Luisa Hendry: Scottish Geologist On How Volcanoes and Fault Lines Shaped Scotland

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Louisa Hendry, aka The Scottish Geologist, joins me for a raw, funny, and unexpectedly mind-expanding chat about rocks, identity, tectonic plates, Instagram fame, and the untold beauty of Scotland’s ancient landscapes.

From her early days smashing stones on the beach in Largs to running geology tours across the Highlands, Louisa’s story is a brilliant mix of passion, science, humour, and community. We get into everything from the geology of Loch Lomond, granite vs. magma, ancient oceans, volcanoes, climate change, and how she’s built a wildly successful brand by being unapologetically herself.

Whether you think geology is dry or exciting..., this episode will open your eyes to the rocks beneath your feet—and make you think differently about stories they hold.

🎥🎙️ Watch & Listen Here

What You’ll Learn:

IDEAS

• How Scotland’s rocks tell a billion-year-old story
• Why volcanic eruptions and climate shifts go hand in hand
• How geology helps explain the tech in your pocket
• What Mount Everest’s summit reveals about the ancient ocean
• The unexpected connection between social media, geology, and dogs

INSIGHTS

• You don’t need a polished accent to educate and inspire
• Geological time reframes how we view climate, resilience, and human impact
• The best way to spark curiosity is to lead with honesty and humour

QUOTES

"You could walk your dog across 3-billion-year-old rocks and never know it."
 "Geology’s not just rocks. It’s climate, tech, history—it’s everything."
 "I’m just being me, talking about rocks. Turns out, people love that."

Episode Takeaway

Scotland’s landscapes aren’t just beautiful—they’re alive with stories, and Louisa is the guide we didn’t know we needed.

Resources & Mentions

• 🌍 Scott Rock Walks – Louisa’s geology tour company
• 📱 @ScottishGeologist on Instagram

🎙️ Follow the show here to catch all episodes exploring the natural world, adventure, and human potential.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Birth of a Geology Enthusiast
• 0:43 Embracing Authenticity and Career Shifts
• 1:29 Introduction to The Adventure Diaries Podcast
• 1:54 Luisa Hendry: The Scottish Geologist
• 3:41 Louisa's Early Fascination with Geology
• 5:53 Understanding Geology and Its Importance
• 9:10 Diving into Scotland's Geological Wonders
• 13:44 The Role of Plate Tectonics
• 20:03 Volcanoes and Their Impact
• 27:13 Climate Change and Human Impact
• 36:32 Discussing Climate Topics in Geology
• 37:12 The Journey to Becoming a Full-Time Geologist
• 37:37 Creating the Scottish Geologist Brand
• 41:16 Starting Scott Rock Walks
• 42:37 Challenges and Successes of Running a Geology Tour Business
• 49:04 Incorporating Dogs into Geology Tours
• 52:49 Future Aspirations and International Tours
• 55:23 Closing Traditions and Final Thoughts

Transcript

 Basically I was in the northwest, I was with my mom and I gave her my phone and she started recording me next to the rock face. And I just winged it. I just started, I was like, se like, I can't even even remember what I was seen, like these rocks behind me formed like 3 billion, blah, blah, blah. And I did another video where it was me running towards these rocks and like, I basically was like, I think one of the first final videos I did was like, I'm holding my phone in selfie mode.

And honestly, 'cause there's not much hidden involved or anything. Yeah. And I'm like, the worst thing about being a geologist is when you see a Prty rock face and you can't even park right next to it. So you're having to park all the way down there. And then you see me run to the the rocks and I'm actually running with a phone in my hand.

I'm like, I'm now running to the rocks. And then I get to the rocks and I started talking about them and people just thought it was funny. Be yourself. Don't let anyone ever tell you to be someone else. Yeah. Fantastic. Like always be yourself. Yeah. Like there's no point in pretend that it'd be someone that's, I I remember being, you know, in school in that and thinking like, oh, I have to be this way.

I have to put makeup on, I have to put that. And there's so much, like, there's so much influence, like obviously online from social media and stuff like that. Yeah. Like of people, what, having it be a certain way. Yeah. Like you can't eat No. Like, do you see me like trying to be a certain way? No, I don't even care, like, about what people think about me.

You know, I've left my job and everything. I'm being thrown opportunities that I never thought I'd be doing before. F I'm talking about rocks for a living. I'm making videos about rocks for a living. That's fantastic. And the process of speaking to publishers about writing books, stuff on just the geologist, just basic books, you know?

Yeah. Fantastic. On the geo. I never thought I'd be writing a book, you know. Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today we are joined by Louisa Hendry, AKA, the Scottish geologist, an educator and self-declared rock nerd who's turning landscapes into an energetic and fun classroom. And really showing Scotland through a different lens from creating viral videos about billion year old boulders.

Louisa is on a mission to make geology anything but boring, and Louisa does this with straight talking charm. She runs geology adventures throughout Scotland and helps people see those stories written in stone. But this is also a story about finding your own voice and using it to share what you love with no filters, no fluff, and with charm, it's also about courage and the boldness to leave a safe career and pursue your passion.

Get ready to be educated about all things plate tectonics, super continents, boundary faults, volcanoes, and of course rocks. So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation. With Louisa Hendry, AKA, the Scottish geologist, Louisa Hendry, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? I'm good, how are you?

I'm good, I'm good. This is all very new, used to doing this remote, so this is the first time we've done it in person, so I love doing it in person. It's great. Ah, it is much more intimate. So yeah, thanks for joining today. So. To frame this up really. I mean, shows all about adventure exploration, but the natural world as well.

So, and geology obviously features in that. So I want to kinda touch into your whole, the Scottish geologist thing and you know, what you're doing for geology, making it cool, bringing a lot of real good features in Scotland to life. But maybe just kinda rolling back a little bit to your early days. You from ls, is that where you grew up?

Yeah, I'm originally from ls. I grew up in LS as away ghetto. I actually probably started in LS when I was away ghetto. I used to go down the beach, collect the rocks, try smashing 'em open and think, you know, I'm gonna find geodes in this. And yeah, I would never find geodes. You know, the geology logs doesn't give you geodes, but.

I, eh, it is just a funny 'cause as well. I grew up in the nineties. I was born in the nineties. I loved the nineties geology movies, the really bad ones as well on the tv. Like, I dunno if you've ever seen them, but the one like, that's called Volcano. It's a bit a volcano erupting in like San Francisco or something like that.

Or really, I can't even remember what it was. But yeah, I liked those kind of movies. I liked watching documentaries back in the day, but I never knew you could go study geology till I was in my like fifth year at school. So I picked all the wrong subjects. I wasn't very good at school. I mean, I was good at the subjects that I was good at.

Mm-hmm. But I wasn't smart, like good at English or math or that, like I wasn't smart. Smart. I was just kinda average at school and I was in my fifth year at school and I kind of came across it by accident. Like, 'cause originally I wanted to be a fashion designer or something stupid. Not stupid like, you know, but something like that.

And I thought, oh, I'm good at making clothes in that and I'm good at art, I'll just do that. But I was also really good at geography, like especially the physical side of geography. And that's kind of what got me into the degree and stuff into doing a, yeah, geology degree. So I went to a university of opening day in my fifth year at school, uh, which was the University of Glasgow.

And I seen that stall that had all these rocks and that sitting on it and like a picture of volcano. And I was like. Oh my god, can you go study this? And they were like, ah, ah, you can come study rocks. What age were you then? Then? So I was like 16 S 17. Seven 16. I was when I was like, 'cause I'm a January baby, so I was always one of the youngest in the year, right?

Yeah. 16. Were you explicitly when you were a kid then going back to like time in lags and that, did you have a fascination with Roxane or was it that I did, yeah, wee bit. I, and I had one of those books, like the German mineral books. I've still got it in the house. It's ancient and it's probably a little bit.

Outdated now. Yeah, I was going at the start. I meant to bring my girls's book in the rocks, actually, but I'm kicking myself. I forgot to do that. So did you know geology was an option as a career? No. No, no, no. There's not enough of it out there. Like even when I was younger, like at school and stuff like that, like I didn't even know what you could do with a subject like geography either.

Yeah. Like, you know, 'cause the, I think like nowadays, or, well even back then as well, I don't know if it was the same for you when you were growing up. Like they kind of like tell you about all the good jobs. Like be a doctor or Yeah, a vet and that. Like, they don't really tell you you can go do this and be a geologist, you know?

