> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk“You’ve got to acknowledge that you’re just a fragment in time.”Episode 2#9 settles down with Doug Bartholomew, a man who has the dream job of managing one of Scotland’s great landscapes. Seek him on a weekday, Saturday or Sunday and you’ll find him and his team of fellow NatureScot employees on Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands National Nature Reserve in Wester Ross. This 48 square kilometres of magnificent highland wilderness requires hard work to keep it running sustainably, and constant attention is required to replenish the native Caledonia pinewoods that still grow in these soils. As a consequence, Doug finds himself stalking deer, nurturing and planting up to 20,000 pine seedlings, and enduring vicious swarms of midges throughout his working year. Told you it was a dream job.Doug reveals how he came to be in this “dead man’s shoes” kind of role, why volunteers on the reserve are absolutely essential to its continued success, and how much joy can be found running and climbing in this exceptional landscape when you wake and work between its peaks.> Want to volunteer at Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands NNR yourself? Walk this way: https://www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors/scotlands-national-nature-reserves/beinn-eighe-and-loch-maree-islands-nnr/beinn-eighe-and-loch-maree-islands-nnr-getting-involvedListen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series![episode recorded on 30/08/22]