Pooh, Piglet and Spilled Custard - Daniel Campanile

After their finals some people choose to go on a week long liver destroying binge to celebrate and help them forget the stress of the build up to the exams. Others take it easy and relax the exhaustion and sudden relief of finishing suddenly over coming them with fatigue. I found myself sitting behind the wheel of a university minibus four hours outside Glasgow, somewhere to the North of Ullapool on a narrow and twisting single-track road. In front of us the great bulks of Stac Pollaidh, Suilven and Canisp rose as isolated islands from the flat plains of Wester Ross, their sharp black outlines clearly visible in the fading light. In the distance the Atlantic lapped around the crinkled coast distorting the smudged reds, oranges, yellows and pinks of a northern sunset in the darkening blue sky. We had arrived in Reiff at last and it was going to be a good week.

The following day I was doing what I came all this way to do: climb. Well not exactly, I was suspended across a causeway by a rope waist deep in the pulsing cold waters, bobbing up and down in the lazy swell. Behind me cliffs rose steeply up to a flat grassy headland and in front the narrow, exposed pinnacle of the Old Man of Stoer projected out of the gently rocking sea. At its base my climbing partner was doubled over with laughter at my unexpected submergence, I swore at him in return for not tensioning the ropes enough, it only made him laugh even more. When I started climbing a few years ago I never seriously thought I would ever be experienced or good enough to do this historic classic climb. It was just another picture in a book with a good story attached to it, nothing more than an aspiration. A few hours later I was hanging from a rope once again, slowly rotating in space as I descended the abseil from the top. The climb had been four pitches of delightfully steep climbing on warm sandstone in the sun with the smooth black water below us. By the time we got to the top my trousers were dry and no fulmars had been sick on us, as good as it gets, my aspirations suddenly realized and new ones already forming.

The campsite at Reiff is a strange and beautiful place. It sits on a flat featureless expanse of grass save for a fenced huddle of trees bent over by the wind and a small draughty toilet block made out of plastic and corrugated iron. Beyond the campsite is a spit, covered when the tide is in but otherwise forms a natural bridge linking the land on the opposite side. The fine-grained sand on the beach is the colour and texture of oatmeal and the water rolling up it in soft little waves is clear and greenish blue. It is not how most people would imagine Scotland. The stepped profiles and jagged ridges of the ancient sugarloaf mountains form the backdrop to this, stretching out into the distance. The layered rocks forming these unusual mountains gently dip down to the coast where the sea has slowly carved out a long serrated line of cliffs and conveniently left behind flat wave cut platforms no longer under the influence of the tides. These are the crags of Reiff stretching out from the tiny cluster of white houses along the coast for several kilometers and became our playground for the week.

One of the things that make Reiff such a great place isn't just the sheer volume and range of climbs, but the setting. In the hazy distance you can see the outline of the Outer Isles and often there are groups of seals poking their curious heads above the water, watching you as you climb. Whether you're there to undertake a small personal battle on a tougher climb or just to enjoy the excitement and thrill of moving on the rock, there is something for everyone. There's slabs, steep walls, cracks, corners, in fact just about anything for the beginner just learning to lead or the more experienced climber. When we weren't climbing (a surprisingly large amount of the time) the platforms made brilliant spots to eat, chat and watch the breeze whip up the spray from the waves crashing on the rocks.

Although the last trip was good, it wasn't all perfect. One of the days as a result of my impatience and over eagerness I got split up from the rest of the group on our way to the crags. We spent several hours looking and missing each other in the dips and hollows of the moorland above the crags thinking one of us had slipped of the cliffs. It set the tone for the rest of the day, when we did eventually reunite it was probably the worst we climbed all week. To make matters worse, that night we were sitting in the minibus keeping out of the wind howling through the campsite. We decided to make some custard to cheer us up but the pot got tipped over spilling its steaming contents over the grimy floor of the bus, easily the lowest point of the trip.

Nightlife in this part of the world is slightly different from Glasgow. There's no Garage or Hive; there isn't even a more familiar Highland pub with its collection of friendly but slightly odd locals standing beside a badly stained and ripped pool table. There is however, plenty of drink, a comfortable seat on the sand and a night sky packed full of stars. You are so far north it really only gets completely dark for a few hours when the dying ribbon of light above the sea disappears, re-emerging a few cans of beer later glowing above the nearby hills. I learned three things from nights out at Reiff; dried seaweed doesn't burn well in a bonfire, the North Atlantic is much warmer when you're drunk, and climbing is only half of the best parts of these trips. The perpetual light means that you can climb well into the evening and not even realize, creating a distorted 'Reiff time.' You eat at funny times as well, dinner very late at night and breakfast when you should have lunch. All this adds to the feeling that you really are in a completely different place where time has no significance any more and it doesn't matter when you do things.

Something I've struggled (and still struggle) to accept is climbing or walking in its own right just for the sake of it. It's difficult not to get bogged down in grades, route times and individual expectations when all you should be doing is having fun and enjoying yourself. A few times at Reiff I found myself doing exactly that, forgetting where I was and what I was doing. Climbing on the cliffs in the early evening with the low sun behind you turning the rock into a fiery golden wall makes any lack of achievement seem insignificant. So, if you want to do something a bit different this year after your exams then take a trip up to Reiff, you won't regret it.