Island Odyssey

The 21 hills of Colonsay aren’t as easy as they look – even with the benefit of advice from a seasoned island expert!

- Fiona Russell

KEVIN BYRNE had agreed to meet us off the Fridayevening ferry to Colonsay in the island’s only bar. We were surprised to find him dressed in a suit and

bow-tie, although honoured that he thought our weekend visit to the small Scottish isle worthy of such splendour.

I confess I felt scruffy in my walking trousers, boots and lightweight Puffa jacket but Kevin didn’t seem to notice.

It turned out he was about to have a meal with his wife, Crista, for his 69th birthday – and he was more focused on the map he held in one hand and the glass of wine in the other.

It was clear my partner Gordon and I would need to be sharp-minded if we were to follow Kevin’s directions. As he talked us though the walk we had planned for the following day, we struggled to keep up.

It dawned on me, too, as he detailed a route of some 32km (20 miles) via all of Colonsay’s hills of at least 91m (300ft) – and one on the neighbouring isle of Oronsay – that he must also be pretty physically fit.

“If I’m on my own I can walk them all in about seven and a half hours, but if I’m guiding someone it will take at least an hour more,“ he told us, without boastfulness.

Last summer, Scottish adventurer Mark Beaumont set an impressive pace to complete the MacPhies, as the group of hills is called, in around six hours. But Glasgow runner Jethro Lennox has the record of under four hours.