As far as overseas treks go our five day walk between Dana and Petra in Jordan was superb. Treading the paths that biblical characters walked through the ancient lands of Moab and to finish at one of the seven wonders of the world - Petra - was sensational. But then all hell broke loose. Could this be Armageddon, did anyone spot the horses of the Apocalypse. What was it the Book of Revelation said about wars and rumours of wars, pestilence, floods and earthquakes?

Much has been written about the volcanic ash situation being compared with people trying to return to Blighty after the war, or the crowds of people leaving Russia in Doctor Zhivago, but the truth of the matter is that we spent several days trying to get home from a holiday, not a war. It wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, the European public transport service is pretty impressive and credit cards can see you through all kinds of difficulties but the uncertainty of the situation, especially waiting for information from airlines, was wearying, to say the least.

Eventually we became impatient with our airline and the Government’s reluctance to open up airspace, a reluctance I can understand when safety has to be the main priority. BMI, our airline, didn’t answer their phones and when our local tour operator eventually did get through to them he was told we wouldn’t get on a flight until the 29th April, and that wasn’t guaranteed. That was two weeks away and despite their legal responsibilities BMI weren’t paying our hotel and food expenses, we were. The amounts spent were starting to build up. Eventually we took the advice that was being given on CNN news and BBC World - try and get to Madrid, which was being set up as a European hub. Mandelson was quoted as saying the Government would send warships to the ferry ports and a fleet of coaches would leave the UK for Madrid to pick up stranded passengers. According to Government sources there would be Foreign Office and Embassy officials at the airport to advise passengers.

We checked at the airport and managed to get flights to Spain, at a cost of 650 Jordanian Dinars, about £630 each. When we arrived in Madrid there were no coaches, and no officials. Other travellers told us they had been stranded in Madrid for several days, with no hope of a flight anywhere, and there were no officials to be seen.

We weighed up our options. Best to stay in Madrid overnight, and try and catch a train to Paris next day, or else wait in the long queues and try and book a flight to Paris, or back to the UK, although there was still a no-flying ban over Britain.

Eventually we booked a hotel in Madrid ( plus a €20 booking fee per room - we were beginning to experience the blatant racketeering that was  going on), and caught a very busy train next day to Hendaye on the French border. We could only get First Class. From Hendaye the French Government organised extra trains to Bordeaux from where we managed to get on another very busy train to Paris. En route we phoned Eurostar and managed to book the last available places on the Paris to London train for next morning. We were delighted, but not with the price - £260 per person!

We arrived in Paris, got a taxi to Paris Gare Nord and arrived there about midnight. We kipped down in our sleeping bags but were roused by security guards who very kindly had arranged for us to sleep in a stationary train. It was the first act of kindness we had met with on the whole journey, the first occasion we didn’t feel we were being ripped off.

After waiting in another angry and impatient queue for the Eurostar we discovered that the girl who had taken the booking on the phone had booked our train for the wrong day. We were furious, cancelled the train ticket and bought tickets for another train to Calais. As it happened three trains eventually dropped us off at Calais where we managed to get on board a freight ferry. The bad news was that we were charged £64 for what is normally a £9 passenger crossing, but the good news was that we could buy a slap-up fried lorry drivers’ breakfast!

Eventually we arrived in Dover with a tear in our eyes, thankful to be on British soil again. But where were the warships the government had promised; where were the fleets of coaches? Where was the official help and advice? Nowhere to be seen. If this Government can’t be trusted on these promises how can be trust them with the economy, or health, or education.

Looking back on it all I think we did pretty well, but we were all reasonably affluent (ie we had credit cards). There are still many people stuck abroad who have no choice but to wait for the flights to get sorted out, take their turn in the queues and wait, and put up with the discomfort of living in an airport terminal for days on end, often with children. Theirs will be an experience from hell.

Our experience was far from that, but it’ll be a while before I travel by air again. I seem to have read somewhere that during the two World Wars those who were caught racketeering were shot! Although the volcanic ash situation wasn’t a war it was, for many thousands of people, an emergency situation, a situation where racketeering appears to have been encouraged. No doubt our politicians will put it down to market forces. We now face our own war, challenging the travel insurance and airline companies for some kind of return on the £3000 or so we have spent trying to get home. We are not holding our breath!

