Hay's Way: A nod to some of the strangers who have put me up on my walk round Scotland so far
The people mentioned below are only a fraction of the characters who have propped me up to keep Hay’s Way going as long as it has.
I never anticipated staying in as many strangers’ homes as I have since setting off on Hay’s Way.
A restricted budget was what led me to begin the walk with my tent strapped to my back. What initially felt like an inconvenience soon became something I was grateful for, forcing me into much closer contact with both the land and the people who live among it.
A main purpose of meeting people on this ongoing walk through Scotland has been to understand and write about rural affairs in all corners of the country. But this piece is about some of the characters who have put a roof over my head. I write this having just been named runner-up at last week’s Scottish Press Awards. It would not have happened without the hundreds of people who have propped me up along the way, some of whom are mentioned below.
The record for taking in a complete stranger almost immediately goes to Charlie Parks, in Gatehouse of Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway, where I walked in May 2024.
“You look lost,” the then 87-year-old said, approaching me in the street.
After I muttered something about finding somewhere to pitch my tent, he interrupted: “You can stay in the room my daughter uses when she comes to visit.”
And that was that. I stayed for two nights.
Sat in his living room eating Weetabix and strawberries, Mr Parks — also known as Sparky — told me about helping monitor local raptor populations. Golden eagles and peregrine falcons were his favourites. He also reminisced about childhood in the village, carrying water to horses travelling through and earning £3 a week on a dairy farm more than six decades ago.
While chance encounters such as these have often led to a roof overhead for the night, some have been pre-planned.
Bill Cowie, another eagle surveyor and early follower of Hay’s Way, invited me to Rona, one of the more remote Hebridean islands, while I was nearby in autumn 2024. At the time, it was home to just two people: Bill and his wife, Lorraine, who put me up in a lodge. Over home-cooked venison from the herd Bill managed on the island, we talked for hours about island life and harsh Hebridean winters.
Reader Karen Elwis, on Mull, also reached out, inviting me to The Fauld, the farm she runs with her husband, Alister, while I passed through Oban. After a wholesome stay among her Highland ponies and Shetland sheep, and many conversations putting the world to rights, we parted with Karen saying: “I feel like I’ve had a daughter come to stay.”
Other times, particularly in smaller communities, people simply “get wind” of me being nearby. On Shetland, with its persistent gale-force gusts, that certainly happened. While sheltering in a marina storeroom last summer, I received a text from a local contact saying a nearby resident had a spare bed.
Alice Jamieson, a stalwart of the Cullivoe community, ended up housing me for a week and including me in village life: yoga at the hall, board games after dinner, the Yell agricultural show, late night parties with family and friends, and quieter evenings searching for “groatie buckies”— cowrie shells—with her son, Henry.
One couple in Lybster, Caithness, stepped in with a bit more urgency one evening. After a long day in blazing sun on sections of the John O’ Groats Trail in summer 2024, battling brambles and precarious cliff paths, I arrived exhausted at the Commercial Hotel bar.
Stories of the once bustling fishing town, now quieter through depopulation, kept me at the bar all evening. As I finally stood to leave, slightly unsteady after several pints bought by locals, Shena caught me and offered me a spare bed so I would not have to pitch my tent in the dark.
“I’m heading home in a taxi, but Alastair will walk you back to mine when you’re ready. He knows where we live.”
I didn’t know who Alastair was, but it hardly mattered. I knew I was being looked after.
When I’m not being rescued by strangers, I can occasionally be found washing and enjoying some peace and quiet in a hostel, wherever I can find one.
One standout was Nunton House Hostel on Benbecula, due in no small part to its owner, Donald MacPhee. A devoted metal detectorist and a relentless storyteller, he greeted me by remarking that a Catherine Hay appeared somewhere in his family tree.
Drawn in by Hebridean humour and island culture, I stayed several days longer than intended, to the point Donald just gave me a night for free.
Another hostel highlight came on Papay, where I bumped into Graham Fellows—aka John Shuttleworth and the man behind the 1978 one-hit wonder Jilted John—who cooked me a bowl of spaghetti. I felt so at home there the owners eventually gave me a night or two free as well.
Self-pity is not something I indulge in. If it were, I doubt I would still be walking and camping two years later. Tent life can be uncomfortable, but there have been moments when others have taken pity on me nonetheless. One came while passing Invermoriston on the Great Glen Way. Exhausted and soaked by relentless rain, I spotted a sign at the local village hall for a film night. I decided to join the 7.30pm screening of Vindication Swim, delaying the problem of where to pitch my sodden tent and to be out the elements for as long as possible.
One woman frowned as she looked at my damp sack.
“You’re not camping in this, are you?” she said.
Half way through the film, she pointed to a man and lent in saying: “We’re Nikki and Jay.
“We have a B&B room spare. You can stay the night.”
It wasn’t long after I had been put up by another total stranger, Charlie Menzies, who spotted me lurking at the canal lock in Gairlochy with my tent. During a spell of frosty nights, he suggested I sleep in a cabin on his boat to keep out the cold.
Geva Blackett, who was the first person to put me up on Hay’s Way back in March 2024 in Braemar, said to me at the time: “You’lll find it’s the people who really make a place.”
It is a message that I have held and wholeheartedly experienced to date.
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