All aboard for a sporting pilgrimage

Tasted just once, Highland hunting culture draws you back to the rivers, heather and hills time and time again, says Peter Glenser

- Peter Glenser

It’s 10am and I’m suffering already. I’m somewhere well north of Aviemore. We have only been going for half an hour or so and I’m regretting not working on my fitness during lockdown. I’m sure it’s getting worse. This year, for the first time in several years, the altitude, midges, bog and ankleturning ‘babies’ heads’ — grassy tussocks — have been joined by a new and unfamiliar hazard for these northern climes; it is seriously and unbelievably hot.

I’d chosen lightweight cotton breeks and the sort of gilet worn by the employees of smart London gunmakers and the odd Norfolk auctioneer at game fairs. But these precautions are not remotely helping me. I’m trying to see how far it is to the next burn so that I can slake my thirst — or simply lie in it until I’m cool.

I’m at the right end of the line — the left end has had to climb much higher than I have and I’m incredibly grateful to have wangled this small piece of good fortune. Right now I don’t care that it’s because I’m by a year or so the oldest or the least fit-looking.

Eventually, we stop for a few minutes and the Argo is whistled up, negotiating the uneven ground with the same deftness as the skipper of a RNLI RIB in a choppy swell — and greeted with as much enthusiasm as at the scene of a rescue, as bottles of water are handed out.

Thirst quenched, I lie on my back and gaze up the glen, gulping great draughts of air. Grouse, being wild and subject to the vagaries of weather, disease and predation, are never a sure thing and as I lie there I bring to mind every bird seen and every shot taken, committing them to memory to be replayed later that night.