Last Day

Friday 14th September 2012

We were reasonably successful today in getting up early and going to the beach. We got up early, but gave ourselves a bit of leighway (i.e extra breakfast) when we realised it was not as hot as yesterday. I think we were probably on the beach for about 10am though.
When we got there, we took the unprecedented step of hiring two sunloungers under a thatched parasol for the day, which turned out to be money well spent.

We spent the morning reading and napping, and following the shade cast by the parasol. After lunch, we did a bit of sunbathing and finally plucked up courage to go in the sea, which wasn't that cold really.

We've been doing a bit of people watching on the beach. NOT perving, before you start getting the wrong idea. It was not that sort of crowd at all.
First of all, we have noticed that there is a generally accepted beach etiquette when it comes to topless women. It seems to be perfectly acceptable for women to sunbathe topless, but not to walk around topless, and certainly not go swimming or play beach volleyball etc. topless. We think that this is mainly because there would be rather a lot of overexcited men on the beach at all times.
Secondly, again in connection with topless women I'm afraid, there was a group of women sunbathing near to us. They were all in their 50's at least, and I'm surprised they weren't dead from skin cancer yet. They seemed to be on a mission to expose every inch of skin to every ray of sunshine for the entire time they were on the beach (sunrise to sunset I think). They even filled bottles from the sea after swimming to wash the sand off themselves so they didn't get an uneven tan.
They looked like prunes to me, and would have been a good advert for how not to sunbathe unless you want to die early. I'm ashamed to day, I think they were British. Claire thinks they were Irish, but the Irish have got even more lily white skin than us so that makes it even worse.

We went back to our apartment at about 3.30pm as we we worried we might be getting sneaky sunburn. We went via the chemist to get me some hydrocortisone cream as my skin has rebelled at all the suncream I've been using and come out in a rash that looks contagious. Hopefully it will be useful in getting to the front of queues on our way home tomorrow. I must learn the Portuguese words for Scabies and Leprosy.

We went out to eat tonight at what we have decided is the best restaurant in Cababanas - D'Ines. It is also the nearest to our apartment. As I mentioned yesterday, I was in charge of picking Claire's food for her, to avoid food envy. I picked "fillet steak on stone" for both of us. Claire was surprised and excited to find that this was a piece of raw steak and a very hot stone on a piece of wood to cook it on! It was delicious and Claire finally enjoyed her meal as much as I did. We then went on to have puddings, espressos, and cocktails, and are now feeling very full.

We've done most of our packing for tomorrow. We have to leave the apartment at about 9am, which is quite a good time really as it won't be too hot then. We'll be sad to go. We wish we could have stayed for longer,but we couldn't fit it in with work. But I've always been told that it's good to go home from a holiday wishing you could stay longer.
I'm sure we will come back here, but we are going to try and go somewhere different for our lazy sunny holiday next year, in the interests of research.


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Location:Cabanas

The dawn chorus

Thursday 13th September 2012

We were up before the crack of dawn today, pedalling down to the salt flats. We had a cup of tea and a bit of breakfast first but we were still pretty hungry by the time we got there. We were both a bit grumpy, especially me, as I hadn't slept very well. I never do when I know I have to up early.
Both of us were suffering from a distinct lack of energy, particularly in the legs, but we just about made it there in time to see the sun rise at 7.11am.
The temperature at that time in the morning was lovely. We were wearing shorts and T shirts but we were warm enough. It was nice not to have any sunscreen on.


After the sun came up we had a ride round looking for birds. I don't think there are as many birds here as there were last year, but we spotted quite a few flamingos, a couple of spoonbills, and an assortment of poking birds. We didn't see any storks though.


We had a cinnamon bun thing, which seems to be a portuguese specialty and then headed back before it got too hot.


We were back at our apartment by about 9.30, and I was fast asleep having a power nap (for 2 hours) by 10.30!
By the time I got out of bed it was absolutely boiling outside. We didn't make it to the beach, it was so hot we couldn't motivate ourselves to walk there. So we spent the afternoon in the shade of the trees in the gardens, reading books. Claire had another nap because her morning nap hadn't been as satisfying as mine. I toughed it out and made it through without nodding off.

We've been to a local sea food restaurant this evening. We went there last year and it was good, so we decided to go back. My meal was delicious (more octopus!), but Claire had food envy again over the main course. She also ordered a "creamy shellfish soup" as a starter, in the hope it would be like the chowder we loved in America. The soup turned out to be the most disgusting food we'd ever smelt. Claire said it tasted just as bad, but I refused to try it.
We've agreed that I'm going to pick our meals tomorrow so there'll be no food envy on the last night!

