Adrift in Caledonia

One clear morning in May, Nick Thorpe left his Edinburgh flat, ducked off the commuter route and hitched a ride aboard a little white canal boat, heading west towards the sea. It was the first mutinous step in a delightful boat-hopping odyssey that would take him 2500 miles through Scotland s canals, lochs and coastal waters, from the industrial Clyde to the scattered islands of Viking Shetland. Writing with characteristic humour and candour, the award-winning author of EIGHT MEN AND A DUCK plots a curiously existential voyage, inspired by those who have left the warm hearth for the promise of a stretched horizon. Whether rowing a coracle with a chapter of monks, scanning for the elusive Nessie, hitting the rocks with Captain Calamity or clinging to the rigging of a tall ship, Thorpe weaves a narrative that is by turns funny and poignant - a nautical pilgrimage for any who have ever been tempted to try a new path just to see where it might take them. Part travelogue, part memoir, ADRIFT IN CALEDONIA is a unique and affectionate portrait of a sea-fringed nation - and of the drifter s quest to belong.