Take A Hike, with Cameron McNeish. Now on iPlayer.

Last year I spent a day with Cameron McNeish and cameraman Simon Willis in the Scottish Borders filming for a then untitled programme on the story of walking in Scotland. This is now called Take A Hike. If you missed it last week it's now available on iPlayer until May 16.

I wrote the following before I'd seen the programme. There was more material I filmed in it than I expected, which is nice. And I now know why Cameron's dressed like that.

I'm curious to see how much of the hours of material we filmed makes it into the actual programme. I'm not the only guest and star billing goes to a certain Sam Heughan of Outlander fame who is a keen hillwalker. I'm interested to hear what he and the other guests, who include outdoor author and historian Ian R. Mitchell and Mick Tighe of the Mountain Heritage Collection, have to say.

And I also want to know why Cameron's dressed as he is in the promotional picture above!

Kickstarter Project: Francis Tapon's Unseen Africa

Kickstarter and similar crowd funding resources are an excellent way for projects that aren't conventionally commercial to get off the ground. Kickstarter is how Terry Abraham funded The Cairngorms In Winter. Without the support of many people we couldn't have made that film.

One Kickstarter project currently seeking funds that looks very interesting and worthy of support is writer, explorer and long distance walker Francis Tapon's The Unseen Africa , which will be a TV series about Africa that looks at all those aspects of the continent that aren't usually covered, presenting a view of Africa far from the usual one of  'poverty, pestilence and pyramids'. Through Kickstarter Tapon hopes to raise the money to make a pilot episode to show what the series will be like. He is in Africa now. Here's a short taster


There will be an outdoor theme in the series as Tapon plans on climbing the highest peak in every one of the 54 African countries. (How many of the peaks can you name? I managed three - I really don't know much about Africa).

I think this project is worthy of support and I hope it goes ahead. Have a look at the Kickstarter page and see if you agree.

The Cairngorms In Winter on The Adventure Show

The film crew walking into the Chalamain Gap

Back in October I did some filming for The Adventure Show about the Cairngorms in winter. This will be shown in the next edition of the programme this Tuesday on BBC2 Scotland at 7pm. After the broadcast it'll be available on BBC iPlayer. As well as some of the filming I did for the show (I'm curious to see what is used) the programme will have clips from Terry Abraham's The Cairngorms In Winter film.

Scottish National Trail TV Schedule

Filming beside the Spey Dam loch

Back in October I took part in filming with Cameron McNeish for a programme on the new Scotland National Trail, as described in my blog here.

The programmes will go out on BBC 2 Scotland. South of the Border they can be seen on Sky, Freesat and, normally, iPlayer.

The dates are:

Programme 1

Thursday 27th December at 19-02

Programme 2

Friday 28th December at 19-01

My contribution will be in the second programme.

TGO Challenge on TV

This year’s TGO Challenge will feature in The Adventure Show on BBC 2 Scotland and Sky Channel 990 next Sunday (August 3) at 6 pm. There will be interviews with Challengers during and after the crossing. I managed to miss all the filming during the walk (just as I managed to miss most of the other Challengers) but a month later I did do a piece on gear for the Challenge and similar long walks that will be in this programme. The idea had been to do the filming up in the hills but the day of the shoot saw clouds brushing the tree tops so we had to stay down in the glens, eventually settling on the shores of Loch Morlich. The weather was calm and humid and warm. Which meant midges, vast hordes of midges. Now normally the first hint of the wee beasties and I’d be on the move again. Filming takes time however and most of the shoot involved me taking gear out of packs and talking about it, something that can’t be done whilst walking. Trying to sound rational and calm while ignoring the clouds of midges trying to find a way through the copious repellent I’d plastered on was extremely difficult. Whenever filming stopped whilst the producer and cameraman planned the next bit the presenter and I strode up and down waving our hand about to shake off the midges at least for a while. Occasionally breezes drifted down the loch and at one point I stood on a tiny rock out in the water to avoid the midges on land. Overall this was the hardest bit of TV work I’ve ever done.

Also in this edition of the Adventure Show will be a Wild Walk up Ben MacDui with Cameron McNeish and the Cape Wrath Challenge.

The picture shows a camp in the Gaick Pass on this years TGO Challenge. Photo info: Canon EOS 350D, Canon EF-S 18-55 mm IS@23 mm, f8@1/40, ISO 100, tripod, raw file converted to JPEG in DxO Optics Pro