82 Islands

Fellow OS GetOutside Champion Katie Tunn has revealed her latest expedition. Following previous time spent as a castaway on the 'Eden' programme, and six weeks spent solo on the Shiant Island, she has announced what her new challenge will be, and is already underway with the first few islands.

The inspiration for the expedition was a map of islands larger than 5 square kilometres created by Alasdair Rae and the team at the Ordnance Survey.

This features 82 islands, and Katie's plan is to visit them all. The 2nd biggest should be easy enough to bag as Katie lives there. She outlines her plans on her blog: The New Girl (on Skye)

Katie isn't just going to step on the island and tick it off the list.
She is also going to take part in a few challenges on each island.

Read Katie's blog to find out more about her plans, and also discover more about her amazing art.

Follow here on Instagram for more.

Somewhere I have an excellent book on Scotland's Islands, and will dig it out so that I can see a little more about these places.

One particular aspect of the trip is that it embraces the #LeavenoTrace message - too many places are being damaged by visitors, and even by the Instagram influencers (Justin Bieber in Iceland is a recent example here)

Katie has the support of various organisations including the Ordnance Survey. I look forward to following the journey.

Remember the #82Islands poster? ⛵ 🏝️ #GetOutside Champion @Katie_Eden has embarked on a challenge to visit them all! She's on a mission to show how important it is to #LeaveNoTrace & roam responsibly. Read more here 👉 https://t.co/z4mJOuT0yP#GetOutside @CalMacFerries pic.twitter.com/ZR6nauwukV

— OS Leisure (@OSleisure) June 1, 2019

The Island

A new entry onto my book shelves is this book by Barry Smith.

It describes the place that islands have in our imaginations, as well as describing how their geography shapes the communities that live there. It's travelled with me to to various places this summer. I shall be sharing some of the ideas from it in future blog posts, and it's very much a recommended read.

Islands on 4 Extra

A series of programmes which are being played in a series on Island life. This is available to listen to again for a month or so, so if you're reading this after Summer 2017 you may not be able to hear some or all of them.
Thanks to the wonderful artist Ellis O' Connor for the tipoff to this on Twitter.
If you're interested in the idea of islands, then these will be well worth following. A list of some of the programmes is here.
I'm particularly interested in the sharing of some stories by George Mackay Brown, who is forever connected with the town of Stromness on Orkney.
Some will also be interested in a repeat of Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Small Island', which is available in five episodes.

This connects with the work I am going to be doing over the summer with Peter Knight, funded by an Innovative Geography Teaching Grant. You will see our work on this developing on this website.

Image: Copyright BBC - used to publicise the Islands season - reminiscent of Roger Dean's Yes album covers...

Guess the island

Some people reading this may already have seen this discussion on other social media, but would anybody be able to guess this location. The image was produced using Google Earth, complete with the photorealistic atmosphere added in the OPTIONS (or PREFERENCES if using an Apple device)

We have visitors from this place in school at the moment, and will be exploring it with them tomorrow.