And geology's such an important subject and people don't even realize it. 'cause even when you're sitting in this room. And you look at everything, like even in front of me, there's stupid microphone, right? Like no stupid microphone, but all the technology involved in making this microphone, all the metals that make up the stand, like the glass that makes this cup, that coaster's obviously made a rock, right?

Your laptop's got all these little components in it. It's got a lithium back of the in it. Like where are these things from? They're from in the ground. And you know, you need geologists to find those things and source those things in the ground. So technology nowadays wouldn't be where it is. Without geologists and people don't even think or realize that like, and the same as well, like you could be looking outside, you can walk your dog across rocks and that outside that are 3 billion years old.

And you know, geologists is just fascinating. You know, forms like all the landscapes that we see today that they're all rocks under it. So is there like different niches within geology then? There is whether it's like, I dunno, rocks, fossils, you know? Yeah, there are, there's different subjects in geology.

Yeah. So it's not just geology. You've got all sorts happening. Obviously you've got your rock types, your three main rock types like metamorphic, geology, so you can go down a route of just studying those kind of rocks, like which have rocks have changed over geological time and Scotland has quite a lot of those rocks in the highlands.

You've got like volcanic. Mm-hmm. You know, volcanology, like you've got paleontology, which is fossil obviously. Volcanology is volcanoes like in that like structural geology. So. It's like any other subject when you go to, you need to study it. Like it's split into all of these different other subjects that are more in more detail.

But what I do is I kind of take those subjects and I break them down. I make them simple enough to understand 'cause it is a complicated subject. I'm going. So that was gonna be my next question then. So what is geology then? Not to deduce it. Necessarily, but for the layman, light meat. So I would say geology is basically like the study of the earth and how the earth works.

Right? And that can be from ancient life or even ancient times where the earth was forming as a ball. Like, you know, and that was being collided. But all these different rocks, so like all the way through to like, now that's what you call geological time. And there's different periods of geological time, Earth's like time split up into all these different periods, right?

But it's, it also includes like the study of land formations, like the study of just all sorts, like rocks in general. Rocks can tell you a lot about the past test today. Yeah. But the past climate of wherever you are in the world and you can reconstruct all that data and use it to like produce evidence for, you know, I don't even know, there's just.

So much. And then, yeah, we need geologists and we need geology like for, you know, the future. Like there's so much involved and people just don't even realize it's not just rocks. So what piqued your curiosity in geology then? Do you lean towards a specific subtopic in it or just you, your content's fascinating, I think.

I mean the way you bring it to life will come onto that I think in time. But is there anything that you particularly, you're interested in as a subtopic? We are quite lucky here in Scotland because the geology of Scotland's fascinating. It's absolutely badness because you can travel 500 miles and come across all these different rock types, but if you were to go elsewhere, you might not come across all these different rock types.

Right. And that's just to do with the geological history of Scotland. But I do like really enjoy it. Like, I mean, I love geology as a whole. But I do really enjoy like that each individual rock can tell you a story about the past environment and stuff like that. And that's what really kind of got me into it.

And especially when it comes to like knowing that at one point in geological time, Scotland used to have like these volcanoes that were erupting, like during several different periods of geological time. And um, you can see the evidence for that and the rocks or you can look into the rocks and the highs of Scotland and they make up the roots of big mountain chains that once belonged that cross over into America as well because we used to be joined up to America.

Yeah. Back in the day. I spend a lot of time down at Lock Low. Mm-hmm. And where we are, a caravan in, it's right on the Highland. Boundary Fault. Fault. Yeah. And the, the landscape's so dramatic. I mean it, you look, look at across a lot, a lot and it's just like that. It's like, you know, like the Attica Alps and stuff.

Like what? So what's the deal with that for the layman? What is the fault? Highland Boundary fault? So this Highland boundary fault was active 450 million years ago. And what it was doing is it's just our normal fault line. Right. But what it was doing is it separates also the wool ones to the Highland ones.

Mm-hmm. So you can see the difference when you're driving up through a lot going and like you can see like, you know, the mountains, like they make up the high ones. Yeah. And then like the wool ones like of where, you know Glasgow and that's just quite flat. Well, except from the Camp Sea and stuff. But the Campes are different kind.

Hang. They're all lavas so they're a lot harder. So they stick out and they, everything else has been eroded, like in between them eroded away. But that Highland boundary fault line's a really important fault line. 'cause at one point it was moving, so it was pushing down the way it was moving. 'cause it's a normal fault line.

It was, I'm gonna face it this way. So this is like. Glasgow that, and this is what's known as the Midland Valley terrain. This is moving down the way, and this is uplifting up the way, creating all those mountains and the highlands. Yeah, like that represent what's known as the Dow Radian supergroup. So it's named after Dow Radia, like back in the day, I don't know who came up with the name for the Dow Radian Supergroup, but basically the Dow Radian group and a super group in geology is just a set of rocks.

Like it's a big, massive group of rocks that are very similar. They were deposited around the same time period, and they've been all metamorphos and crushed and folded. So originally they were deposited horizontally. And so an old ancient ocean called the Iapetus Ocean right off of the coastline of our continent known as Lorencia.

And we sat on this continent known as Lorencia. Right. But what's happened is the horizon onal layers of rocks, because there's been the closure of this iapetus ocean. And you've had two plates basically, essentially collide with each other, slowly over geological time. Because when you say collide, people are like, what?

And I might get is like the rate of your fingernail growth route. Hi everyone. Chris here with just a wee reminder. If you've been enjoying the stories here on the Adventure Dies, could you please take a moment to press that follow or subscribe button on Spotify on Apple Podcasts? It's such a small thing, but it makes such a huge difference to the show.

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It is really appreciated. So hit that follow button. And now let's get back to this episode. This is known as a convergent plate boundary. Yeah. And it's happening in, uh, other areas in the world, but at one point it happened in Scotland. So as this is like colliding your continental crust, which is where Loren lot in str where all these sediments ended up like gets buckled and foliated.

So you're pushing and squeezing them, right? They're getting like beded to depths like of up to 50 kilometers deep and the mountain chaining because it's pushing everything altogether, it's changing them. In analogy, it's re crystallizing the rocks over geological time and usually the first rock to forms like a slate, like this slate.

This makes a west coaster next to me. Like if it's a meta sary rock, used to be CEI Elementary, but it's changed over geological time due to heat and pressure. That's what Metamorphism is. That's what metamorphic rocks are. They're rocks that have changed, but they're very beautiful and shiny to look at eventually because once it's after a slate, it turns into a she, which is a very glitter day rock.

And it looks really pretty. I don't know if you've ever been highlights. So these all formed at different layers with like when the plate Yeah. Different layers. I, so what is it? I mean, is a layman, is it the plates, tectonic plates or, so what, yeah, it plate tectonics are moving constantly. Like obviously earth's like crust is made up of like, I think there's seven rigid plates and then there's a dozen smaller ones in between that.

And they're always moving. Right? Right. But they're only moving at the rate of your finger rail. Right, like growth, like, so you get different plate boundaries, you get ones that collide with each other. Mm-hmm. So two plates will collide and usually that's a continental crust and an oceanic crust. Uhhuh with oceanic crust or uc under Right.

And it might drag with at a continent. And that's what happened. Obviously here in Scotland, it's like similar to when you look at India, Uhhuh and the Himalayan Mountains and Asia. Well, like the last 65 million years, India has been moving northwards. It's collided with Asia and it's formed the Himalayan Mountains.

The Himalayan mountains aren't ancient. Yeah. Like they're only like maybe, I dunno, 60 million years old or something. I read something about that, but. There was something found in the Himalayas that that said it was underwater. They were underwater at some point. Yeah, so basically the top of Mount Everest has got limestone on it and limestones a sedimentary rock that forms in a shallow marine area.

Right. Wow. So that once upon a time, it was underwater and it's the same as some of the rocks in the highlands of Scotland. Once upon a time they were deposited in either ocean like underwater, a deep marine and environments and shallow marine environments. It's got a mixture of all sorts and obviously over time they compact like the layers of rock compact and they turn into rock or the layers saw the of sediment, and then they turn into rock and then they get affected by, you know, a big tectonic events such as the one that's happened in Scotland, which is known as a Caledonian rosary, which happened like 490 to 390 million years ago.

Like, so that's a conversion plate boundary. So it's just all kind of collided and pushed and squeezed and changed these rocks over geological time. So are used are used to, in your research then, are you still finding things that tell you more about the history or is it No. 'cause there's quite a lot of like things that have already been wrote about that stuff online.

