West Lothian woman finishes 21 nights of bivvying in the garden to fundraise during lockdown

A record-breaking hillwalker from Bathgate has spent 21 consecutive nights sleeping out in her garden to raise money for SARDA, the Search and Rescue Dog Association.

Hazel Strachan, 51, is no stranger to bivvying in the outdoors as she has completed 10 rounds of Munroes, climbing thousands of mountains and hills and breaking the record for the most rounds of Munros completed by a woman in 2015.

She has slept in over 100 outdoor bivvies around Scotland along the way.

Since she cannot enjoy her adventurous hobby as usual during the Covid-19 lockdown, the civil servant decided to put her outdoor survival skills to good use and create 21 different sleeping places in her garden in Bathgate.

With limited space Ms Strachan came up with sleeping arrangements including on a raised platform propped up against the fence with the neighbours’ garden, propped up on wine bottles, on top of an arrangement of deck chairs resting on paint tins, on a packraft, and in a wheelie bin.

Ms Strachan created her perches on a piece of wood from a packing case for a car bunker, and said she is used to keeping very still when asleep because of her bivvying experience.

While she does not have any trees in her garden, one night she took advantage of the next best thing and slept on a buddlia bush.

“I don’t really have a particularly big garden,” said Ms Strachan.

“But because you end up in all sorts of places when bivvying normally, you have to use your imagination. I tried to apply that to bivvying in the garden.”

Her favourite position was propped up against the neighbours’ fence, while she called her spot inside the wheelie bin ‘the hide’, as she was able to see many birds who seemed to take the wheelie bin for granted.

Ms Strachan enjoyed the sunrise every day apart from two occasions, once because it was cloudy and once because she slept so well she missed it.

She was ‘perfectly comfortable’ bivvying and will even miss it.

“Sometimes I didn’t sleep great, but that was more because of the situation and being busy with work, not necessarily because of the height of the drop beside my bed!”

She added: I’m going to miss it. I’ve bivvied out when it’s been -7 degrees so I’ve been comfortable enough in the past weeks.

Ms Strachan chose SARDA Scotland as her fundraising charity as it is one close to her heart.

“I’m lucky that I’ve never had to use mountain rescue or SARDA, but it seemed like the obvious choice,” she said.

“SARDA help mountain rescue and also the police when looking for missing people, as they can search a large area.”