Peak Bagging in the Brecon Beacons

Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December 2013

On Friday it was Claire’s work Christmas party at head office near Cirencester. The weather forecast looked quite good so we decided to go in George, not drink too much free wine, and spend the weekend ticking some peaks off our list. We succeeded in not drinking too much, in fact we didn’t spend a penny on drinks (!), although I did eat a huge amount of fancy nibbles which were being offered round on trays before the main meal. Neither of us had a very good sleep - me through too much food, and Claire probably from me tossing and turning. Anyway, we both both glad to get up and stop not sleeping when morning came, so we were on the road by 9am!

A couple of months ago I came across a list in Trail magazine, originally titled “The Trail 100”. It’s a list of the 100 best (in their opinion) hills in the UK to climb before you die. So we’ve been targeting those hills when we get the chance, as we’re both fond of ticking things off lists. If you’re interested, here are a couple of links to the list and an article about the peaks:

http://www.livefortheoutdoors.com/upload/546295/attachments/Trail%20100%20Ticklist%20.pdf

http://www.livefortheoutdoors.com/upload/546295/attachments/Trail%20100%20Article.pdf

So this weekend, we decided to tick off two of the listed hills in the Brecon Beacons - Sugarloaf Mountain and Pen Y Fan. For some reason, I thought the Brecon Beacons were close to Cirencester. Possibly because I thought they were part of the Cotswolds (which they’re not). Or possibly because my geography south of Stoke is poor. It turned out that the nearest Brecon Beacon was a 90 minute drive from Cirencester. Good job we made that early start.

We started our walk up Sugarloaf Mountain at about 11am. The Sugarloaf is anything but a mountain. At 1,955 feet it isn’t classed as a mountain even by the most generous of peak classifiers. But it was on the list, and was described as a “charismatic nipple”, so we thought we’d better see what all the fuss was about.

We were both feeling a bit groggy and more in the mood for a nap than a walk, but we made it to the top, and enjoyed our sandwiches in the sunshine with a nice, albeit rather hazy view across south Wales. There were plenty of other people on the hill, although there was not too much summit hogging going on as it was a bit breezy up there.

I only got us slightly lost on the way down, and we had a quick cup of tea and a muffin in George before heading off to find somewhere to stop for the night.

We spent the night in a small car park by a reservoir, just far enough away from Merthyr Tydfil for us to feel safe. We were both tired out, and were in bed for 8 and asleep by 9! 

I got up at 7 the following morning and had just got myself ready, and was trying to persuade Claire to do the same, when some sort of exhibition truck pulled up in the car park and manoeuvred itself in behind George. Then 3 squaddies jumped out and started setting up a portable generator and signs warning of marching troops. We packed up quickly in a huff, and drove the couple of miles to the start of our walk, where we had our breakfast and made a packed lunch in peace.

Our walk was to take in Pen Y Fan, which is the highest peak of the Brecon Beacons at 2,907 feet. I’d decided were were going to do a horseshoe, to include two other peaks called Cribyn, and Fan Y Big. Well, you can’t not go up a mountain with a name like that, can you?

The walk started with a steep climb up to a long ridge leading to the summit. It was muddy, and as soon as we got onto the ridge, very cold, as there was a biting wind. I realised quite early on that I was unsuitably dressed and was going to spend most of the day feeling cold. Not dangerously so, just uncomfortably so. Apart from the cold, once we were on the ridge, it was easy walking to the summit. I was surprised to see some people walking in shorts, but they did have very hairy legs, so maybe that was sufficient insulation for them. My body hair wasn't doing such a good job.

The summit (and the ridge and surrounding peaks) had been in and out of the cloud all morning, and we couldn’t see much when we were up there. We jostled our way to the front of a queue for photos at the summit (sad but true), and then retreated out of the wind for lunch.

Lunch was OK, although not as enjoyable as it could have been due to the temperature and the failure of the Jetboil to light, and the resulting lack of tea. Sometime during lunch, the clouds parted, and we started feeling a bit more enthusiastic about the rest of the walk.  By the time we’d made it up the steep slopes of Cribyn the feeling had returned to my fingers, and I even unzipped my jacket on the way up Fan Y Big!

