that forcing yourself to be uncomfortable for a while– whether it be tired, lonely, or lost– is a good thing. And we don’t often get to overcome these uncomfortable phases because they are so easy to remedy: I’m hungry= go to store. I am lonely= grab a beer with friend, and blab their ear off about my same old same old problems.
This is why wilderness hiking brings us so much more easily into that place of discomfort, which then tips us into a new plane of self-understanding. Because we can’t immediately remedy our problems, we work through them and come out gaining something from the pain.
But here, on this one trail, I don’t have the great rewards of splendid mountain scenery or secluded forests to keep me going, to complement the solitude. This trail failed to spark my finely tuned spirit of adventure. There was nothing but boredom awaiting me, it seemed.
Quitting
So would I lose something by quitting this trail, just abandoning it all together? If I quit this one, will I be more tempted to quit the others? Will I not reach that place of discomfort, from which I hope to learn something from?
I wandered around in Kilwinning– great name right? I see a new catchphrase: I’m KILWINNING it!— for about two hours trying to decide how I really felt.
The thing is that I’m reluctant to quit things, however unimportant they may seem to everyone else. This is because I’ve quit a few important things– volleyball, Peace Corps, after school jobs– that I’ve never seemed to get over. I’m at an age where I want to be a completer, not a quitter. I want to succeed at something, and I’m coming up empty.
Also I feel SO GUILTY for the measly 6 miles that I skipped on the West Highland Way, I can’t really phathom what it’s like to just say “Eh, no worries, I’m just not gonna do that 60 miles.” Guilt! I hate you!
So. This is where my brain was. Success or let-down. Quitter or non-quitter. Loneliness, boredome, homesickness. And the thought of, “Should I really be thinking this much into it at all? Isn’t this adventure just what I make it? Why do I have such a profound sense of guilt over not sticking to what I wrote down in a blog seven months ago? My feet hurt after all! I’m still walking 20 miles a day! I’m not exactly living in luxury here.
I was so, so tired. And feeling more and more down. I started thinking, Oh, I’ll just get a bus to another town along the trail, and I’ll try to find a place to camp there. Then I started thinking, well here’s a bus stop to Glasgow, I’ll just go back there, and see it! I never actually saw Glasgow, I just sat on Siobhan’s couch drinking tea and watching Grey’s Anatomy anyway. I’ll go back there and get a fresh start!
Then my mind went down a slippery slope of “quittation.” And I thought, Hell! I’ll just go to the airport and fly back to Oregon! Lovely, green summer in Oregon. The place where my heart has always resided. I’ll see my family, my friends, climb mountains, and drink micro-brews!
See, even for me, someone who views traveling as the oxygen I breath, who leaps into the world full of confidence and seemingly endless energy to roam– It’s hard for me too. To not know where I’m going. To not have a routine full of friendly faces. I get anxious and scared too. Lonely and depressed. I get homesick, more than you would think. But I love this traveling thing, and so I stick it out. And I have a mantra, which I repeat over and over again to myself, which is: It always gets better. It always gets better. It always gets better.
And So.
So, I’m not going home, of course. I’m quitting, but not really. I’m revising. I’m leaving the Ayrshire Coastal Path behind and going to Glasgow, and tomorrow I’ll head off to Wales, to start another trail, which I hope will be much better than the one I’m abandoning. The beauty and frustration of travel is: I won’t know until I get there.
I’ll try again, and it will still be an adventure that’s “worth it,” no matter how many times I revise. It’s mine after all. So I suppose I make the rules. I want to accomplish something big, to raise money, to complete what I set out to do. But you’ll just have to deal with the fact that… the circumstances may change.
Happy Hiking.
Love to you all,
Marisa
The lack of wifi has helped me get into the backpacker’s routine, a series of activities which if repeated long enough transport you into a blissful alternative reality. Your thoughts run the gauntlet from your deepseated emotional problems, to the shape of your next haircut, or to what you’ll name your first child. But in the end there’s nothing you can do about any of it, so in the meantime you’re gifted a calm, joyful serenity fueled by hiking endorphines and scenery, and uninterrupted by the variable, but routine way of life.
Marisa Walks Across 