Another day of the weather being kind to us today. Although I could hear rain on the tent when I woke up, it turned out to be bone dry outside and I can only assume it was some midges dive bombing the tent.
I was a bit peeved to find that I had managed to sunburn my face yesterday. I've put some sun block on today but it was a bit late really. Claire keeps laughing at me but I don't think she's realised that her nose is bright red too in between the freckles.
I had been looking forward to blogging about the SteriPen. This is a magic wand type device that you switch on, dip into a mug or bottle of water and it shines a magic light into the water that kills all the bad stuff. Unfortunately, SteriPen's batteries ran out this morning so I'm unable to rave about how wonderful it is in today's blog.
Luckily, Claire had packed for all eventualities and produced two little bottles of water sterilising solution which work just as well. They do make the water taste disgusting, and we wish we hadn't audited out the fruit cordial when packing the food.
We were still paddling into the wind for most of the day although it wasn't as strong as yesterday. We spotted a beach to stop for elevenses, only to find that there was a canoe already there! We felt a bit bad gatecrashing but stopped anyway, at the other end of the beach.
This was the first other boat we'd seen since starting the trip, except a daily sightseeing boat.
After a while a woman came over and said hello, she was doing a one way trip the opposite way to us, all on her own! Her boyfriend had gone mountain biking so she'd decided to go wild camping in the canoe.
We swapped a few tips on camp sites etc. and she paddled off with the wind behind her.
Interesting that the only other canoeist we've seen so far has also been a girl.
We paddled on to quite a big beach just past a tiny village called Polloch. Apparently Polloch is not pronounced quite how it looks, it's "Poll-och". Sounds like people called Shufflebottom pronouncing it Shuffle-botham to me.
We haven't got as far as the burial ground island yet. We've decided to do that tomorrow. We had a little route based discussion over lunch. We weren't quite sure at the start of the trip whether it was going to be a return trip round the loch, or a one way trip including the river and part of the sea loch at the end. Both have their pros and cons, but we've decided to go with the return trip. We think it will be better for camping and we don't know much about the river and sea section, and are a bit nervous of falling in.
After lunch, it was bath time, and Claire was very nearly caught naked by two men fishing in a motor boat that was so quiet I think it was designed for sneaking up on campers. I was more cautious with my exposure during my wash.
We're having another camp fire today by the shore. I don't think we'll stick it out as long as last night as it is already quite chilly and it's only 8pm.
We've got no phone signal here so can't check the weather forecast. Last time we checked it was meant to be raining tomorrow.
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Location:Loch Shiel
I want a SteriPen.
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