So there's quite a lot of data available and I have learned quite a lot about it when I was at university. Right, okay. Um, but I didn't actually really start learning about the different areas of Scotland. 'cause there is only like so much in many places you can go visit and stuff like that. Well no, there's loads of places you can go visit Scotland, but there's only so much time that you have.

But recently, like going on my adventures and stuff across Scotland, I come across different things and obviously most of these things have already been discovered in that. Yeah. But I just like making videos about them and simplifying it so that people can understand the general basics about geology and that's.

That's what I do. So is and feel like it say the, for the layman. It's, it is, it's really fun. And I think it's kind of making it a bit cool as well. Yeah. But I've seen you went to Muller a couple of times. I love mul. Oh, Mo's one of my favorite islands. Oh my goodness. Uh, wait. Kinda went paddling and paddle alongside the rocks on the water.

Mm-hmm. The formations, they look, it looks almost fake. It looks like whereabout. Is that, where did you do it? So it was only the air, so it was, I dunno if it was Southwest mill, but it's, it's on the water basically. You're traveling through and they look kinda like beige, like boulders that kinda stuck together.

And it looked, I don't dunno if it's like fuck care that maybe the rose mill granite, I don't know. Like I need to have a look at like the actual, like map and you need to pinpoint where it was and then I'd be able to tell you like, roughly what the geology was. Yeah. But I don't know every, like, I, I'm not like a proper expert on like where everything is, like, you know, all the different rock formations and that.

'cause there is so much in Scotland, it's mental, it's madness. Like it's just, I Where's your favorite place in Scotland you've been in, in terms of. Interest for a geologist probably like KA on Iowa Lewis and Harris or the northwest highlands. It's really hard to choose. Yeah. And so when you ask a geologist what favorite or his favorite rock is, it's really difficult to like answer that question.

What? What's your least favorite rock? What rocks can you go? Sedimentary rocks are my least favorite. So like sandstone and stuff. I mean, you get sandstone everywhere in the Midland Valley and around Quas. School, like obviously sandstone buildings that make up the tenements and I have to walk by them sometimes and I'm just like, oh, there's some cross bed.

And that's only interesting thing about it. Yeah. But you can make it interesting. And I'm not saying that they're not interested. Obviously people study specific subjects in geology and they might enjoy like studying sary rocks over any other rock. But I like. My metamorphic and my IGN rocks. Ign Rocks are volcanic rocks.

Metamorphic rocks are ones that have changed, as I said before. So I like those kind of rocks in terms of a rock, then what is, is a rock volcanic, is it, is it a result of something coming up from the earth crust or what? Well, IGN rocks can be. Yeah. Yeah. So those ones are volcanic and origin. So what happens usually, and we we're gonna move back to talking about plate tectonics.

So obviously I've spoke about a convergent plate boundary where two plates come together. The other plate boundary that you get, well, there's two other plate boundaries. The second one is a divergent plate boundary. Mm-hmm. Where two plates move away from each other. Right. And that's happening when you look at the North Atlantic, you know, the Atlantic oceans splitting apart.

You know, that's, it's, yeah. Like why did you think there's volcanoes in Iceland? You're like, what? I didn't know that. So when you look at a map of earth, when you're next on Google, it maps. Or Google Earth look right down the middle. 'cause they've mapped the sea floor and they've put it on that map. Right.

Really? Wow. And you can see the ridge that's formed like, which is known as a mid oceanic ridge. Right? Right. And the two crust, like the two plates. So they are moving away from each other. And this is happening not just in the Atlantic Ocean, but a few other places around the world. 'cause what's happening is that the earth isn't getting any bigger because you know, there's formation on your crust and uhhuh, there's the recycling of old crust, that convergent plate boundaries.

The earth just kind of stays the same. Right. Like size. If that makes any sense. You know, you get new cross forming, which is where you get your volcanic ignis rocks. Right, okay. And that's how they form. And they're probably the freshest, newest rocks, youngest rocks, uhhuh that you find on air flight. For instance, a volcanic eruption, again, started going off in Iceland just now.

Like a fishers opened up. Right. Because the tooth plates move away from each other. It allows, like, you know, there's partial melting of the mantle and the mantle kind of seeps up as a melt. Like it's a crystal mush, like trying to explain this like they, so it's moving up through the crust, it's buoy, it wants to get to the surface and it'll do anything it can to get there, but sometimes it gets stuck in the cross in certain areas.

Uhhuh, sometimes it causes, you know, shakes the ground, causes earthquakes. It's trying to squeeze through all this magma. It's called magma when it's on the ground, and then when it erupts at the surface, it's lava. Right, right. Okay. So when it spews out is like a fountain volcano. Like what's happening in Iceland last week?

That's when it's lava. Okay. It's nearly only had the blue lagoon. I dunno if you've ever been to Iceland. No, I haven't. No. Oh, you need to go. It's amazing. Oh my God. And go. When there's a volcanic eruption, it's amazing. So I go see it. What is a volcano then Mag. Oh, you different types of volcano, basically.

It's just like anything that, um, I'm doing that ladies, if people don't realize what a volcano is, well that's a, a volcano, right? Something like Mount Vesuvius would look like that. But yeah. You know, you get different types of volcanoes associated with different plate boundaries. Yeah. And it does get really complicated and you'd get different kinds of lavas compositional, you know, changes in lavas and magmas.

And it does it honestly, it's madness like trying to explain it. Sometimes you're just like, oh my God. But basically, yeah, volcano's just made up of like lots of. Lava and Ash, that's kinda came out probably. Is that actually the result of like, yeah, that's it. So when you see a volcano like Mount Mount, ve and that, and it's like sitting there like, you know.

Behind Pompe, like, I'm gonna erupt and get you. Yeah, I mean I might not, it's just kind of sitting there like, but that's associated with, you've got like in Italy and stuff like that, you've got a lot of volcanism related to, because there's two plates collided with each other that have created the ALP Mountains with Alps and stuff have been created from.

Those two plate, like the African plates been moving northwards. Yeah. Into our Eurasian plate, the European plate, and formed all these mountains. And when that happens as well, you get usually magma like melting of the crust. There's a lot of heat and pressure involved so that you, when you melt the crust, you form granites.

Yeah. And those granites, when the magma from those granites reaches the surface, uhhuh, it's an explosive eruption, like usually, so you get explosive eruptions associated with right plate boundaries that are coming together. But plate boundaries that are moving away from each other are more like Hawaiian eruptions we call 'em in geology where it's just.

Very gentle at the LA is, I mean, it might look like it's dangerous, but it's no gonna, and can these all be predicted through technology and stuff like that? Some to a certain extent, yeah. Yeah. So they can monitor and put seismic things into the ground and they can kind of like roughly guesstimate, right?

Or like, okay, we've got more activity here, there's more earthquakes. We've had like a thousand a day of small earthquakes, so it must indicate that something's moving through the crust. Yeah, like I think it's harder with the volcanoes that are four minute, like convergent plate boundaries, like, but they probably have a similar set, but when they go boom, they go boom, they'll go like crack a TOA or Mount Zu.

They're completely different eruptions just because of the magma that feeds those volcanoes is a different composition. That's more, it's a granitic magma, usually like a granite. You know what granite looks like. Don't say like a worktop. I was gonna ask, right? 'cause you've touched on different types of box informations and stuff, so.

Take granite as an example. How and where does granite come from? Is it just a result of different pressures and heat or something like that that happens in air? Yeah, so basically granite forms as a magma in the crust, but it forms from partial melting of the crust. Okay. So when you have the association of like, you know, for instance you've got two plates Co that have collided with each other and caused all of this heat.

And also there's pressure in there too that's, that's making all the other rocks turn and make more foot rocks. What that does to the crust, the surrounding crust, is it, it'll melt it a wee bit, right? When you melt the crust, it usually forms because the crust is very silica rich. It'll form and granite is a silica rich rock.

It'll form a granite, but you get different types of granites and it gets dead complicated, right? But yeah, that's usually what forms a granite. A granite is basically a magma chamber. Uhhuh a magma chamber that sat like in the ground feeding a volcano to the surface. And this is why granite looks coarse grained.

You'll look at, you'll pick up a piece of granite uhhuh and you can see the crystals that interlocking crystals that make up that granite because it's formed very slowly and crystallized very slowly in the ground. So it's sat in the ground as magma and parts of it has started. This is why I caught a crystal mush.

Parts of it has started crystallizing like out different crystals like minerals. 'cause that's what rocks are essentially. They're made up of minerals. Well, I was gonna ask that. What's the difference between a rock and a minerals? I like so, but basically rocks are like made up of minerals and a mineral is usually like an element.