To avoid a repeat of today's heat induced laziness, we are getting up early (but not as early as today) and catching the first boat to the beach at 9am. That way, we'll be there before it gets to hot to walk there. I'm not quite sure how we're going to get back, but maybe the thought of air conditioning will spur us on.


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Location:Cabanas

Hot and sticky

Wednesday 12th September 2012

It has been oppressively hot today. We're glad we went somewhere today, because if we hadn't then we would have wished we had. But conversely, in hindsight, we probably would have been better off spending the day locally and going to the beach where there is a nice breeze and lots of sea to cool you down and distract you from how hot it is.

We set out on the bikes for Tavira at about 1pm. The ride there wasn't as hot as I expected as there was a bit of a breeze, but it was roasting in the town.
When we got there, we spent a while deciding where to have lunch. The first place we picked didn't take MasterCard so, much to their annoyance, we got up and went elsewhere, despite their pleas that we just go to the cash point next door.
I've spent quite a while in the past researching the cheapest way to spend money abroad, which is on a particular credit card that doesn't rip travellers off with countless fees and charges (Post Office MasterCard if you're interested). We always take some cash too, but we've spent most of that already hiring kayaks and bikes where cash was the only option. This is the first time that we wish we'd taken more cash, as normally we have to force ourselves to spend it in the last couple of days.

We eventually settled on a small cafe called Tavira Lounge which was by the river, opposite the place we ate yesterday, and accepted MasterCard.

This turned out to be a very good choice, and was perfect for lunch (but maybe not quite as good if you're going in the evening). We had to follow the shade round our table as it was too hot to be in the sun. We had a selection of tapas and salad and a couple of lunchtime beers, which was all surprisingly cheap.
There were a couple of English women eating a few tables down from us. I did a bit of eavesdropping and concluded that they'd come on holiday following the breakdown of one of the women's relationship with her husband, who had been abusing her emotionally for donkey's years.
There were no other interesting diners, and no weird man / thief lurking in the background.

By the time we'd finished lunch it was about 3.30pm and was stiflingly hot. We dragged ourselves up the hill to visit the camera obscura, which we went to last year. The same man was doing the commentary (as he has been for the last 8 years I think). He was just as odd as last year, if not odder. We didn't get as much camera obscura history from him this year but I think he let his stalking side slip a bit more than last year when he lingered on some people and buildings for a little too long, with a manic look in his eyes.

When the stalking lesson was over we had an ice cream and a glass of warm orange juice. It was very nice and orangey but would have been a thousand times better if it was ice cold. After that, Claire started peering hopefully into a gallery of some sort, until I flounced off, threatening to keel over. We lay on the grass under a tree in a park by one of the many converted convents for an hour, by which time I'd cooled down enough to walk back down the hill for a diet coke before the ride back.

I've come to the conclusion that on days like today when there's no breeze, I may be better off not wearing sunscreen, and just wearing a thin long sleeved shirt. It's been too hot to be in the sun, so I wouldn't be getting a tan anyway. Sunscreen has the effect of suffocating my skin, making me even hotter, really sticky, attracting dust and sand, and giving me a rash. I will try it one day.

We got back without getting lost, overheating, or having any bike mishaps. There weren't many birds to be seen on the way back, so we think we must have been a little too early for them.

We only realised after getting back that we haven't take a single photo all day!

Tomorrow we're getting up really early to cycle to the salt flats to see the sunrise, and hopefully see and hear all the birds waking up.
Then we're going to the beach to make the most of the cooling breeze and sea.


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Location:Tavira

The French Connection

Tuesday 11th September 2012

We had a lie in this morning and then I spent quite a while washing all the salt encrusted clothes from yesterday. We stocked up at the supermarket and then stuffed ourselves with food before setting off on the bikes to Tavira.

The bikes are pretty ancient and in need of some TLC. Or replacing, which would probably be cheaper. It appears that the previous users of both our bikes only used the middle sprocket at the front, the result being now that the chain slips if you use that sprocket when standing up on the pedals. I found this out to my embarrassment when we went up a slight hill at our resort and the chain slipped, plunging me forwards, into a massive swerving wobble, stopping within inches of a rather surprised young French man with perfect teeth. Fortunately he saw the funny side of it, but gave me rather a wide berth afterwards.

