kidmapper

the end of the kidnapped trail

We are meant to be searching for Mr Rankeillor's house in South Queensferry, but instead we've settle for a jar at the Hawes Inn, sitting outside and watching the sun go down over the Forth.

I've made it! All the way from Earraid to South Queensferry, tracking pretty much exactly the locations and the dates as set down in the book. That one sentence has so much to answer for:

"The brig was lost on June the 27th," says he, looking in his book, "and we are now at August the 24th."

Why did Stevenson feel the need to write that? Why be so specific about dates when he didn't need to be?

I sense it might be because Stevenson really did walk that trail, day by day, in his head, dreaming of his childhood and the wild untamed Highlands whilst eking out a seemingly dull, sickly existence in 'civilised' Bournemouth. You see? This book is not just for and about the Scottish. It suits the imagination of softy Southerners too!

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed taking this book out into the wilds with me and plotting it out. As Jo has already suggested, I am hoping to develop what I've done here into some kind of mobile application that *you* can take out onto the Trail, helping others to engage with the book in the landscape it describes, and allowing you to share your own thoughts online whilst still walking out on the wilds (subject to mobile/wireless net access).

I'm also interested in publishing our own version of 'Kidnapped' as a print-based 'mashup' and great big poster-sized map of the whole trail. Also, all thoughts you have about how to create a richer, more playful and more social trail for next year, please let me know.

Who knows? Perhaps we'll bump into each other in a bothy, play blind man's buff on Mull or hide-and-seek across Rannoch Moor, start a poker night in a cave by Loch Ericht, toast Rob Roy with a dram in Strathyre or share a bowl of white pudding in Limekilns. It all goes to prove that a book can take you to amazing places where you will meet amazing people.

So happy reading - and happy trails.

READING IN THE WILD 23: "I asked him to direct me to the house of Mr. Rankeillor"

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crossing the Forth with Ian the barman

Ian of the Ship Inn in Limekilns has had many people come into his pub and talk a good game about 'Kidnapped', but we are the first people he's been prepared to take across the river in his boat. He even cooked us a bowl of white pudding because that's what the 'fine lass' behind the bar does in the book. (no fried egg, I'm afraid, @mossgiel).

What a fine guy Ian is! He did, though, draw the line at pretending to be a 'fine lass'; I suppose you can't have everything. But it's not a bad attempt at a creative re-playing of the book, is it Polly? I even managed to organise this *before* you commented!

The landing point at Carriden turned out to be the jetty for the Upper Forth Boat Club, and I have to say we had a fine welcome there too with a guided tour and several history lessons.

Next door to the club is a large working timberyard, and apparently Carriden used to be a much busier place than it is now, used for dropping off and picking up raw materials: timber, iron, stone, brick. Ballantine still has an active ironworks here. If you don't recognise the name, look down whilst your walking and look out for manhole covers in the street. Ballantine makes a lot of them. (thanks to Russell for this info)

It's not a great stretch to think that the Stevenson family stopped off here quite a lot to pick up building materials for all the bridges and lighthouses they were responsible for building across Scotland. There's still a strong smell of sawdust in the air - the same smell young Robert Louis might have breathed in here, maybe?

My dad and grandad were in the brushmaking business, so that smell of sawdust does it for me in terms of taking me back to my childhood, tooling around at the family workplace and play-acting adventures in my head. What smells do it for you?

(Keep it clean, people.)

READING IN THE WILD 22: "It is a very fine lass"

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pub wisdom & the evil that is golf

Stirling to Limekilns is a tricky walk. You either stay high hugging the Ochil mountains and then dash south, or you weave your way through the Carse of Forth attempting to avoid the big towns.

Either way, it's not easy to find a path that doesn't involve walking down busy noisy roads or trudging along a very straight and boring cycle path.

Life is not made any easier by the huge number of golf courses in the area that have to be walked around rather than traversed. Perhaps this is another data set (golf course locations & dimensions) that Jo could work into his mashup.


The good news is that we did find a solution to the problem of finding a pleasant but not impossible off-road route. We dropped into the local pub. Invariably, the old guys at the bar know all about the secret paths, shortcuts and the cross-country routes that get  you to the next pub.

I was up in Pembrokeshire recently and the entire Dylan Thomas Trail seemed like a series of pub walks and was none the worse for that. You actually end up travelling bye-ways that feel ancient and almost folkloric. So not the official Kidnapped Trail, perhaps, but no doubt a route that Alan Breck might approve of.

Perhaps you'd like to share with us your favourite (or outlandish) route to a pub?

READING IN THE WILD 21: "Over there, there's all that heart could want waiting me"

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