The Great Wilderness Challenge is an annual charity event which takes place in the far north-west of Scotland. Conveniently it is right on my brother Tom's doorstep. Tom's wife Helen suffers from Huntington’s, and they, like many others, have received wonderful support from the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA).

My grandson Jacob and I joined the Great Wilderness Challenge (GWC) in 2016 (when Jacob was 6) and again in 2018. On both occasions many of you kindly sponsored us to raise funds for SHA.

We planned to do it again last year, but Covid-19 forced cancellation of the whole event. This year it is being run virtually – no crowds and plan your own challenge. However, charities like SHA have been more needed than ever during the pandemic, and this is a great opportunity to support them.  So on Monday 23 August, Jacob and are going to walk these two routes near Poolewe: 

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/torridon/lochkernsary.shtml 

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/torridon/lochmaree.shtml 

It will be much quieter than our previous efforts (no bagpipers!), and we will have to do our own navigation, but we have carefully chosen walks that are only moderately boggy, and we are hoping the midges won't notice the intruders.  We will let you know how we get on (with more pictures).

Jacob has his own page

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jacob-rowell

 and I will be even more pleased if you support his page than if you contribute to mine (he is rightly proud of being the leading junior fund-raiser on both occasions so far).