Cape Wrath by Fatbike and Packraft

“What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don’t want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don’t want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.” – Jeanette Winterson

Words by Lee Craigie; film and stills by Kirk Watson

Cape Wrath: The Turning Point. The most north westerly point on the UK mainland. A wild, impossible place. To reach the lighthouse on its point is a real mission requiring boats and a long walk or ride. It had always refused me entry although I had tried on countless occasions to get across the sound and out to the rugged cliffs and sandy bays of the peninsula.

When I tried to reach it in the past, I’d been dealt rough seas, incompatible tides, illness, injury and even military action. Perhaps I should have given up and accepted that it just wasn’t meant to be, but then this happened. I was at a road race in an out of the way north eastern coastal town shortly after a failed attempt to visit the Cape. A guy came up to me and told me there was a gig about to start in a nearby lighthouse. I ambled along after the race and became engulfed in a friendly fold of woollen jumpers and wellington boots while the wind and rain did their thing outside. On a small, makeshift stage there sat singing a Swedish angel. Sofie Livebrant had written her entire album “Lighthouse Stories” using prose taken from a book set at Cape Wrath. In the days that followed, I listened to Sofie’s music and read the book that inspired her album (“Lighthouse Keeping” by Jeannette Winterson). Both touched me deeply and a theme emerged that sent me reeling. It was that of attempting to balance two powerful aspects of my personality, the need for freedom and the need for belonging. I was heading back to Cape Wrath.

This time I was going with Andy and Kirk. Andy runs Back Country Biking / Boating; an organisation that takes people into the wilds of Scotland fully self supported on bikes or using pack rafts. He’s also a friend, which is handy, because I had long decided the only way I was ever going to get to the lighthouse on the Cape was by packraft and Fatbike. I had the bikes, he had boats. Kirk operates Perfect View Productions, a one man adventure film company. Kirk, fortunately, is also a friend and always up for a challenge. If everything worked out this weekend we would have the makings of a fine wee Fatbike / packraft film exploring this dramatic landscape. What could possibly go wrong (other than the biggest military exercise in NATO history). You see, Cape Wrath is so remote, the military use it as a training ground and like to drop bombs and pretend to shoot each other on it. It would seem the stars would have to align to allow us entry this weekend.

But they did. It panned out. We killed time while the army fluffed about on the Cape by fatbiking some sand dunes and paddling into caves. Then, as night fell and the army downed tools for the weekend, we paddled over the sound with our bikes, gear and film equipment and rode into Kervaig bothy in the settling dusk accompanied by an eerie soundtrack of bellowing, horny stags. The next day, we nailed some incredible drone footage while riding a cliff edge then made our steady way to the lighthouse that marked the end of our adventure. I rush over the detail here because what we did wasn’t really the point (and it’s much better represented by the film if you’re interested, anyway). What was intriguing me was why.

It has occurred to me that this fascination I have with exploring wild places is an attempt to make sense of the wild place within myself. I’ve always raged against being tied down while simultaneously longing for the security and simplicity of belonging to a person or a community. It was becoming clear that I strive to bring wildness under control by conquering mountains and paddling against the tide and this way, believe I can experience both the wild and the tame. But I was realising that the wildness in people and places cannot be controlled and any attempt to do so risks destroying a beautiful thing. The best one can do is accept the darkness and the light, the good and the bad, the wild and the tame and appreciate that one only exists because of the other. Cape Wrath had let us in this time but it felt irrelevant. It was up to me to determine how much I should challenge myself with adventure and how much I should challenge myself with stopping and sitting quietly for a while in the present moment.

So now with the film made, the lighthouse reached, I have to start the real challenge of feeling trapped and staying there. Of feeling lonely and not rushing home. Only by mastering that will true freedom exist for me.

About Lee Craigie

Lee Craigie became the British Mountain Bike Champion in 2013 and represented Scotland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, but the secret to her sporting success lies in her love of exploring big mountains by bike. With a background in outdoor education and psychotherapy, Lee is fascinated by the places we can take ourselves emotionally by pushing our perceived limits and is passionate about helping people who struggle to manage their own emotional states to get active and absorbed in outdoor, adventurous activity. Find more about Lee at leecraigie.com and The Adventure Syndicate.