Читать книгу The Book of the Bothy онлайн

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It all started here...with Tunskeen. The very first Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) project, this building was taken on in 1965 and, courtesy of the small group that started this work, it is still open today for walkers like you and me to enjoy. The original MBA idea was to ’maintain simple shelters in remote country for the use and benefit of all who love wild and lonely places’ – and it doesn’t come much lonelier and wilder than the Galloway Forest, in which Tunskeen sits.

Music echoed from the stones. It was an almost alien sound to my ears, so unexpected in a place that seems so far from electricity and mod cons. But here it was.

Tunskeen was a start point for me and a friend called Matt. We were there to attempt a crossing of the range of peaks that make up The Awful Hand. We arrived by taxi, to make the crossing easier and, as it was mid-week in September, expected to have it to ourselves, to be able to luxuriate in our own separate sleeping platforms rather than being cramped in, and to enjoy the night sky in this quiet and lonely place. But it was not to be.