Sleeping rough, sleeping well.

It’s a bit of a mystery to me why most people baulk at the prospect of sleeping outdoors; that is if the idea has ever been suggested to them. The concept smacks of grinding poverty in most minds, or vagrancy, and why would you sleep outside if you have a comfortable, warm bed in a safe bedroom with a lockable door? But I admit that if was necessity, not choice, that got me into this most delectable of habits.

When I started travelling in my teens back in the 70s I tended to turn up in places with no means of accessing conventional accommodation and had to sleep in doorways, on benches, in railway stations, vineyards, barnyards, forests and on riverbanks. And yes it was dangerous at times, but when I slept out in the open away from the grimy air of cities, the sleep was usually of a better quality than when I spent 8 hours cooped up in a stuffy room lying on a lumpy mattress.

Of course there were less pleasant moments too, like the night I spent shivering, hungry and with a very badly sprained ankle in a pine forest outside Sarajevo on a freezing January night, soaked through in the heavy, relentless snow, hiding from the Yugoslav police and utterly lost. There was the fabled night that I spent of a beach in South India, a night full of nightmares, and when I woke in the morning I found myself surrounded by dozens of dead snakes whose heads had been torn off and were nowhere to be seen.

Now, however, I sleep rough by choice, and as often as possible. Give me a night between May and October, any night, and I’ll take you to any one of hundreds of open air rooms in the luxury hotel that is called Ireland: I’ll guarantee you a fine night, even if it rains, and it probably will. Beaches, mountains, riversides, caves, bogs ..... we’ve got a room to suit every taste.

Last week, we’re talking August here, I overnighted in a field of purple heather near Newcastle at the foot of the Mourne Mountains. Following the beach north of the town for a mile or so I came to Murlough Nature Reserve (where you’re not supposed to go). Sand dunes run inland from the sea for a bit, rolling and dipping and covered in scrub. It’s a protected piece of coast land, teeming with rabbits, wild flowers, endangered birds and dragonflies, an intricate eco-system. As I wandered around the dunes with their plateaux and basins it struck me that this was in fact a multi-bedded hotel with a fantastic array of rooms to choose from. There were sheltered hollows, clumps of rocks, and it was all covered with a thick mattress of stiff dusty, fragrant heather.

Being a protected area, and as dry as tinder, it’s forbidden to light fires but there was no need. The dunes kept away the light breeze coming off the sea and helped to muffle the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore and washing through the shingle. The earth was warm under the tight, springy covering of the coarse heather bushes.

My bed for the night was in a hollow on top of a small rise, and from there I watched rabbits for a while, dozens of them, lopping across the many clear patches in the scrub. I saw a fox slink by, ears and nose twitching, but the rabbits saw him first and the night felt a little bit sad and lonely when they disappeared leaving me on my own and the fox hungry.

When I lay back and worked my body into the most comfortable position I could find I watched the busy sky for a long while. The moon appeared to be hanging ominously low in the night, looming large and menacing, giving off an aura of lonely malevolence. The purple flowers of the heather turned bright pink under its cold, sinister influence and they stood out like millions of painted, pink beads against the dark foliage.

But it was mostly the smell in the air that made the night for me. Lying there gazing into the dark, quiet chaos above me that was all spangled with stars, the sound of the sea and breeze overcoming any stray noise that might have drifted over from the town, my head was filled to bursting with the intense, dry, lavender-like scent of heather mixed with a breath of sea salt carried in on the warm breeze.

All my senses had found gainful employment at once, all on the same site, and they were working overtime that night. They came together to complement and enhance each other, all willing to blend together, none trying to out-perform the others. They came together like a well-conducted orchestra of expert musicians who had something to play about. They were teased into shape by a conductor-composer with a sympathy and sensitivity unlike anything else I have ever experienced. My senses became heightened, extra-sensitive to the painful beauty that cradled and covered me, and I couldn’t explain the sweet anguish that invaded my soul. I felt that I had been made for that moment, that this was my little day of glory, and I whispered a wordless prayer of thanksgiving.