The long peninsula that separates Loch Broom with Little Loch Broom in Wester Ross is a fascinating place. It’s almost an island – only a ridge of high ground connects it to the wilds of the Dundonnell Deer Forest. And it’s got an island feel to it, particularly west of the road end at Badrallach where a rough footpath follows the rocky shoreline to the scattered settlements of Rireavach, Carnach and Scoraig. Stand at the headland of Cailleach head and you’d be convinced you were on one of the Summer Isles, another island on a scattering of some of the loveliest islands on the west coast.

But despite the bare and exposed nature of the place people have lived here for at least 2500 years. There are four surviving hut circles and it’s thought there may have been a broch, an Iron Age tower, on the headland at Annat. In the 19^th century the land was divided up into crofts but the continual fight against the elements became too much for most crofters and the last permanent resident moved out in 1964. But the place didn’t remain empty for long. The sixties saw an influx of people moving to the peninsula in search of an ‘alternative’ lifestyle and many of the sons and daughters of those original hippies still live there today. Today the area has a reputation for its pioneering use of wind power, building relatively small turbines and harnessing the wind for local use.

Surprisingly, even from the slopes of Beinn Ghobhlach, the hill that dominates the peninsula, I couldn’t see any of the turbines. Compare that with the commercial windfarm monstrosities that are steadily blighting the views all across the highlands. Maybe our politicians should come to Scoraig and see how renewable energy should be harnessed and used – local projects for local use.

Beinn Ghobhlach, 635 m, rises at the eastern end of this exposed finger of land. It’s double topped profile is prominent when seen from Ullapool in the north and although I had gazed across Loch Broom at it countless times I had never climbed it. An opportunity came two weeks ago when a bright day with spring rain showers sweeping in from the south west saw us drive along the single track road from Dundonnell to the little parking place at the road end at Badrallach.

Beyond Badrallach the footpath follows the coast and above it lies a grim thousand foot climb up steep heathery slopes to reach two lochans that lie just south of the summit. Whatever way you climb Beinn Ghobhlach (the name means ‘forked hill’) you’re in for a steep climb, it’s just that kind of mountain, so we reckoned the best thing to do was put the bit between our teeth and go for it. We followed the coastal path for about a kilometre then took to the heather on a rising traverse to reach easier ground above the twin lochans of Loch na h-Uidhe and Loch na Coir.

With the hardest part of the day’s climbing over we could now relax a bit and what a place to relax. The twin lochans lie in the cradle of a glaciated hollow with the west ridge of Beinn Ghobhlach behind them. The ridge climbs to a high col from where it looked like an easy climb to the summit and it was as we climbed to that col that we heard the cries that were to accompany us for the rest of the route.

The first weird, wail-like call had me reaching for my binoculars. I spotted them immediately on the waters of Loch na h–Ruidhe, a pair of black-throated divers, beautiful birds swimming in stately fashion on the wind ruffled waters of the lochan. Curiously, these birds, like all divers, take on a completely different persona when they’re on dry land. The sleekness vanishes and it becomes a rather clumsy individual, due to its legs being rather set back so it can’t support the weight of its body very well. This pair looked like fairly new arrivals and will probably build a nest close to the water’s edge.

Their wild and compelling wails floated up to us as we climbed and it was only as we negotiated the rocky slopes to the summit cairn that we went out of earshot. The sound of the wind took over, a bitterly cold breeze that didn’t encourage us to linger but instead descend to the north and follow the hill’s crescent shaped ridge round its Coire Dearg.

It was this corrie that gave us our route of descent, down the length of its burn to the coastal path which we followed back to the start around the rocky cliffs of Creag a’ Chadha and our waiting car at Badrallach.

The Adventure Show will be broadcast on Sunday at 7pm on BBC Scotland and Sky Channel 990. The main event is a night orienteering competition and I’ll be climbing White Coombe in the Borders.