We headed down without eating our muffins, having decided to wait until they could be washed down with some hot tea. On our way down, we heard an almighty racket which we thought came from a helicopter about to appear. It turned out to be 3 off road motorbikes being ridden along the route we’d just done. We were horrified to see them, and understood why the path was so muddy. I was relieved my dad wasn’t there, as at least one of them would probably have ended up having an unfortunate accident. He takes unwanted motorbikes very seriously, and rightly so.

Wet Pants and Messy Hair

Friday 18th and Saturday 19th October 2013

This weekend was one of my weekends off, and as the weather forecast seemed OK (not raining ALL the time), we decided to have a night away in George in Snowdonia.

Claire was (conveniently) working in Betws-y-coed on the Friday, so I spent a few hours window shopping in town and riding my bike in the forest. Now I’m not a particularly adventurous cyclist, so I only really wanted to ride on the forest tracks. The road up to the forest was bad enough, with a gradient of about 95% or so it seemed, and then when I finally got there I accidentally ended up on the Marin trail, which is a proper mountain bike trail for people who know what they’re doing. After thinking I was going to die several times, I finally emerged onto one of the forest tracks and had quite a nice time whizzing around until it was time to meet Claire.

Claire burst out laughing as soon as she saw me, as I was coated in mud from head to toe. I was much more muddy than I’d have liked to have been considering I wouldn’t have access to a shower for over 24 hours. Fortunately I’d worn long legged and sleeved clothes, so a few baby wipes, a bit of elbow grease, and some clean clothes and dry pants was all it took to get me clean and dry again.

After that we went to the Cotswold Rock Bottom store to look at a tent I’d spotted during my window shopping earlier. We’ve been after a very lightweight (less than 2kg) tent for some overnight wild camps on the hills in the warmer months. The tent I’d spotted weighed 1 point something kg, and uses walking poles instead of the usual tent poles supplied with the tent. This may sound strange, but not only does it reduce the weight of the tent, but it also means that if you’ve hardly used your walking poles all day, you wont be so resentful about carrying them around when they form a crucial part of your tent.  As it appeared to be brand new, and we’d negotiated a ridiculously cheap price, we snapped it up. We also snapped up some new, designer, lightweight walking poles, so it turned into rather an expensive trip overall.

We stayed the night in the same off road layby as we did last time we went to Snowdonia for the night. I don’t think I blogged about that though. It’s alongside the A5, beneath Tryfan and next to Llyn Ogwen. An ideal spot to park a camper van for free and be ready to leap out straight onto the hills in the morning.

It threw it down with rain all night, and was still doing so until about 9am. We got ourselves up and dressed, wondering whether we needed a plan B, when finally the rain stopped. We wolfed the rest of our porridge down, and at about 10.30am set off on foot towards Ogwen Cottage, which was not only the start point for our walk, but has some nice shiny new toilets complete with Welsh slate floor and wall tiles. 

Today’s walk was up Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach, which are two big mountains next to each other. They had also become a bit of a demon to us, as we’d twice failed to climb them on previous attempts. The first attempt was when we intended to combine them with the ascent of Tryfan when we stayed on Shell Island earlier in the year (I think I forgot to blog about that day too). It turned out that we’d gone the hardest possible way up Tryfan, and by the time we got up there we were so exhausted that a scramble up Bristly Ridge had no appeal whatsoever. The second time was a couple of months ago when we started going up, decided we were too tired, and went to Portmerion and ate cake instead. Today we were determined to conquer them come hell or high water.

The start of the walk was pretty easy. A fairly good path up a not too steep slope. But once we started getting nearer the summit we had to start scrambling over some of those big Welsh rocks that feel like they’re coated with cooking oil when they’re damp. I slipped over once on the way up and twice on the way down and have got the bruises to prove it. Getting to the summit of Glyder Fach was extremely difficult, as by then the rain was coming down sideways, and the Welsh rocks had got even bigger and even greasier. We made it up (and back down onto the summit plateau), but by then I had that sinking feeling you get when it’s not been raining for that long, you’re not even half way through your walk, and you can feel a cold trickle of water running down your leg inside your (supposedly) waterproof trousers. The key word there is COLD in case any of you are starting to think I have a weak bladder.