So we've had to manage just using the big sprocket which makes going up hills rather difficult. I've considered complaining, but have decided against it as it will be too complicated.

We made it into Tavira without any more near misses with fellow holidaymakers, and even found a shortcut which bypassed the big road bridge with the killer hill.

We had a wander round Tavira and Claire took some photos. We spotted a hoopoe flying overhead whilst eating ice lollies. A hoopoe is a very exotic looking bird with a big crest, which we've never seen before. There was an amusing moment in the castle when Claire had to go down some stone steps on her bum because she was scared of falling. I know I've mentioned this at least once before in previous blogs, but I still can't get my head around how she once got a job as a climbing instructor.









There was a weird man who may have been following us. Claire thinks he was hoping to steal her camera. He turned up at the restaurant we ate at and was just loitering. He would have ended up in the river if he'd tried anything, but I think he thought better of it and disappeared.

There seemed to be a lot of couples having domestics in Tavira today. I don't know whether it was because today has been hotter than yesterday and they were all a bit hot and bothered. We didn't really have a domestic although I did get a bit grumpy when Claire got us lost on the way home later.

We ate in the same restaurant as last year, mainly because we were having trouble deciding where to go. I blame this on the guide book. We have no trouble choosing in Cabanas, there aren't that many restaurants so we just pick one that looks OK from the outside, and we have always found they are all lovely. However, when you have a guidebook in your pocket containing recommendations, it becomes far more difficult. You start to question why the other restaurants didn't make it into the guidebook, and then when you do eat at one from the book, you're probably more critical than you would be otherwise.
Anyway, the restaurant tonight was called Beira Rio. The main things it had going for it as far as we were concerned was that it was nice and peaceful and right by the river, and had a cat who befriended Claire. I think a lot of other people liked it because it had a menu written only in English, served a lot of English food, was attached to an Irish bar, and had football on a TV screen outside. The points in the second sentence were drawbacks from our point of view. Tomorrow we are leaving the guidebook behind.






We rode back to Cabanas in the pitch black along the cycle trail, which is a track perilously close to the water's edge. We'd done the same thing last year so had taken the precaution of taking head torches this time. They made it slightly better but still a bit scary.

Tomorrow we are going into Tavira for lunch and more of a look round, before cycling back through the salt flats in the evening before it gets dark, doing some bird watching.

The evening has ended with the sighting of a hedgehog in the garden. I was amazed to find out that Claire had never seen one before, except for pancake shaped ones on the road. This one had much lighter coloured prickles and was much more of a poser than the ones back home.



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Location:Tavira

Tasty Tentacles

Monday 10th September 2012

We woke up to the alarm clock this morning and didn't want to get out of bed. We soon found out that my travel alarm clock has a snooze interval of 4 minutes compared to the 8 minutes of my one at home. I wasn't impressed but we dragged ourselves out of bed after about 2 1/2 snoozes when we couldn't bear the thought of another one.

After coating all the exposed bits of skin in 6 hour water resistant factor 30 sunscreen we headed over to reception to get a taxi.
Apart from tailgating, and being on his mobile phone at the same time as driving on the pavement, and giving the impression of not really knowing where we were going, the taxi journey was fine. When we arrived, the driver dropped us off a bit further down the road than we wanted to go because he'd just washed his taxi and didn't want to get it dusty on the car park!
He surprised us by asking how we were getting back later, and promising to pick us up at 6pm, reinforcing this with numerous "don't worry's".

We collected our kayak and were soon on the water.
The kayak was a sit on top kayak, which in my opinion is a cross between an open canoe and a kayak (which is closed in). I think they're popular because they're idiot proof. If you capsize, the boat won't sink, will hardly fill with water, and you can't really get stuck underneath or inside it. On the downside, they do seem rather heavy and you get wet. Especially if you sit at the back like Claire did!


The water we were paddling on was a section of sheltered sea between the main coast and the numerous sandbar beach islands here. When we set off it was very calm with hardly any wind. We made good progress, although were a bit disappointed by the lack of waterfowl, and stopped at a town called Santa Luzia for lunch. Santa Luzia is known for serving the best octopus on the Algarve. We parked the boat outside a restaurant on the seafront called "Casa do Polvo" and found ourselves a table where we could watch for boat thieves.

We soon discovered that the menu was entirely in Portuguese, with no English translation or even clues. Fortunately, a friendly waitress who we think was German or Dutch saw us looking perplexed and said "do you need help?". Claire was scared of trying octopus because she'd had a previous bad (rubbery) experience so opted for lamb chops. I was up for it and left myself to the mercy of our multilingual waitress who recommended grilled octopus.

