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.