Coast to Coast

This unique Scottish off-road challenge was as tough as it sounds and showed that our off-road vehicles might be capable of more than we think. Ben Samuelson reports.

- Ben Samuelson

The aim was to drive the latest range of Mercedes-Benz 4x4s from coast to coast without using public roads. How difficult could it be? It turned out that the answer was very difficult indeed. Who knew that when people walk across our island, as they often do, there isn’t just a nice track you can follow with a little convoy of G-Classes? Not only had nobody ever done it before, the leading expert on green laning in the country said that only 25 per cent or so would be possible anywhere in the UK, without long sections of road joining up scattered sections of track. But they had not counted on the brother (and sister)hood of the field sports community coming to the rescue.

The first link in the chain was Sam Thompson: a Hagrid-sized young stalker who used to come to our clay shoot at Abbey stead, but has now moved north – a long way north into the Scottish Highlands, the only UK landscape in which he fits to scale. Sam introduced us to Doug McAdam, boss of Scottish Land and Estates, the utterly splendid organisation that provides a much-needed voice for rural businesses in Scotland. Which, in turn was how we found ourselves sitting around Doug’s dining table a few weeks later, unfolding and refolding dozens of OS maps as we looked for a way through. Route after route was traced, and then discarded as the twin dotted lines of a track petered out half way up a glen, or came to a grinding halt at a road junction. But, miraculously, as it grew dark outside, a route that might just work started to take shape. In the very middle of it was Alladale, home of Paul Lister, who has made something of a name for himself not only for planting nearly a million native Caledonian trees but also for planning to re-introduce wolves, bears and lynx to the wild up there. Innes MacNeill, the force of nature who runs the reserve, became a lynchpin in the whole project.