Our food arrived, and Claire had serious food envy after trying one of my tentacles. My meal was probably the best I've had in Portugal this year or last and is definitely recommended. We'd be going back if it was nearer.


We headed back towards our start point. The tide had turned and there were a lot more poking birds on the shore. The wind had picked up and was in our favour so it was easy paddling. We went just past where we started out and landed on a beach for a while and did some swimming and laughing at a small boy called Pedro trying to paddle the biggest ever rowing boat in the wind. I think his dad was training him, as he was obviously keeping a close eye on him but not helping. Either that or he just wanted to sunbathe on his big boat!

Our last half an hour on the water was hard work, paddling into the wind and waves and getting soaked.

We were back a little bit early, and dutifully waited for our promised taxi until 5 past 6, before giving up and getting the local hotel reception to phone us one.
We thought that our promised taxi wouldn't turn up but we were both hoping that he'd surprise us and be there waiting for us.
As it happened, the new taxi was a much newer, cleaner taxi and we had a relaxed journey back which cost us less than this morning's trip going the other way.

We felt a lot better when we got back and washed off the layers of thick greasy sunscreen and the salt. We didn't get sunburnt though!

We have hired bikes for the next few days so will be going over to the neighbouring town of Tavira and doing some more bird watching on the salt flats.


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Location:Ria Formosa nature reserve

Lazy day

Sunday 9th September 2012

Apart from a short adventure this afternoon, we haven't done much today so this will be quite a short blog.

We slept in and then spent the morning relaxing on the patio, reading and sunbathing. Claire did some photography experiments too.


Our apartment has a big patio and a section of garden which seems to be our own private area. The only things missing are the lizards and the cat which gate crashed last year.


We went for a walk this afternoon to do some bird and crab watching. The first half of the walk was pretty much as expected. We saw some horrible crabs that live in burrows and make your skin crawl when you see them, and lots of poking birds on the shore.
The second half of the walk was rather more exciting than we had planned. We decided to try and walk back on top of the cliffs instead of along the shore, mainly because we kept getting shoes full of sand and the crabs were freaking us out.

We climbed up through a jungle of bamboo and very painful thorny vines, accidentally disturbing an owl, to emerge amongst a row of bee hives and swarming bees. Fortunately the bees seemed more interested in their hives than us, and we hurried off away from them. Only to be confronted with a herd of horses, and then a pack of guard dogs!
Luckily, the horses were tied up, and the guard dogs we behind a fence. Otherwise I'm sure we would have been trampled and then ripped limb from limb.


We made it back to the apartment absolutely filthy but unscathed.

We've had a massive dinner tonight, from which I am still recovering although Claire has managed to scoff a piece of chocolate cake since we got back.

Tomorrow we are going bird watching on a kayak! We've booked a kayak for the day to have a paddle round the estuary. We are a bit apprehensive because today has been scorching hot and windy - a recipe for sunburn disaster, plus difficult for paddling in.
We're looking forward to it though, and have the after sun on standby.


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Location:Cabanas

Stoke to Cabanas

Saturday 8th September 2012

We had to get up at 4.45am today. Apart from the hour, the day got off to a good start with almond croissants and a cup of tea. We arrived at Liverpool airport more or less on time and joined a queue already about 20 people deep 15 minutes before the check in opened.

We have flown with Easyjet again, despite the fact that we vowed never to fly with them again after the fiasco in Finland. I think that in the panic of booking flights we forgot about the self imposed ban.

Anyway, once again, Easyjet disappointed us, although at least this time they didn't leave us stranded in a foreign country. This time the problem was with poor queue management.
We checked in online about a month ago. Given that Easyjet charge about £40 per passenger to check in at the airport (check in = print a boarding card), surely it goes without saying that the vast majority of customers will have already checked in online for free before arriving at the airport.
SO WHY HAVE TWO QUEUES FOR NORMAL CHECK IN AND NONE FOR ONLINE CHECK IN?
And, more to the point, why tell your customers to arrive early to avoid all sorts of airport perils and charges, and then leave them standing in a queue for 45 minutes AND THEN FINALLY OPEN THE ONLINE CHECK IN DESK AND ALLOW ALL THE PEOPLE WHO'VE JUST TURNED UP TO JUMP THE QUEUE.
I honestly thought I was going to have to break up a fight between an arrogant Easyjet employee and an elderly man in a straw hat at one point.