Like not an element, like its own like kinda mineral like, so it's got its own elemental structure, right? Like for instance, like, you know, a mineral could be quartz. Quartz of silica oxide, like, you know, silicon and oxygen together, right? But then a granite is made up of minerals, which is made up of quarts, mica plagio clays, some, well, only K fels, which is another.

Honestly, there's all these minerals. So these egg rocks are probably the first process that like form, like, you know. The basic, are these the same all around the globe? So, so you could take like a granite for example. Obviously because of the, where it's formed in earth. If you were to take a granite from Scotland, I'm assuming you get granite all over the, the world.

Wherever surface. Yeah. You get it everywhere, right? Is it the same or, or do see D? No, sometimes it depends on what that, so granite's are complicated one, right? Because it forms from partial melting of whatever was there before. Right? Okay. But you could have sedimentary rocks that were there before and you form an S type granite.

It's known because S type means sedimentary, you know, blah, blah, blah. That can form different kind of minerals depending on what the original. Rocks were in that area. You can melt like an ignia rock then turns into a different type of granite. So yeah, I mean you get similar granites. Yeah. But their composition varies slightly.

It's, yeah, it's hard to explain it. I couldn't even tell you the answer to that. 'cause it's like more mad. Is there hot pocket? It's geographically in terms of, 'cause I'm thinking, I mean like, say layman, when I think of some of those materials, you know, granite, worktops and that. Strangely do come to mind.

And you know what you think about maybe Italy and marble and stuff, like is there different areas in the world that are more prominent for different rocks because of the way the world's formed? Yeah, just because of the way the world's formed, the way that the plates are sitting right now, the way the plates were before, because things are constantly changing in geology.

Like the over, when I'm talking about geological time, I'm talking about millions of years, right? It's no like 10 years or a thousand years or a hundred thousand years. It's millions. What period are we in? At a minute? We're in the halls. Same period. So it's like the TER period, right? Although people like to argue against that and say that we're in the ropo scene, which is a new made up, not made up, but a new period where humans have impacted like the climate and the industrial revolution.

That's when they. Think the ropo scene started, but I think we're just in the hall scene like, which is part of the Cter period, which is like the last between 2.6 women minute, no, I've not done that. Right. And need to actually Google that. I might have done that. I might have said that wrong. 2.6 million years to like basically the ice ages that have had, we've been in interglacial and glacial periods over the last like 2.6 million years.

Right. And that's known as a cter period. And there lot we subunit that we're in is called the hollow CI. So that's what we are in the now. Yeah. What's next then? How long are this period D now? Anthropocene. And what does that mean? Basically, I dunno what the actual meaning of en Anthropocene means, but there's obviously a lot of controversy when it comes to like geological periods especially.

Mm-hmm. Like the impact that humans have made on the environment and how things have changed over like the last like, you know, even hundred years or so once the industrial revolution kinda, yeah. Started and you can see the spike in the emissions of carbon dioxide in that. Yeah. Like in the records and the research papers that you can look on, like lying and flames.

It's mental. I, I was gonna ask that probably come onto a little bit it environmental impacts and climate change and stuff like that, but, and not just from a glacial perspective in terms of like rising sea levels and Mel Waters and stuff like that, but how else does that affect, like everything you've spoken about, whether it's their core crush plates or does industrial revolution and you know, what mankind are doing to exploit mining and all that stuff.

Does that and carbon emissions, does that affect more than just. Glacial meltwaters, does it affect anything in terms of the plates or It's like, obviously when you look at the records that are there, and we can go back so far in time and look at obviously records from even way back in geological time and we do have like this graph that shows you the temperature rising fall and rising fall.

And it's not as if like it's been, you know, like climate change has happened before, right? Yeah. And it's happened for many different reasons even before man. And like, you know, that like we're on earth. 'cause if you've got a lot of volcanism that's releasing a lot of gasses into there over geological time, as in a few million years, it's gonna affect the climate.

Yeah. And. Climate change is always related to the mass extinctions. There's been five mass extinction events, right? But this has happened very slowly over geo time, right? The rate that is happening at now, the rate, when you look at that graph, 'cause everyone's always like, oh, climate change has happened before, blah, blah, blah.

Like, it's just a myth. Like, you know, you've got all these people that have their own opinion. And don't, don't get me wrong, you're always entitled to your own opinion, right? I'm not saying that, oh, you have to like follow this or follow that, or you have to believe in this and believe in that. Everyone's gonna have their own opinion on it.

But the way that you look at that graph and you see that it's over millions of years and the temperatures have changed with the average global temperatures we've been in, you know, every now and then glacial and interglacial periods. But then we're coming out of obviously this interglacial period and the way that you look at like how quickly the temperatures and, and all of the gas emissions have rose uhhuh over the last a hundred years.

It's basically just like went whoop. And you're thinking, oh, it doesn't matter. It's happened before, you know, but it's not happened this quickly. Yeah, yeah. So what impact is that gonna have in the future, you know, and my simple brain thinking about, you know, if you think about like the ice caps and stuff like that melting and whether it's weight distribution, does that do anything to like the earth movement or anything like that?

Or, I mean, I mean, not the earth bit. I mean like, to be honest, don't, I'm not like an actual Right. And a like all of the glacial stuff in that. Yeah. Like, so I probably couldn't tell you the right answer for it, but my view is on it, like if you were to melt the ice caps, especially the north and all of that water, that cold water comes down and yeah.

Gets into the Atlantic Ocean that'll mess up the Gulf Stream and that. Yeah. And then the weather's just gonna change even for us. Yeah. You know, so coming back then to, because I was fa lets say, before we started, I was fascinated by it when I had a previous geologist on talking all about Antarctica. And, uh, the fact that, that since discovered that that was like temperate and it was rainforest and stuff, and it magic.

Oh, it's metal magic. What was Scotland like? Oh my God, I need to start from the beginning. We've been everywhere. Like, I mean, you probably wanna start 500 million years ago, even though the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. We're not gonna go that far back in time because. Far back in time it was like a little bit too much Anyway.

Yeah. So I, or even like, like part of North America or I mean Panga, I think it was like there was one big mass continent, weren't they? There was Panga. Yeah. So Pangea was the last super continent before and it was like around 250 million years ago. And we were part of North America, well joint up to North America and Norway and all that.

Basically that's split apart. Mm-hmm. Like obviously due to the North Atlantic Ocean split and open. Yeah. You had like shallow kinda season that like during the Triassic and Jurassic periods. In the Cretaceous periods as well. But right at the end of Cretaceous period there was a lot of volcanism that you can see, which is 65 million years ago.

Like there's a lot of volcanism associated with the split above Pania, like that you can see on like the west coast of Scotland. But if you were to go right back in time, we sat like south of the equator, like probably a thousand million South, south. Wow. But near the South Pole. So we were at like close to the South Pole maybe a thousand million years ago.

And you had like all of the deposition of like the rocks and make up the highlands? Yeah. Like of Scotland. So the Northwest Highlands and the Highlands Thes Moines Super group and the D Radian super group. Those are all originally sedimentary rocks that were laid down horizontally. Mm-hmm. But then they've been squeezed and pushed into like different positions and they've been all folded in that during the, which was 400, no, 390 million years ago.

But we've kind of drafted and moved northwards like throughout. You know, geological time and there's been certain pinpoints throughout that time as well. But it'd be hard to like hide and try to think like, so first set of rocks that you get, which are the oldest rocks in Scotland are up to 3 billion years old.

Right? But that's like way too far back in time. And I can't even remember where we were like on the map of like the earth during this period of time. But if you were to move on and like split up like, 'cause Scotland's made up of different geological terrains and it gets really complicated and that's why Scotland's so interested in Cool.

When it comes to geology. 'cause those geological terrains are separated by main fault lines. Like for instance, the Highland boundary fault lines separates, you know, the Midland Valley terrain that we're in just now in the ine, not deriding, but the Central Highlands terrain. Honestly, I don't even know where to start with it.

I'm having baby rain now. I'm like, oh my goodness. Oh that's so, but we basically moved northwards at one point. We sat at the equator, like during the carbon office paid 330 odd million years ago. This, this is where you get all of your core measures and all of your, uh. Oil in that as well formed like during that time, like, or well, some, some oil.

What is oil? Exactly. Then oil's just dead hangs like that. That was, I usually you find oil with the source rock for oils like shale, so like. Shas formed in like, you know, you can get shale forming in like deep marine environments and lakes and stuff like that as well. Just at the bottom it's just mud essentially.

