Highland Daunder
Meet Andrew O’Donnell, adventurer, producer, photographer and musician
THE height of lockdown saw me delving into catch-up television in search of a Scottish wilderness hit. First up was SAS Who Dares Wins, which pitched viewers into the brutal rigours of Special Forces training with all the tumult of a high altitude, low-opening parachute raid.
The setting was the stunning Isle of Raasay. It rapidly became a Hebridean hell as contestants were all but pulverised, their ordeal overseen by instructors as hard as the island’s Lewisian Gneiss core. Compelling viewing. Next up on my list was Roaming in the Wild, also based in the great Scottish landscape. There, the similarity ended.
The BBC show was described by one reviewer as “two blokes wandering around the Scottish Highlands in a not-entirely accomplished manner”.
That summation is harsh. That said, in the opening episode – a traverse of Rannoch Moor by foot and canoe – said two blokes, namely Andrew O’donnell and Mark Taylor, bring the wrong type of gas canister for their stove. The civilian mind probably can’t conceive the brutality of the punishment this oversight would have yielded.
I remember reflecting, however, the canister-boob was neither idiocy nor court martial-bound negligence. It’s exactly the sort of thing I’d do.
I was hooked on their relatable travails as the pair canoed, hiked and tandem cycled, filming themselves, in an affable sojourn across the Highlands.
The more you watched, the more you felt like you knew the guys. A wee bit like a real-life adventure with new-found fellow travellers.
The soundtrack was every bit immersive as the landscape footage. Synthesisers, piano, accordion, banjo and song. It was performed by Beluga Lagoon and, after a quick online search, I discovered the “production company and musical project” was founded, no less, by one of the daundering duo – Andrew O’donnell.
“All the music I’ve written over the years is about the great outdoors. It’s about adventures,” Andrew said, after I tracked him down in the Cairngorms. “I’m quite lucky – it saves me a fortune on soundtracks.”
Despite the success of Roaming in the Wild,
“I always seemed to be fishing or swimming”
28-year-old father-of-two is as self-effacing as they come. His love of the natural world took root in childhood, in his hometown of Lennoxtown, at the foot of the Campsies.
“I always seemed to be fishing or swimming. Jumping into waterfalls and stuff.
“I was about five years old when I was first taken to Fort William for a holiday with my big sister and Mum and Dad,” Andrew says.
“It was a rainy day. My dad thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk for something to do.
“I remember my sister and I were raging because we wanted to go to Charlie Chalks, the local indoor play area. After a few minutes of walking up Glen Nevis, I forgot all about Charlie Chalks.
“There was something about the landscape that made you feel really small. That waterfall, Steall Falls, was the largest waterfall in the world as far as I was concerned.”
Andrew worked as a chef when he left school, saving money to travel to South America. “That’s when I started film making,” he says. “I wanted to go on adventures and film them.”
More global trips were to follow – as well as a bout of malaria in Borneo. Yet Andrew’s passion became increasingly fervent, with professional photography commissions a welcome side effect. In recent years he’s become a full-time nature photographer and musician.
You don’t make your passion your job without ambition. But there is genuine humility about Andrew, perhaps ingrained in him by the landscape in which he’s immersed himself.
I ask him, for example, about one of my favourite Beluga Lagoon tracks, called Hirta. It’s haunting yet uplifting, focusing on St Kilda, the isolated archipelago situated 64km (40 miles) northwest of North Uist.
“I went out last year with my pal Kirk,” Andrew says. “He used to work in Antarctica. He knows an engineer colleague who built his own catamaran, which we used.
“One of the favourite things I’ve ever done was sit on the front of that catamaran, getting absolutely battered by the waves and the wind as we approached the islands.
“I’ve a massive respect for the people who scraped a life out of that rock. I think about it quite a lot now when I’m cold and wet in the outdoors.”
On August 29, 1930, the 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda were evacuated to the mainland at their own request. The demise of that community is a lamentable trend for Andrew. Equally sad are that untrodden paths are becoming harder to find.
“It’s getting trickier to find these places now. I’m
“I wanted to go on adventures and film them”
always looking for places where people won’t be.”
As much as Roaming in the Wild is about good craic and companionship, Andrew says much of his outlook has been forged during solitary times.
“As a wildlife camera operator, I spend a lot of time on my own. You get your mind to yourself. That isn’t much of a thing anymore. People don’t tend to get bored – which is how some of the best ideas come about.”
Andrew often writes music during solitary stretches on assignment. It also gives him time to reflect on some of the wider issues of the modern day.
“I was recently asked my opinion on how spending time in the great outdoors can help people’s mental health,” he explains.
“It seemed like the most obvious thing, really. “Spending time outside is good for the brain. But the question itself also showed how detached we’d become from the natural world.
“We are adapted to live in close proximity to the wild. It’s no wonder bird song helps us feel relaxed, the sound of a burn helps us sleep or the sense of belonging you get when you sit in a forest. Living a life which is more relative to the natural world is a healthy thing.
“As complicated and diverse as the natural world is, there’s also a simplicity to it. You either reach the top or you don’t. You either get down the river, or you don’t.”
“Or even better, you just explore aimlessly and joyously without any real clue of what it is that you’re actually up to.”