Anyway, we made it thorough check in, popped into the Easyjet customer service centre for a rant, and then had a nice (second) breakfast at Frankie & Bennies which made things seem a lot better.
The flight was much better than the queue, although this may have been because we spent most of it asleep.

After arriving at Faro, in our usual cheapskate style, we caught the bus, and then the train to where we are staying.
Typically, we'd just missed the previous bus, and then we'd just missed the previous train.

There were some hippy traveler types sitting opposite us on the train. We didn't quite know what to make of them when the ticket collector came round and they said they were going to Spain but hadn't got any money to pay! We didn't really know what to make of the ticket collector either when he just walked off from them without charging them!
After a while, they started making sandwiches using a Swiss army knife. We were mainly bird watching at the time so didn't pay much attention until one of them started saying "psst" and offering us slices of apple, freshly sliced by the Swiss army knife. We accepted, and then I immediately regretted it thinking that either the apple was poisoned, or we were now expected to pay their fare.
After getting off the train, unpoisoned and not out of pocket, I felt bad for thinking such things about the kindness of a stranger towards another.

We've got a nice apartment in the gardens again. We stayed here last year and liked it so much we've come back. The only problem is a slightly rowdy family nearby with not just children, but adults who play the hokey cokey loudly at night!

This evening we went out to our favourite watering hole / restaurant from last year, Copacabanas. We were rather disappointed to find that the menu had changed since last year and now only offered Tapas. And there were no flaming cocktails on the drinks menu. We managed a couple of beers there before the sun went down and then went elsewhere for a huge steak and a pile of chips.

Tomorrow we're having a lazy first day, going to the beach and the bar and maybe the pool before going back to either the bar or the beach. It's forecast to be 27 degrees for the next few days before rising to about 35 degrees midweek!!

We will try not to repeat last years sunburn experience.


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Location:Cabanas de Tavira, Portugal

Taxi for the stranded canoeists?

Friday 15^th June 2012

I'm actually writing this blog 4 days late. I did write one on the day, but was very annoyed when my blogging app pretended to post my writing but actually lost it in cyberspace. I've had to wait this long for the annoyance to subside enough not to taint the blog too much.

That said, Friday 15^th June was a difficult day for us, so the blog may come across as tainted when actually it isn't.

The wind was very strong when we went to bed the previous night, so much so that we were afraid that a tree might blow down in the night and kill us. Or pin us to the ground inside our tent, leaving us to a slow and agonising death. We set the alarm on my watch to 5am, in the hope that the wind might not be too strong then (sometimes it seems to drop in the early hours). But it was obvious without leaving the tent that the wind hadn't dropped, and in fact was even stronger than the night before. We reset the alarm for 7am, when a short walk to the other end of the island revealed white topped waves and some very bendy trees.

We got up, had a quick breakfast and packed up, and then set out. We used the islands as shelter for the first few hundred metres, but when we rounded the corner of the last island, the wind hit us. It was clear that we would not be able to paddle across to the car, or even to the car side of the loch. We had already given this scenario some thought before setting out. We knew that there was a road on the side of the loch nearest to us, so we decided to just try and make it to the nearest bit of the shore.

After what seemed like hours of paddling against the wind, trying to stop the boat from being thrown against the rocks or turned over by the waves, we made it to a rocky beach and with shaky legs, got out.

According to the Met Office, the winds were 20mph. Now that doesn't sound too bad, but when you compare it to our paddling speed of 5mph you see why things got difficult.

We left the boat on the shore and walked about a mile up a grassy track and emerged at a place called the Ardanaiseig Hotel, which turned out to be a very posh hotel. Nevertheless, we trudged in, clad in wellies and waterproofs and looking (and probably smelling) as rough as anything. We managed to blag ourselves some comfy seats in the drawing room, and a cup of tea, while the receptionist phoned us a taxi. We were relieved to have stumbled into somewhere so hospitable.

Whilst waiting for the taxi, we used the hotel's wi-fi and found that we were about 1 mile from the car by boat, but 20 miles by car down very windy roads. The taxi was coming from Oban, so we were prepared for a big bill.

The taxi driver made a refreshing change to our usual experience. To start with, she was a lady. She was eastern European (or possibly Scandinavian), had dreadlocks, and reminded me somehow of my CDT teacher, Miss Meredith. She informed us at the start of the journey that she would be taking it steady down the lanes because they were ”like rollercoasters”, and even enquired during the route as to whether we felt OK (I didn’t but managed to keep a brave face and let Claire do the talking). There was an incident with three bullying giant trucks where I thought we were going to lose a wing mirror at the very least, but that wasn’t the taxi drivers fault.

