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.

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