After my aborted attempt to camp at Sandwood Bay, I realised I didn’t want to spend hours lying in the dark in a tiny tent. So, if I wanted to continue camping in winter, I’d have to walk and pitch my tent in the dark.

A year ago I would have put that idea straight back in the box, but wild camping on my own over the last four months has helped me overcome my fear of the dark. There’s something calming and peaceful about night-time hiking.

I set off at 6pm from Burghead, on the Moray Coastal Trail, aiming to walk for a couple of hours towards Lossiemouth, then find somewhere to camp. Luckily there was a chippy at Hopeman, which saved me the bother of warming up a camping meal for myself. Also, it was delicious!

I had the most incredible luck – although it was a cold night, forecast for -3c, there was a clear sky and no wind, and the most beautiful golden moon I’d ever seen. I kept stumbling because I was staring at the moon instead of watching where I was walking. I didn’t have a tripod to get a decent photo of it on a 3 second exposure, so I clambered across the rocky shore, then bent over to rest my elbows on large rock, to try to hold my phone steady. I forgot I was carrying an 11kg rucksack, which had altered my centre of gravity, and I started to fall, first forwards, then overcompensating backwards until I landed on my back on the rocks. The rucksack saved me from any injury but I found myself stuck there on my back on the rucksack, my arms and legs flailing uselessly, like an upturned beetle. I was starting to panic by the time I managed to wrench myself back onto my feet.

As if the moon wasn’t excitement enough, I received a red aurora alert not long after setting off, and I also managed to get a good photo of that. What an experience. I was feeling pretty happy by the time I pitched my tent and got settled into my sleeping bag around 9.30pm, with two hot water bottles and a stick-on heat patch, ready for a chilly night.

I read for a bit, buried in the depths of my sleeping bag, then went outside to watch the moon and soak up the tranquillity of being on my own at the edge of the sea, darkness all around me. It was too cold to hang about for long, and by midnight I was asleep, waking briefly around 3am to rip the heat patch off my stomach as it was so hot, then around 5am, when I made a tiktok, which got 11,000+ views, then slept again until 6.30am, when I made another tiktok, which has since had almost 50,000 views. That’s a lot for me!

The walk back to my car when the sun was rising around 9am was spectacularly beautiful and I felt very contented at how well the outing had gone, and how much I’d enjoyed it, despite the low temperature and long hours of darkness. I mean, if you have a sky full of stars, a bright golden moon, and a display of Northern Lights, what more could anyone want as entertainment?