She dropped us off by our unstolen, undamaged, but very dirty car, charged us £50 (which is about what we were expecting, and the exact amount of cash we had on us), and went on her way.

We drove our car back exactly the way we'd just come, and down the grassy track we'd walked up earlier. The track seemed much narrower and bumpier in a VW Golf than it had done on foot. Claire had her eyes closed most of the time. I was driving, so I only had my eyes closed some of the time.

We were a little concerned at the fact that there was a battered Rover abandoned at the canoe end of the track, but the Golf made it out OK after we'd loaded it up.

So for the third and final time, we travelled the windy roads back to where we'd left the car originally, and onwards to our hotel. We were a bit behind schedule but not disastrously so.

We'd been looking forward to the hotel all week, and especially the last couple of days. I had only had baby wipe washes whilst camping (5 nights – yuk), whilst Claire had braved a wash in the loch on the third night. So we were both dying for a hot shower.

Things started off very well when we arrived at our hotel to find that we'd been upgraded to a suite! This comprised an enormous room with a double bed, sofa, and chaise longue! Claire had the first shower while I went back down to the car to fetch all the things we'd forgotten to bring up to the room with us.

When I got back, I got in the shower, only to find that Claire had used up all the hot water. Well, it actually ran out just after I'd covered my hair in shampoo... the point of no return. Needless to say, I was pretty unimpressed. At least there weren't any midges in the bathroom. So I had a cold shower, and we went down to the bar for a much deserved beer.

One benefit of writing this 4 days late, is that I can accurately report on the midge bites. Bizarrely, they seem to have taken a couple of days to develop. At last count there were 70 (!), mainly on my upper legs and bum, so it doesn't take a genius to work out when I got them. I must get the hang of the She-Wee before the next trip.

Despite the midges and some of the weather, we have enjoyed ourselves. 90% of the time when we were out on the water was wonderful, and we were very lucky with the weather until the high winds arrived. The camping was not as enjoyable as last year's trip, purely because of the midges.

We will being going on another canoe camping trip next year, which gives us a whole year to research midge repellant methods. And get the hang of the She-Wee.

The calm before the storm

Thursday 14th June 2012

We woke up this morning to quite strong winds. The title of this blog is a bit of an exaggeration but I think there's some truth in the saying judging by last night's super calm waters compared to the waves on the loch today.

We enjoyed a breakfast of American style pancakes made out of one of Betty Crocker's all purpose mixes. There are about 50 recipes you can make from it on the website, and I wonder if push came to shove we could use it to repair the canoe or the tent?

Our first destination this morning was to the next island to try and find a church marked on the map. After wading through a forest of bracken we found a ruined building surrounded by gravestones, some old, some new.

We got back in the boat to paddle over to the mainland to look at another castle and go to the wine shop. However, after rounding the corner of the island, we found ourselves in rather turbulent waters, and were struggling to make any progress whatsoever. We felt safe and weren't afraid of capsizing, but it was clear that we weren't going to make it to the mainland anytime soon.
So we went back to camp and have spent the day doing all the camping things we've been unable to do on our trip due to the midges.
Making a good fire pit, collecting firewood (by canoe, from the neighbouring island), reading, attempting to make fire by rubbing sticks together (that was what Claire was doing while I was reading).
Eventually Claire lit the fire with a lighter and we're now keeping warm in front of it and thinking we didn't really get enough firewood. And mourning the lack of wine.

We've seen a few other people today, mainly fishermen in annoying noisy motor boats. Fishermen and canoeists have a tradition of not really getting on as we're often in each others way, although things are normally more relaxed on big lochs like this.
Today's fishermen were rather annoying though as they insisted on fishing right in front of our island, and starting the engine every now and then to reposition themselves by a few metres. I think the fact that I keep finding discarded fishing hooks and line all over the place made me find them even more annoying, even though it probably had nothing to do with them.

Tomorrow we are planning for an early start. What should be a half hour paddle across to the car will probably take us well over an hour unless the wind drops, and we want to be on the road by midday. We are booked into a nice hotel with a spa tomorrow night and want to make the most of it.

We've been studying the map, and have planned a route across the loch which will hopefully keep us sheltered from the waves at least some of the time. We may have to abandon the canoe on the shore and walk to the car though.


