Epic trip through the isles Adventure in the Hebrides
The Isle of Vallay On Great Bernera Connie on Great Bernera An east Perthshire woman raised over £4200 this summer by completing an epic charity trek in the Outer Hebrides.
Karen Inkster, together with her horse Connie and her dog Pip, walked from Vatersay near Barra up to Stornoway in August to boost the coffers of Blairgowrie’s Riding for the Disabled group.
The unusual 227km adventure took the trio – named by Karen as The Deaf, The Daft and The Ditsy – 19 days, including a day at each end of the journey to travel to the islands and back and a day off in the middle.
And it is an experience Caputh resident Karen described as “humbling”.
She told the PA: “The islanders were just amazing. People were driving out to find us and bring us cups of home-made soup and tea. It was lovely. “And they were so generous as well. “I had a donation tin on Connie’s saddle and people donated so much. £225 was put in the tin just going through Tarbet alone.
“My initial target was £2,500 but we raised £4200, about £1000 of which was on the islands, which was just brilliant.”
The trip, which saw them cross 13 islands in total, did not get off to a great start.
Karen explained: “It was very stormy the first day and Connie cut her leg trying to jump out of the corral she was in.
“We were going to camp on Vatersay, having asked in the community cafe on the island if that would be okay and been told it would be fine.
“But this man, who said he was the grazing clerk, came over and spoke to me. I said we doing the trek for charity but then he came back and asked us to leave.
“He came back about four times and got more intimidating every time and eventually followed us off the island, shouting abuse at us.
“He chased all the campervans too. It’s a real shame for the community because obviously they want to encourage people to come to the island and spend money there.
“Anyway, through the power of social media people heard about it and a lot of the islanders were quite disgusted by his behaviour and for the rest of the trip we were welcomed with open arms.
“People kept apologising for him and saying ‘that’s not islanders’.
“People offered us beds, meals – even their son as a husband in one case!
“Whole families came out to see us and people would come and talk to us about horses. There aren’t that many horses out there now but we heard some lovely stories from people. ”
Karen, an experienced expedition leader, camped every night, despite the rain which fell for 16 of the 19 days they were away, and did the whole trip unsupported, although she said because “people were so unbelievably friendly” it did not feel unsupported at all.
Despite the slow pace of their trip, the trio managed to have a bit of adventure, not least of which involved falling in a bog.
Karen said: “It didn’t look that deep and Connie doesn’t like mud anyway so if she was willing to go through it I thought it would be all right but it was really deep and as Connie went down I fell off.
“She wouldn’t go in the water to wash off the peat, which then hardened of course, but I had no idea how hard it was.”
Both Connie, who is 11 years old, and Pip, who is 10 and quite deaf, are rescue animals and the trip strengthened the bond between the three travellers.
Karen said: “I’ve only had Conn months and she had behavioural p She reared all the time and the first went away overnight she kicked me a my ribs.
“For 90 per cent of the tine she is an horse. We do endurance riding, but 1 of the time she used to be really loopy
“That’s gone since we got back tho is much more relaxed and more cout
“She got into a routine after the first we were away and would paw at the t morning before we got going.
“And Pip was amazing. She had a kept walking all day until it was tim although she did snore in the tent!”
People offered us beds, meals – even their son as a husband in one case!