Words by Harvey Smart & Photos by Stephen Durand
Back in 2023, six-year-old Ollie Durand and his dad Stephen walked the West Highland Way in support of local charity Old Kilpatrick Food Parcels, a distance of nearly 100 miles between Milngavie and Fort William.
No mean feat even for experienced ramblers, let alone for someone so young!
Now following the success of that fundraiser, they decided to up the ante, completing the Hebridean Way, which stretches from the island of Vatersay to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.
This time, the pair chose to carry the flag for Dalmuir charity Golden Friendships, again raising several thousand pounds through GoFundMe.
“My mum goes to Golden Friendships and she has supported it from the start,” Stephen explained.
“This year, I looked at the Hebridean Way and said, ‘right Ollie, let’s do it for charity again’, because it spurs you on, gives you a goal.”
For most walkers, the Hebridean Way is usually 156 miles in length, but for the father and son duo, weather conditions forced them to take an alternate route.
“Because the weather was so bad when we got there, we couldn’t go through some of the hills and the moors, so we ended up actually doing 180 miles, because we went the cycle route, which is longer than what the walking route is,” Stephen said.
The journey took them 10 days, walking an average of 10 – 15 miles per day.
“One of the days we only did about seven miles because of the weather, but the second last day we ended up doing about 22 miles.
Help Along the Way
“The people we met were so helpful.
“The second last night we were trying to get to Stornoway.
“We still had 11 miles to go and we met a gamekeeper. He said ‘listen, this road’s dodgy at night, don’t be walking along this’, he ended up giving us a cottage to stay in and brought us venison sausage and eggs for us to have our dinner!”
Clearly, these two are made of different stuff than most of the rest of us, but I ask if they ever felt like giving up at any point.
“No. Not at all,” they say emphatically.
“The GoFundMe page started before we did the walk, so by that point people had started donating.
People worked hard for that money, and they give what they can. So, you can’t let them down, it keeps you going.”
As well as raising money for a good cause, Stephen hopes these experiences will create memories that he and Ollie will remember fondly for the rest of their lives.
“My dad never did anything like this with me because he wasn’t well. So, these are things that I hope Ollie will cherish and go ‘aye, my Da was a good guy’.”
And as for the future, the pair have even bigger plans…
“I’m hoping eventually that we’ll do Everest base camp.
So, we’ll do that for some other charity but because he’s still young that’ll probably be in a few years,” Stephen added.
“Next year, it’s just a normal holiday for us. We’ll do something in the sun and see what we come up with.”