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Location:Loch Awe

Escape from the midges

Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th June 2012

We haven't had a phone signal for the last few days, hence the lack of blogs. Although, having said that, I didn't write one yesterday, as I was too grumpy.

Since my last blog, which was mainly slagging off midges, we have discovered that the midges I spent so long slagging off were only the tip of the midge iceberg.

Yesterday we woke up to the sound of rain on the tent. Now, I know that the slightest drizzle sounds torrential when you're under canvas, but this was bad. We waited an hour or two, and it didn't stop, so we got up anyway. Within seconds we were bombarded by the midges. Not like the previous night, which was bad but just about bearable, but so bad that we couldn't even have breakfast. As some of you will know, if I don't have breakfast then the world must have ended or something even worse.

We packed up and set out onto the water in foul moods. Within about 10 metres of the shore, all the midges were gone and everything was calm and tranquil if a bit rainy. So we had a bag of mini cheddars and a twix which made us feel a bit better. A cup of tea would have worked wonders though.

We tried to have several breaks during the day, and each time it was either throwing it down with rain, or we were bombarded by midges. Not very relaxing.

We made it to the other end of the loch. The weather was OK. Quite a lot of rain but no wind so the rain didn't really bother us. We felt quite privileged to spot not one but two ospreys and an osprey nest! I won't say where abouts in case any egg thieves are reading (before anyone gets offended, this is a public blog). The ospreys were very protective and spent a long time circling over the boat screeching at us and generally checking us out and being intimidating. No dive bombing fortunately.

We camped on the opposite shore near the other end of the loch. And this is where we truly learnt about the legend of the Scottish midges. I've been coming to Scotland for at least 15 years, and have never really had much trouble with the midges. I've always thought that people who whinged about them were just being drama queens. And maybe they were. Or, maybe they experienced a body covering cloud of them that they just couldn't escape.
I'll stop going on about it now, suffice to say that we had to eat our dinner walking briskly to out pace them, and I'll post photographic evidence when I get back home to broadband.

Today was far better. We had breakfast (a bit midgey but not too bad), and have had a great day on the loch. It was raining when we woke but it stopped at about 9am and the day has been lovely - dry and still.
We had somewhat ambitious plans today, which I am pleased to report that we achieved! We decided we wanted to make it right back to the end of the loch near where we left the car, and camp on the island we stayed at the first night for two nights. This is because there were hardly any midges there, and we like the idea of having a base camp for the last couple of days and not have to keep packing and unpacking.

We stopped for lunch about half way down the loch on an island with a ruined castle dating from 1286 or something like that. We would have loved to have camped there but it wasn't the right time of day. The island was unoccupied and we were free to explore the castle. Which meant doing all the things you're not normally allowed to do in ruined castles, like climbing crumbling staircases and walls. There was a perfect camping spot inside the castle on a bowling green flat piece of grass next to a huge fireplace which had obviously been used for a few campfires.

We had a nice relaxing lunch on the beach on the island with no rain or midges!

Then a long slog back up the loch. It was tough going and we had all sorts of aches and pains. By about 7pm the end was in sight and we were feeling pretty good about the day.

The loch was like a mirror. Now that's a comparison that I've heard used many times, but today it really was. The reflections were clearer in the water than the real view. It was incredibly surreal. It was like we were paddling on a pool of mercury. It made us feel dizzy at times because it was like being in a plane looking down, except everything was upside down.
To make it even more spooky, to our left was reflections of blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and to our right, angry grey clouds. I half expected the waters to open up and swallow us into hell (especially after the anti god blog!). They didn't, and we made it to our island to find it unoccupied and just as we left it.

We've set up camp and have spent the evening watching the sun set. There are no midges and it isn't raining. The only small problem is we've finished the wine.

Tomorrow we are having a chilled out day exploring the islands and castles this end of the loch. And probably going to the wine shop on the mainland.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Loch Awe

The Flying (god) Squad

Monday 11th June 2012

For those of you expecting more talk about canoeing and waterproof kit, you may as well stop reading now. Today's blog is about god. Or rather, proof that god does not exist. (As an aside, I find it interesting that Apple's autocorrect does not try to make me capitalise god. I'm sure that Microsoft's does).

Now, as those that know me will already be aware, I was not a believer before I came on this trip. I didn't come to feel closer to god or anything like that. I came because I like doing this sort of thing (although that is something I question several times a day on this sort of trip).

