New Places For Old People. 2. Hitching with father

The father and i watched "Into The Wild" together for the first time, in May, last year. At the end of which, as usual, i was enthused and inspired and hastily exclaimed that i was going away the following week on a mini adventure. This remark was met with "Where are you going? How are you getting there? Where will you stay? How long for?" ect. ect. ect. His reaction is of course understandable, he is my dad after all.

 To all of his questions i simply replied "I dunno." and shrugged. As i gave it thought i decided to hitch- a thought that wasn't so foreign in my head since i had been hitching for about two years previous to this trip- I had forgotten, however, my parents weren't fully aware of my more 'reckless' activities... So then that discussion happened. My father still not being totally satisfied that i would be okay- or just looking for an excuse to spend some time in my spectacular company- decided to accompany me.

It wasn't a long trip together.

We hitched to the east coast. Despite my fathers skepticism, and warnings, that hitching may be a long and difficult task, it took us no longer than 20 minutes to get a lift each time.

We made it to Arbroath where my father gave me a tour of his childhood holiday scenes, and also showed me the spot where he and his father had sung old hymns to the fishermen.

We then walked the coastal walk to Auchmithie.

After which i was beat.

So we set up camp, without tents, Right next to the old pier. 

That evening we cheated a little, and ate like kings. 

Before retuning to camp and falling asleep to the sound of the ocean waves.

So day and night number one went rather well. A few blisters but no more injuries. We even had a good nights sleep. Day two started off well, with the most stunning sunrise i have ever seen. We hitched back into Arbroath and wandered the town for a while. But having no plan and feeling like we had to accommodate each-other the day started to drag out. We did find a fascination lighthouse museum, where we hung out and watched full length documentaries on building lighthouses to avoid the rain, before it closed.

Night number two was a tad more miserable, but at the same time gave better experience. So it wasn't all bad. Our attitudes to each-other warmed as we both had to sleep on a slope getting cold and damp and intermittently removing slugs and snails from our area.




All in all it went well. My father knows his stuff, and has passed on enough that i can cope on my own. Perhaps one day he will believe that 100%.