Like shale is mud, but it's got, it's high in organic material. So that's usually what oil is. And usually like as well, like the shale is very impermeable, so it locks oil in. And the only way to kinda get it out is if you get faulting then stuff like that, of that layer of she, but then the oil migrates and it'll go into, for instance, sandstone, which sandstone's very permeable.

Right. And they like sandstone like, or the oil guys like sandstone, you know, because back in the day they'd be like, oh my God, we found a great big reservoir and it's got all this oil in it and we're gonna like. Take it all out the ground and use it, you know? But that's the thing as well. There's a lot of controversy to do oil and gas and coal.

And the thing is you can't just, 'cause there's obviously a lot of protests and stuff like that as well. And we're trying our very best to be as sustainable as we can. I mean, I know that there's certain countries that aren't, you can't just like stop everything. It would cause like a whole apocalypse or something like that if you were to just stop taking oil out of like every, they're trying to move on, you know, and come up with different, like, it's such a controversial subject.

Oil. So besides all the. You know, the views on, you know, fossil fuels and burning it and stuff like that. But does the extraction of that cause problems for the earth in terms of like sometimes it can, especially when it comes to like fracking and stuff and that's why fracking's banned like in UK I think.

Yeah. Is it banned in the UK or is it just Scotland? Because remember years ago they spoke fracking course that, yeah, yeah. Because when you, when you start messing and fracking as in fracture and opening pieces of the crust, it's going to cause issues, you know? Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, like it was just something that kind of came out that was a little bit not new.

I think it had been around for a while and they, they had been doing it in America and that, and they were like, oh yes, it's got more oil at the ground. We need it, you know, but it is, it's hard because you get all these guys that are like up high in the, not the government, but in like, you know, like up high in these oil companies, like, and then you get all the other people that are like against it and then for it, like not for it.

I mean, I don't think there's many people that for it, but it's hard. It's a hard subject. When I, I had, I said I had on the first season a guy, Bruce Lyon, a geologist, and I think in that. Conversation. He was talking about ze Andia, like, uh, was last like seventh continent or something of That's beneath the, oh yeah.

That's a uh, and that's like apparently like rich in minerals and potentially oil and stuff like that. And there was a fight, I I, I, I can't remember the exact facts, but I'm sure it was like, I think it's in New Zealand that might have the rights to that and it's, you know, what's going happen. 'cause you know, it's, it could be like, it could be rich with all these minerals and that need them.

Yeah. And you just exploit that. Yeah. And what that does for the, for the planet stuff. Yeah. That's actually a subject because people are always gonna be for these things that are against them, but the way that, that humans live nowadays. Mm-hmm. And that's not just, you know, the guys that own the big oil companies and stuff of that.

That's everyone. When you look at, and you might not even realize it, you know, you're probably wearing oil. Yeah. You know, like Yeah, I know. I know. And it's, I mean, I, yeah, you're trying to protest. Like, I dunno, I just love each day as it comes, you know, I don't get too caught up in all of the controversy and stuff to do with it.

I know. I mean, I, and I, I try to be as sustainable as I can, you know, with that as well. Yeah. As it's, it's one of those hard, touchy subjects and you're just like. Oh, you see some of these stop oil protests and as I stand in front of our car, meeting someone late for work, just because you don't want like, yeah, there to be mean.

Are you an idiot? What the hell's going on with you? Spray paint, spray painting things and throwing like oil based paints on things and stuff. Yeah, silly. Like, like I'm just like, whatcha doing? Kayaking up a river? Being like, not so I knew me. I know, I know. It's, yeah, it's, yeah, it does get a lot, but, uh, there's always gonna be opinions on everything if people are gonna do what they think might make them happy and stuff, you know, and I'm just like, oh God.

So he's part of like, the ge the geology space. Then is there part of, is there any of your work leaning towards like, kinda climate, you know, not so, no. Like I don't, I I don't tend to really talk about it. I mean, a few people have. I've asked and said, would you talk about this? And for us to understand it can be quite divisive, isn't it?

Could be very, very, and I don't know if that's gonna affect, like, the way that people interpret how, I don't know, not interpret, what's the word I'm looking for? Like, I mean, it doesn't bother me. I've always followers or I give followers. I don't care. No, I don't. I've never, yeah. I've never really caught up in it all before, is like the following that I've gained.

I don't care. Like Yeah. I mean, I appreciate everyone that follows me. Mm-hmm. Because it's allowed me to do what I'm doing now. Yeah. And like, basically like I've left my job and everything I'm being thrown opportunities that I never thought I'd be doing before. F I'm talking about rocks for a living. I'm making videos about rocks for 11.

That's fantastic. And the process of spitting to publishers about writing books and stuff on just the geologist. Oh, just basic books, you know? Yeah. Fantastic. On the geo. I never thought I'd be writing a book, you know. Let's talk about that Louisa then. So you can rise to fame today. Yeah, we should probably, I know we went all back.

So the Scottish geologist then, so how did that, I mean, because it's quite quirky. It's cool. It is making it cool. So, so why, how did that come about then? Because it's like many documentaries, isn't it? It is. It's basically many clips, many documentaries speaking about the geology of Scotland and when I started it, I always wanted to do it even when I was at uni.

Yeah. I kinda, I always wanted to like make documentaries about, or geology, you know, 'cause I felt like there wasn't enough out there. Mm-hmm. And I noticed as well there was a de decline in the number of people that were coming to study at university. Okay. And I was like, hmm. How do we get the subject of geology out there?

Well, social media is one. Why don't I start making all these videos about rocks and see how it goes? And when I first came up with a name, like, you know, I was like, well, I'm a geologist and I'm Scottish, so why not? Like, I am proud to be Scottish, you know, like, and it was dead funny. I, I started it up like a year and a half, maybe 20 months ago now, more than a year and a half.

On March, 2023, I basically, I was in the northwest. I was with my mom and I gave her my phone. And she started recording me next to the rock face and I just winged it. I just started, I was like serious, like I can't even even remember what I was seen. Like these rocks behind me formed like 3 billion, blah, blah, blah.

And I did another video where it was me running towards these rocks and like, I basically was like, I think one of the first final videos I did was like, I'm holding my phone in selfie mode. And honestly, 'cause there's not much hidden involved or anything. Yeah. And I'm like, the worst thing about being a geologist is when you see a pretty rock face and you can't even park right next to it.

So you're having to park all the way down there and then you see me run into the rocks. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and I'm actually running with a phone in my hand. I'm like, I'm now running to the rocks. And then I get to the rocks. I start. Talking about them and people just thought it was funny and people thought it was educational and inspirational and also just really funny.

Yeah, because I, I'd honestly, I swear in everything in my, had I, it's really natural, I say because, and I speak in my accent, you know, I don't pretend to be someone else. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people, I had a few people comment at first, like one of my ex-partners was like, oh, you need to do it properly.

If you wanna make videos about rocks and, and about geology, you have to speak properly. So I'm like thinking, oh my God, I'm gonna have to stand next to these rocks and think. I can't even do it 'cause I'm not like, I mean I used to have one of those Glasgow University accents, but you know, you'd have to do it properly.

Like that rock formed a million years ago and you would lose. And I'd be like, that'd be fuck. That's so boing. Nobody's, that's, nobody's at school people. That's just like how teachers like teach you. I'm just like, that's not me. So I think it's like unique the way that I do it and stuff. And that's where it started building the flowers.

I think in the first three months, from April, 2023 to June, I gained a hundred thousand. That's wild. On like Instagram. And I was like, that's mad. I mean, it's slowed down now, right? So it's just steady. Yeah, I think it's because it's been steady this year, like for a while, and it's kind of just settled out.

Yeah. But that's because I've not really been pushing it. Yeah. And I've not like really had the time like to, well, I've had plenty of time not gonna lie to Right. Like I've just been lazy with it because I'm pregnant, like I'm blaming. Yeah. But you know, I'm quite happy being pregnant, you know? Yeah. And also the first 15 weeks of being pregnant were so hard.

I was like, oh my God, I'm a zombie. I can't be bothered. And I quit, obviously my full-time job this year as well in August and stuff like, not quit, but I left on good terms and stuff. How did that feel? It felt good. Really good. Does it feel like a leap of faith or you Oh my goodness, yeah. Like I could concentrate more on my business.

Like it is not just like the content, the social media side of things. It's also I've built up my own brand. Scottish geologist. Yeah. But it's good as well. 'cause I've built up like, and I've been able to like actually educate people in a way that's different. Like to a lot of like the tour companies that are in Scotland, they usually concentrate on the history of Scotland's castles or whatever, or the heritage.