The solid gold proof that god does not exist is midges. I believe that they are even stronger evidence than the menstrual cycle.
Midges are here in swarms. They are horrendous creatures. They get everywhere. In your hair, mouth, eyes, ears, food and wine. Nothing seems to repel them, except intense heat, but that repels me too. I even burnt my hand on a midge repelling smoking coil that doesn't work this evening.
If god existed, then midges would have been created. And who would create something so irritating, unless they were some sort of sadist? I cannot think of one useful purpose or good point about midges. If you can, then please let me know and I will start going to church at once.

I suppose I should say a little bit about our day. We woke up to dry weather (and more importantly, a dry tent), faffed around for a while and eventually set off at around 11.30am. There was hardly any wind and it only started raining this evening after we'd set up camp.

We've got about half way down the loch, which fits in OK with our timetable to get to the other end and back.

We've seen loads of birds on the loch and the shores. We think we saw an Osprey, and there was an unusual woodpecker on the shore earlier. The bird life is a big contrast to last year's trip on Loch Shiel, where we hardly saw anything. However, up to now, we both prefer Loch Shiel as it is so much more remote. We can see houses nearly all the time here. There's also loads more good camp sites on Loch Shiel. It took us ages this evening to find somewhere suitable, and our chosen site still only gets 7 out of 10 (points lost for the lack of a stream and the midges).

We've spent the evening getting stressed about the midges and dinner. Claire was baking calzone on the campfire tonight, so naturally, the fire wouldn't get started, the tarp collapsed (my fault for trying to stop it sagging), and it started raining.
When we eventually got to eat the calzone, it was very nice, but probably not worth all the stress on balance.

Tomorrow we're hoping to get down to the bottom of the loch and part of the way back up. That depends on the weather and the wind and our energy levels.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Loch Awe

It never rains but it pours

Sunday 10th June 2012

We delayed the start of our trip due to the terrible weather we've been having. We were supposed to be setting out on Saturday and camping somewhere just over the Scottish border, but the rain was so bad that we decided to have an OCD session with the camping equipment and set out early on the Sunday morning.

We've got quite a bit of new kit this year. We recently upgraded our canoe - we got ourselves a Novacraft Prospector made of Royalex Lite off eBay for a real bargain price. For those that aren't in the know about canoes, it's a pretty good boat. It was repossessed by a landlord whose tenants hadn't paid the rent!

We have also got a new tent. We actually bought it last year as the old one was coming apart at the seams. This new one is called a Vaude Mk2 and it looks a bit like a praying mantis. We didn't get a chance to try it out last year so tonight will be it's first test.

I also splashed out on a new pair of waterproof trousers yesterday. They are a bit more heavy duty than my old ones, and I hoped the very act of buying them would mean that it didn't rain all week, but they've had a good test today. No leaks so far, so they are money well spent.

Anyway, less about kit and more about canoeing. This year we've decided to do a five night canoe camping trip on Loch Awe. We've abandoned the car in a layby a couple of miles from the town of Lochawe. This is not something that comes easily to me, and I'm paranoid that it won't be there when we go back. We had a couple of hours on the water checking out a cluster of islands and have set up camp on our own private island. The weather is still not great so we have chosen somewhere with plenty of trees for shelter.

We're fairly settled and chilled out now (possibly due to wine), but the day has been fraught with problems. The first problem was the weather. I'm sure I don't need to say more, as it's bad everywhere.
The other problems are that one of the buoyancy bags is not only leaking, but filling with water, all our water purification methods are failing one by one (don't worry, we still have wine left), some of our watertight containers are anything but, and I nearly exploded a gas canister.
I'm sure the gas canister incident is the only one you're interested in. I was screwing a mini stove thing onto a small gas canister, when it started hissing and spewing gas all over my hands (which is really cold because it's pressurised). I panicked and threw it away as I thought it was about to explode in my face. Claire had to step in and grab it from where it landed by the edge of the fire. Fortunately there were no explosions, burns, and not much wasted gas. It turned out to be operator error, as I hadn't made sure the mini stove thing was turned off!

We've spent the evening sitting under The Tarp (see last years blog for more on the legend of The Tarp) in front of a roaring campfire, drinking wine out of wine bags! It's quite warm really and not windy at all. If only it would stop raining.

Tomorrow we'll be paddling down towards the less populated end of the loch. It's quite comforting to know that there is a small road running all the way down one side of the loch, just in case our bad luck continues.
We don't think there will be a suitable island available tomorrow so we'll have to see what we can find.

We're optimistic about having a phone signal (and posting blogs) all week, but who knows.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad