We got up at 5am today! Shocking I know, especially for two people on holiday who are rather partial to lie ins at the best of times. The reason being that, according to The Met Office, between 3am and 6am there was to be hardly any wind, and after yesterday's experience that could only be a good thing.
When the alarm went off, Claire caved in first and went outside to check the wind and wave conditions. She returned a short while later, reporting that it was perfect. So we packed up, had some proper scots porridge made with peat stained water out of the spring, and off we went.
And yes, the weather was, for once, perfect. The wind had dropped to a mere breeze, and had changed direction so it was behind us. We made amazingly fast progress, and by 10.30 had made it almost back to Glenfinnan. The same journey coming the other way into the wind had taken at least twice as long. it was so easy going that I had a go at sitting at the back of the boat and doing the steering, which was surprisingly disaster free.
We'd planned to stop on a particular beach about an hours paddle from Glenfinnan, to camp overnight.
This beach is ideal in many ways. It's just the right size, has a flat area for the tent, some trees for shelter, plenty of driftwood for a camp fire, a small spring for drinking water, and a bigger stream with a bath formation in the rocks for washing in.
So despite the fact that we were here far too early, we're sticking with the plan and staying overnight, as we've got to stay somewhere anyway.
Whilst here, and having a bit of time on my hands, it has become apparent to me that we have been a bit slow on the uptake this week.
For example, we've both spent the whole week moaning about bad backs from sitting on the ground. We've both been dying for a backrest. Today it occurred to me that an upside down canoe would be ideal, and we have spent the last few hours sitting in relative comfort leaning on the boat.
Secondly, about half way through the trip we realised that we were going to have to ration the teabags. This is bad enough in itself, but even worse in this case because we'd actually bought more whilst killing time at Loch Lomond, but decided during the food audit we could manage without them and left them in the car! It has taken us until today, when we were down to our last 4 teabags to think of having slightly weaker tea by sharing a teabag instead of having one each.
Tomorrow night we're booked into a hotel in Dumfries. We're both looking forward to it immensely. We've enjoyed our wild canoe camping trip a lot (most of the time), but are both feeling achey and, to name just a few, are looking forward to a hot shower, chairs, food that requires a proper kitchen to cook and a well earned drink in the bar.
Of course, we're not looking forward to the fact that tomorrow is technically the start of the journey south to home.
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Location:Loch Shiel
Despite your tales of poor tea rations and the bad backs I am still very, very jealous!
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