I concentrate on the rocks. I'm like, do you wanna come on a geology tour with me? Oh, fantastic. Like, so that's where I started my company, which is called Scott Rock Works Geology Tour Limited. And the reason I called it that was because company's house wouldn't let me use the word Scottish really. But when you apply for a company, you have to basically get like written permission to use the word Scottish, like 'cause or it is seen with British or English.

Oh right, okay. Wow. It's um, I mean, I dunno how Scottish word I've done it. I might ask on, you know, but there's rules in place where if you start up your own company you can use specific words because I just wanted the Scottish GE Limited and I will still do that. Like, you know, once I get the written permission to do it, I will do that still Anyway.

So talk us through Scott Rock Walks, Scott Rock Walks. Yeah. Yeah. So talk us through that then. What was your first ever trip then? Did I do, I did the Scottish Highlands. I basically was last minute.com and I was like. I'm buying a mini bus and my partner's like, what? And I'm like, I'm, I'm doing it. I'm gonna start my entire company.

I wanna, I'm gonna take people out with me. Oh, I had to get, obviously like all of the paperwork in place and made sure that I had everything in place insurance wise, like, you know, public liability, hire, reward, insurance. You need to make sure that your company's set up properly to be able to take people out with you.

So I was like, in the process of doing that, I think I started the company in February and then March time was where I started looking at all the details, getting insurers, brokers to help me. And then I was like, shit, I need a van. Like, I want to actually take and drive the people around. And I, I had quite a, a lot of good advice from other people out there that have got a big phone, like Andy the Highlander, I don't know if you follow him, but he's ah, I do that.

He's got his own touring company. I remember going out on a tour with him and everything as well and just asking him quite a lot of questions about it. And he was really helpful, really nice, like about it and, and basically says, oh, you need this, this, and this, like in place. And I was like, okay. So I started getting this, this, and this in place in April 20.

This year was my first tour and I took people to the Scottish. Yeah, like just across the Scottish Islands up by Goldman. Oh yeah. Like stopped at like various different stops all the way up to Fort William. But it was a very long day, I'm not gonna lie like it. We went all the way around Fort Augustus and then back down the evening Uhhuh.

So after that first one I was like, I'm not gonna make it as big as that. 'cause I was looking at what other tour companies offered and stuff and they were like, oh yeah, we can take you around the Highlands, blah, blah, blah. But that is like a 10 hour, 11, 12 hour day. Yeah. Of all places. So I started coming up with my own tours and I was like, like, okay.

But it was really difficult to fit in because obviously I was working full time nine to five as an engineer and geologist. And that's what my background is like after uni and graduating in 2015, I went straight into the engineering sector, the civil engineering sector and the geology, engineering geology sector.

Did that for the last nine years. So it was really difficult trying to work a full-time job. Yeah. Do the content on this side and start up my own business. That's probably why as well. The content's kind of just came to like, you know, settled. It's tension, isn't it? Yeah. Like, because I'm spending more time doing all the other stuff.

But it's great because I take people not just on trips across the Highlands, but trips to the of mal aisle of Sky, like the Northwest Highlands. I've done trips, like I've started you own weekend trips than that. You've your own van and stuff like that. Then I've got one mini bus. Mini bus, sorry. Yeah. Well it's a bad, yeah, so I've Volkswagen Transport, it affects seven people and it include myself eight, you know.

Ah, brilliant. So. It's easy if I wanna take people away on trips up to the Northwest Islands, I can take seven people with me. Uhhuh. I've now started offering private tours, which is something that's, you know, for next year for people that want to come on a private tour with me, they can book on and like come and discover the Scottish islands or, and it's not just geology, you know, you're learning about how the land.

Forms and the landscapes form, and you're learning a little bit more because usually tours, unless you're about a really good tour guide, but usually they just dump you off at Glenco and they're like, Hey, everyone. Be back at the bus in like 10 minutes. And you're just kind of wondering about like, I wonder how these mountains formed Uhhuh.

Like, and then there's me like, that's just to be an old volcano back in the day, like 400. And like, you know, people just love it. They're like, oh yes. And they just wanna spend the day with me. Ah. So I have people that come and book on the tours that are just like, oh, love your enthusiasm. And that, and what I see, the people that are coming along, is it anybody?

A mixture of every, just everybody. There's nobody that's split scientists and all? No. Or just people that are interested in that? Just general. People there is every now and then a geologist, right? Yeah. But as it's opened up, like the world, like the general public to geology. Yeah. And they've never, oh, I've always wanted to have a geologist on my adventure, but I wish that, like we had one when we were hiking the West Island way, and I'm like, I'm not doing that.

I'm not doing that. I'm not doing there like West Island way. No, no. But you know, so it's something different. It's like, you know, specifically geology tours. And I offer not just like the bigger weekend tours or the one day trips, Uhhuh, there's also the, the afternoon tours I'm doing right now. So every Sunday I'll do usually an afternoon tour.

Yeah. Where people would meet me at the location. Or you could get transport from Glasgow. I'll always offer transport tickets because I've got the money bus, so why not? And if I'm traveling that way, I'll usually try through Glasgow. So I'll pick people up on the way there, transport them there. And usually we get a group of between.

Sometimes it can be like, well it depends on when I had advertising and stuff. 'cause I know it's during the summer I was doing things last minute and I was getting maybe five people every now and then. But, so it is like between five and 21 people that are coming on these trips. Yeah, that's incredible.

Meet me there. And they're always just fascinated to learn about their local geology in their area and, and learn a little bit more about how things have formed and meet me. Yeah, and you know, I spend a few hours with me, so I started, I started doing that. It was evening tours during the summer uhhuh and because obviously like the daylight hours and that you're restricted, that's just started turning them in afternoon tours.

So it's every Sunday I've been doing it, like for the last few weeks set from there. 'cause I was at the London Gym and Monroe show, but every Sunday I just take people out with me. It's like a walk and that you waste that a advertising and get maybe the, the Americans and stuff like that one too maybe.

Yeah. So I like there's, because like I do have, it's hard. See, when you use social media to advertise, it limits how many people can see it. Yeah, I know. So when you try push a post, like for instance, I've noticed on Facebook and Instagram, if I try to put a post up there that's to do with my company and to do with like a walk or a geology tour, it'll limit who sees it.

I see. And it's so annoying I've got, 'cause I've only just realized that when I put something up that's No. The Adventure Diaries brand on it. It gets more reach, but as soon as you get branded on it, it just limits. Yeah. Branded on it. I know it's because Yeah. And it's like, well you want to try and brand yourself and show.

Yeah. And it's like whatever. Biting, honestly, it just annoys me and frustrates me and I'm trying to think of a way that I can do it. I could just be, you know, standing next to a mountain Right. And just do a reel and I could be like, see these rocks. Do you wanna learn more about them? Yeah. What you can if you book a tour with me.

Right. And I could probably do it that way and it would get like, you know, I take on one of them 'cause I spent a lot of time down at Lock Loman. Me and my one. I think she'd love it. I've got one at Lock Loman this weekend, you know that. Oh have you on Sunday. Yeah. Omaha. Like at the other side, the lock Loman to actually go look out at the island boundary fault line.

So we're walking over like the, you've got the old red sandstone group which makes up the Midland Valley Uhhuh. And then you walk over the Highland boundary fault line like, and then you kinda cross into your metamorphic rocks. So I've done that walk a few times, but I thought, okay, like I've got a space this weekend.

What I'm gonna advertise, 'cause I've got all these different ideas, there's all these different localities, locations. I dunno why geologists like the call things localities. I know like my partner like thinks I'm mental. 'cause anytime I use that word he, he's like locations. I'm like localities. So yeah, there's all these locations like across Scotland that you could take people for a few hours and talk to them about the rocks and that.

So I've got, yeah, Alma has one of them and I've got like a list of places I'm gonna start putting them on the website now. Yeah. Excellent. For next year. I've already put my main weekend tours on the website and they're filling up quick. I've already got a few bookings for private tours from the Americans.

Yeah. Excellent. For next year, which is great. Like, you know, 'cause they just wanna come over and like some of them are geo, some of them are, you know, just general people that just wanna learn more and love Scotland and wanna have like a different kind of look on and take on Scotland. Yeah. You know? So what about your walks, Louisa?

Like you, 'cause you get two dogs, haven't you? I've got S of four. I have four dogs. Wow. Christ. I don't realize they're not honestly well. Yeah, I share my dogs with an ex. Ah. So it's a little bit complicated. Right. Okay. But my main dog, YDA that you see in all of the videos, is it Husky? She's a Uta Nain. So it is like a Uta nas, like a crossbred between a husky mal German Shepherd.

Right, right. Okay. It's like a UK breed. It's like Timbertown Northern in yet, like I will flag breed. They just bread. It's look like spreads all slow. You. That's, I was like, she's just mental. No, she's no mental. But um, I have a husky as well. Then I've got check as a vacuum wolf dog, which is the timid shy one that doesn't really go near people.

And then I have like the, my boy who's. Yu's brother, right? The black and white one. So I do, I have four dogs and people don't realize I have four dogs. So sometimes I'm out with old dogs in my adventures. Sometimes I've only got the two of them. Or sometimes I'll just have yuha. But Yu's a usual suspect in my videos.

She'll just stand next to me or she'll walk around and people walk yuha. So I usually include, if, if anyone wants Yuha to come along in the tour, you can take this box. If you don't want her to come along, then take no. Oh, that's great. So whenever people book on a, they have the option to include you there or not.

I was gonna say, because I've got you puppy as well, so I mean, that's hard work and the pu days. Oh, I know the puppies are hard, man. I remember try to bring two of them up at the same time and I was like, my God. So if I could bring two pups up, I could bring a baby up, you know? So I'm saying, but I think we're, um, so the dogs like, yeah.

Dog situation. Like I think once a baby comes here, I think like the dogs will be split for like, you know. Yeah. Like, it, it's, it's hard. 'cause you know, I love my dogs to pieces. They were like my wings to begin with. Yeah. And I've always loved my dogs like that, but I, I've always, yeah, yeah. You though will always be the usual culprit in the background of the videos and stuff.

Ah, fantastic. But I, I, I am not gonna have like four dogs and I, I Wayne like trying to do everything like oh my God, can people that have got dogs come along on the walk? Yeah. So, so basically I've says to people, 'cause I've had this question asked quite a lot, and obviously it gets a little bit complicated and stuff with that when it comes to like, dogs and people bringing dogs, like, but I just say to them, right, okay, your dog is your responsibility.

Yeah. It's under your control. Like, you have to make sure that's under control. So keep it on a lead. Like, you know, unless there's no other dogs or whatever there, but like, just be responsible. Yeah, I don't want anything happening to like anyone like, you know, that's booked onto the tour or that Yeah. Like, but I have had a few tours where there's been people that have brought their dogs along with them.

I've had no issues at all. Like, I just always say it's, you know, yeah, your dog, your responsibility. I'll bring you that if I've got her. 'cause sometimes she might be at my ex's or whatever. Yeah. And if everyone clicks yes to having you that like come on the tour like, and everyone loves it when you there's on because she just like wanders about and she'll just be like, I'm gonna roll in this seaweed on these rocks.

And I'm like, you're stinking in. And I'll talk it, I'll be talking about the rocks and then I'll just look at her and I'll be like, oh my god, you there, you And she just adds to it and people love it, you know? Yeah. The videos are Gate on Instagram's funny Mo about back. Brilliant. They're good dog. So like really good dog.

Have What kind of dog have you got? It's a Cockapoo Bailey. I, I'll show you four, wasn't it in a minute, but he's, he's not, he's not been too well, uh, recently. So when you mentioned Scottish water, oh no, I don't, might get canceled for saying this, but it was, he was, he was drinking the water up near one of the reservoirs and then he caught Jar I, for forget the sakes.

Yeah. So, uh, he, he's sickly, but he's, he's on the main now, so we might Oh, that's good. We both might join you in one of the box then at the local ones. Well definitely, there'll be more opportunities next year. I'll probably do it a few times next year stuff. Yeah. 'cause it's, well like it says, we're trying to keep it like kinda localized to where most of the population live, like in, you know, Scotland.

'cause when you start going out into the Highlands, even though people do go visit the Highlands and visit the Iowa sky and that like in, it's in the summertime, but it's, you know, like it's doing like the many trips up that way would be more difficult. So that's why it's like the longer trips and stuff for people that do, yeah.

Have you any aspirations are doing stuff abroad? Any, oh, maybe one day I'd love to take people to Iceland. Yeah. But I have to make sure that as well, like my insurances, et cetera. Yeah. Everything was covered in them, but they'd obviously have to get their own holiday insurance and stuff, you know? Yeah. But it's all these, you know, factors that you need to kinda consider when you are taking people out on tours.

And I just, the, the number one thing for me is make sure everyone's safe. Yeah. Because, you know, you could be on a, a walk like down, like the beach or whatever, or not the beach, but like walking down a gorge. And I always make sure that I have like risk assessments in place. Like, see, because I was so used to when I worked in the ground investigation industry, uhhuh, like you always had risk assessments in place, ah, and, and all of this health and safety documentation.

Yeah. And you get people to sign on a Right. Like, you know, saying that they understand the risks involved. Right. Like, you know, so I always do that at the beginning of each like tour that I do because I just wanna make sure that everyone's aware, like, and if they don't feel safe at any point, if we're going down, for instance, and like the rocks can be slip.

Yeah. Like, you know, you don't want something to happen on these tours and then for someone to sue you, like, oh my God, I'm not doing that. I follow the rules, I do everything properly when it comes to doing it because I don't want, you know, injuries. I don't want someone to hurt themself. And I say to people, listen, like, yeah.

You know, we're try, we're gonna do this like as you know, safely as possible. We don't feel safe then. Fair enough. Where's your favorite location outside Scotland? Is it Iceland? I say it's Iceland. Yeah. Iceland's my favorite country. Yeah. I mean, I mean, Scotland does, but like Iceland, like it's my same favorite country.

Yeah. Honestly, that place is absolutely amazing. It's out this world and I'm just like. Yeah. Oh my God, there's so much to take in, and all the waterfalls and all the scenery and all, like all the glaciers. You can go touch a glacier and be like, one of these used to be in Scotland. I know. I, I fancy going and do some kayaking around some of that stuff at end time, so I'd love to go other places.

I mean, I've only been like, I mean, I'd love to go to Norway. Oh, Norway amazing. Norway's Massac second favorite country. Oh, my. God's fantastic. It's, it's on the list, you know? Yeah. One day. Uh, it's just like, it's dramatic. It's like the crash size and like the, we went kayaking up the fjords. Oh my. And you're like, and it's just, there's a lot of places you can't actually land.

'cause, and it's just, you're just like, and it's just phenomenal. Oh, I'd love to do that. I'm trying to get like a partnership with a cruise company then I Yeah. Oh yeah. For next year. Honestly, I just, I, I don't take the piss out of it. Yeah. I just like, if you don't ask, you don't get, you know, so a lot of cases, if there's something that I'm kinda like, you know, needing or that, like, I'll be not cheeky, but I'll just be like, yeah.

Yeah. So I was wondering if you wanted to do a collaboration of some sort. Um, I've got all these followers, blah, blah. Yeah. Why, why not? You know, I mean, why not? Yeah. It's, it's amazing. So you, your.

So moving into closing traditions, then just three closing traditions. So pay it forward. A called adventure is a, a quick fire section. So pay it forward is an opportunity for you just to raise awareness for a charity or project a worthy cause. So anything that might be important or dear to your heart.

So as a pay it forward recommendation, what would you say? Louisa? Honestly, I don't have one. Like I'm really sorry. No, no. Well, because I read that earlier and I was like, I've never really thought about that question. So that's something like, that I should really look into because I, I don't like, yeah, I wouldn't, I could No that, but that's perfectly, that's perfectly fine because I've never really done anything for that.

But I want to do more of that so I could, and also I've got baby brain right now. Nah, that's understandable. Yeah, right. Okay. So the, the second one is a call to adventure. So an opportunity for somebody to go and do something adventurous outdoors could be. Got Rock Walk, for example. Yeah. Come along. One matters.

Yeah. No, I, I'd recommend getting out as much as possible, especially across the Highlands of Scotland. Yeah. And next time you are out, like look at the rocks. Yeah. 'cause they're so interesting. Yeah. You see, if you get, honestly, if you get to the aisle of like Lewis and Harris, uh, or if you're going to like the Northwest Islands mm-hmm.

Even at, you know, places like at Melvic Bay, like the that, or even ess Oh, Melvic Bay. Yeah. If you go to duress, one of the beaches at duress, like, oh my God, you look at these rocks and you're like. What's happened to these? They look like they've melted. Yeah. Wow. Like, oh, it's beautiful. Do you get people sending you pictures of rocks and rock?

