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.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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