When the Scottish men’s international football side last qualified for a World Cup there was no doubt in my mind: I had to be there.

As I watched the national team secure its place at France 98 on a sunny October afternoon at Celtic Park I was so sure I would be joining the Tartan Army there that I booked almost three weeks off the following summer as soon as I went in to work.

But as Colin Henry, John Collins, Craig Burley and co lining up to play Brazil in Paris the following June I was still in Glasgow.

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I had chickened out. Despite having more than enough time off work, I never got off the starting blocks to even start sort out transport plans or accommodation, never mind match tickets. I did not own a tent and I am not sure I even had a passport.

Although I watched Scotland slip to a typically agonising defeat to Brazil, in a big top in Glasgow Green at my first and last World Cup fan zone – I had plotted another odyssey, one which seemed to require next to no planning.

A music festival in full swing in Stromness at the Orkney Folk Festival. (Image: Sean Purser)

A couple of days later I was off on my first solo trip around the Highlands and Islands, relying on public transport and a couple of hostel guides, but with no real plans other than heading north to see where the journey took me.

I had already a few tantalising trips north, when I was a lot younger on a youth group trip around the awe-inspiring route which would become known as the North Coast 500, and much later when I was one of a group of university pals who somehow made it up and down Ben Nevis without any mishaps.

The Herald Arts Correspondent Brian Ferguson on the Isle of Harris. (Image: Newsquest)

But........

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