I do all the time. Yeah. But I just don't, and I wish I had more time in my hands to actually go through it and answer everyone, because I would love to help everyone with their queries on rocks and rock formations. But unfortunately there's only so much time in the day, so I have like obviously an automatic message sent off.

Yeah. And I do say, if you're really, really wanting to know, you know, contact me by email and every now and then I do get an email sent through like, of Watch This Rock, or what's that like, or whatever. But most cases it's just always pictures through either Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook being like, can you tell me what this is?

And now I've lost track of my messages. Yeah. Because I get so many separate through. I can imagine with that. Yeah. Like just I can imagine with that. Yeah. That the size and scale that you're following. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I, I mean, yeah, I can imagine you probably get loads of collaboration with s sometimes I miss things as well.

Yeah. And usually it's good things like, oh, do you wanna stay here? Like, and, and I'm like. Fuck. Well, yeah, I don't see that message till like six months later, but I mean, or sometimes it's, yeah, it's, it's hard to keep track of it. Yeah. So I tend to just have the automatic message sent set up because I do as well, I get a lot of inquiries for tours and stuff through that as well.

And people will message me being like, do you do tours or do you do geology tours? Or, or do you do like this? You know, or have you got any talks on, or where can I get like, rock these rocks or, yeah, because I've made up recently. I made, or are you doing workshops and stuff? 'cause that's the next step as well.

It's not just gonna be what I'm doing now, but I want to introduce like generalized workshops for people to come along on. And learn basics about rocks like in geology. I did that talk last year and it was in a pub in Glasgow and it was really good. There was 50 people at it, and this is the only time I ever really did this.

And you know, it was like chargeable as well, like, you know, so it like, ah, good ticketed and stuff. So it wasn't like, 'cause I, I do put a lot of time and effort into like, things and stuff and it's taken me a while to realize that my time is, you know, worth. You need to, yeah, you need to kind of come up with rates.

If someone's gonna ask you, oh, can you come and do a talk here about these or whatever, I usually have to send through rates being like, yeah, this is how much is going? Well, especially now that you, you're going sold your business a few, one, yeah, basically I need to look after myself. I kind of just live off monopoly money, like, you know what I mean?

Like, so I kind of fought up with the charity one though. But like I would probably like say to people like, 'cause you know dogs and that mean a lot to me. Like, and it would probably be something to do with like dogs or even like a lot of the bigger dogs for instance, like the Huskys and the Malamutes and the German Shepherds, they all get kind of thrown to the side sometimes and abandoned because people don't know how to bring them up or look after them.

Like, so that would probably be my choice. Yeah. Or either a breast cancer charity of some sort. 'cause that means a lot to me. 'cause my mum. Yeah, like went through and had breast cancer. Right. Excellent. Yeah, that's that. I don't know. No, that's bit, so, uh, just to, to kinda round out then, so it's bringing it to a close.

So this is a quick fire round and I need, I need my notes for this 'cause I can never remember the 10 questions. It's the only questions that actually I write down. So this is just a we back, I've never done this on the radio and it was dead funny. I got seven outta 10 and it was really right. Like I didn't think I would get like seven outta 10.

So isn't actually a quiz. So I'll read the out a quiz. Right. Okay. Cool. So 10 questions. So Louisa, you've got an opportunity to have a dinner party with two guests, dead or alive. Who would they be? Can this be anyone? Anybody dead or alive? Okay. So I'd pick like Brian Cox, like, 'cause he's cool as fuck. Sorry.

Excellent. And my other one would be Ian Stewart, who's like a geologist, like professor. Like they also did documentaries. Okay. On geology like 10, 15 years ago. Yeah, I picked them too because I just wanna be like, they. Tell me what I need to do to get into the, you know, get me on your program Can on, what's the funny story?

You've got relating to geology. Oh my God. Um, there's this terminology in geology where you use the word cleavage and people like kind of laugh at that all the time. Yeah. But a cleavage, like for instance, a slate has a cleavage plane that's formed on it. 'cause what happens over time is when you get a metamorphic rock and you, you start squeezing and pushing it, like, and it starts f Yeah.

It forms a cleavage. And this is why it breaks slowly, smoothly along the cleavage. I don't know, that's not really funny, but it's just a work That's funny. Well, it's for the immature like myself, so, yeah. So has cleavage. Third question is, do you have a hidden talent? I can solve a Rubik's cube. Can you?

Mm-hmm. Oh. Oh, I wish I brought one. I could do it in five minutes. Oh wow. That I'm gonna put up a d up actually doing it. You should. So see, when I was a wee Ghe. Like I, I got one, like, just like, you know, from like one of the museums or that, like my dad, I just says my dad, I want one of them. And you know how it comes with a wee book that tells you how to solve it?

I memorized all the algorithms. Right. Oh wow. That's amazing. Like, can learn how to use, solve it and it's always stuck in here. Yeah. So whenever someone asks me, what's your special, you know Yeah. Fact about yourself or what's your I'm like, I can solve a Rubik cube. You give me a Rubik cube back stop. And you know what?

I'll do it. Uh, so number four, what's your favorite movie? Oh my God. Oh, back to the Future. Oh, thought I thought you were gonna see Armageddon. No, I was, I was gonna say Arm again, but then I remembered Bit back to the Future. What's your favorite book? Oh man, A Harry Potter. Oh, excellent. I dunno what one I could to tell you what one.

Yeah. What's the, the, the last music gig you went to? What did I go to last? It was a long time ago. Yeah, it was before COVID. Wait a minute. I actually don't know. Wait minute. It was like what they called again, it was a band. 'cause I used to listen to all this rap music and I went my, on my exes. Fuck. I remember what they called.

If it comes back to you, if you could snap your fingers and be anywhere doing anything right now. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I'd be next to that volcano that was erupting, like with a lab. I sp out like trying to get samples of it. So that was quick. No, that's fine. Or can I run a time anyway? So what scares you? I'm weird.

I don't, I don't know. Yeah. Because I'm quite like, I don't like being sick. Yeah. So see thrown up physically, that scares me. Oh god. Yeah. This is something I've noticed recently being pregnant. I mean, I've not been thrown up physically been pregnant, but I'm, I'm all out with spiders and snakes and all that.

I see. If I was invited on, yeah. I'm a celebrity, I probably would win it because I'm just quite like, oh my god, that's like these And they're just, people are just like. Okay. But yeah, like I, yeah, I don't like throwing up. Yeah. That scares me. What's the, so number nine, what's the wildest rumor or myth you've ever heard relating to geology?

Oh, when people go on about the massive flood and how the, all the rocks were deposited and the massive flood, the, the earth, the flatness of the earth. Oh, flat earth. The fire. That's the, I see. When I meet someone like that, I'm just like. Right. And then finally to round out what's the best advice you've ever received?

Be yourself. Don't let anyone ever tell you to be someone else. Yeah. Fantastic. Like always be yourself. Yeah. Like there's no point in pretending that to be someone else. I, I remember being, you know, in school and that, and thinking like, oh, I have to be this way. I have to put makeup on. I have to put that.

And there's so much, like, there's so much influence, like obviously online from social media and stuff like that. Yeah. Like of people having to be a certain way. Yeah. Like, you can't eat. No. Like, do you see me like trying to be a certain way? No, I don't even care, like what people think about me. You know, especially like being so prevalent on like, likes of TikTok and Instagram.

I think it's a really important message that people should hear. Yeah, definitely. You don't need to conform to any anyones, but just be yourself and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Just constantly just, I, I just, honestly, I go about my day just like. Yeah, that's a, a brilliant way to round it out.

Then. So where can everybody find out more about Louisa Hendry or Scottish geologist? See, if you just google Scottish geologist, it comes up with me straight away. It's meant, oh, it tells people now that I'm an internet personality, I'm just like, what's an internet personality? Googling your own name, even when you Google Louisa Henrick comes up with a Scottish geologist.

Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic Madness. I never thought I'd be, you know, like on like even, I mean it's great 'cause my website's coming up and that, and that's where you can book tours, but like yeah, like, yeah, just, I, I, Scottish geologist is mo most of my names on TikTok and that I think Twitter's or X, it's only one where I can have Scottish Georges.

'cause it doesn't like you with a character limit. I couldn't fit in Scot, so I had to use Scot Geos and I'm just, lets not the team. Yeah, we'll get all that listed then and that's, uh, bringing it to your close. Thanks Wea. It's thanks for having me. It's been great. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode for the show notes and further information.

Please visit adventure diaries.com/podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.