Undiscovered Scotland

 

"100 Classic Coastal Walks in Scotland" by Andrew Dempster is a superb book that will inspire active and armchair walkers alike. There are said to be 10,000 miles of coastline around mainland Scotland and its many islands, and Andrew Dempster has cast his net far and wide to ensure that the 100 walks he covers includes something for everyone, both in terms of ability and location.

Geographically, the walks in the book range from St Abb's Head or the Bullers of Buchan in the east to St Kilda in the west: and from Hermaness on Unst in the north to the Mull of Galloway in the south. Equally impressive is the distribution within these extremes. Wherever you are on Scotland's coast, it is likely that there will be a walk in this book not far from you: even Edinburgh is served with a walk from South Queensferry to Cramond. A good test with this sort of book is to look at the index map and see if it is possible to work out which areas the author likes most, or least. Try that here and you can come up with the thought that Skye, Mull and Islay are particularly well covered: but they are also prime walking areas that ought to be well covered. On the other hand it simply isn't possible to draw the conclusion that the author has missed out areas: which adds greatly to the book's value as a work of reference.

And a work of reference it certainly is. This is a substantial tome intended to inspire you to don your boots and head off with a detailed map: it is certainly not intended to be a rucksack guide. Each of the 100 walks receives a section of between three and five pages. Here you find a single paragraph introduction which describes factors such as difficulty, terrain and suitability for children. This is followed by a distance for the walk and an estimated time to walk it (within a fairly broad range). Then you come to the main "meat" of the section on each walk, which is invariably very well written and sets out background about the walk and the area it traverses. Add in sketch maps for each walk and, in many cases, very nice line drawing by the author, and you end up with a book that you will want to return to time and again when planning trips to any coastal area of Scotland.