We pressed on to the summit of Glyder Fawr, by which time my legs were soaked, and the water from my trousers had started to soak upwards into my T shirt. I was cold and grumpy and annoyed with Claire who spent an age putting her gloves on while I got even colder. I was mainly annoyed because this act implied that her hands were the only body part that was cold, which made me rather jealous.

When the rain went off a bit and we got out of the wind I cheered up a bit with a cup of tea and a giant slab of chocolate coated shortbread.

By the time we arrived back at the slate toilets, I’d warmed up nicely and my pants felt only slightly damp. 

It’s fair to say that the demon of the Glyders hasn’t really been exorcised yet. We have both vowed never to go near them again unless it is bone dry without a cloud in the sky. 

I’d just like to digress now onto the topic of hair. There are many hair disasters that can besiege an outdoorsy person with hair longer than a grade 1. Wind, rain, sweat, mud and headwear play havoc with your locks. You’ve probably noticed that in most of my outdoorsy photos I’m wearing a buff (a type of stretchy bandana). This is an invaluable piece of outdoor equipment both for controlling hair, and well as warming ears and necks, and even filtering water if you were really desperate and didn’t have an antichrist bottle to hand.

However, a couple of days ago I decided I’d had enough of permanently having my long hair tied back or wrapped in a buff, and instructed my hairdresser to chop most of it off, which she did! So whilst I like my new hair, it does make me susceptible to a new range of hair disasters.

The first of the day was “camper van bed head”, which speaks for itself. With only a small sink, cold water, and no mirror you can imagine it’s difficult to make yourself look presentable. So I didn’t bother, especially as Claire had (mis)informed me that I looked fine.

The second was bushy hair. My hair is naturally curly and likes to go big when exposed to a damp breeze. However, bushy hair can easily be counteracted with a buff.

But buffs (and woolly hats) tend to bring on the even more serious problem of hair becoming “matted like felt”. I have stolen this description from Muriel Gray’s book “The First Fifty” which is about a Munro bagging 7 stone peroxide blonde, who also suffers from outdoor hair issues, vertigo, and the occasional tantrum.

My “matted like felt” look involved the front turning into a bushy quiff, and the rest being stuck to my head with dried sweat and gel. Not a good look.

But on arrival at the slate toilets we did spot a woman with an even worse hair disaster than me. She was sporting the “Medusa” look, which is when someone with long hair wears a head band, and the wind, rain and sweat combine to form tendrils of hair which stick out from behind the headband in a wild and hilarious fashion. I really should have passed on my wisdom about buffs, but I thought she might take offence.

I’m now enjoying a glass of wine at home before I take to the shower to wash off all the mud and sweat, and tame the hair.

The Long Road Home

Friday 27th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 12

Well I’m afraid to say that we woke up to drizzle and mist this morning, so we’ve spent 11 hours and 50 minutes on the road, and are now back home. That’s 450 miles, with two meal breaks, and one traffic jam.

The weather improved the further south we got, and we enjoyed our drive through the Highlands. After that, it got a bit tedious and I started getting a bit grumpy about the end of the holiday. Even the prospect of a warm house, a big bed, and as many showers and trips to an indoor toilet as I like didn’t make me feel any better about going home.

We think that our favourite day on Skye was when we went up The Storr (day 4). I’m not sure why  - maybe it was because it was the first nice day when we really got to appreciate the scenery, or maybe it was the favourable effort:reward ratio, or possibly the Belgian Buns.

Claire’s second favourite is the Fairy Pools, whereas mine is the second Munro - Bla Bheinn. In terms of personal achievement though, the Sgurr Nan Gillean trek is the winner by far.

We were inundated with free places to stop for the night in George. It’s so much easier to find overnight spots in Scotland, as they have different land access rules to the rest of the UK. 

All of the campsites we stayed at were good - and seemed cheaper than what we’re used to, although it may just be because it’s autumn now. We did decide not to stay at the Glen Brittle campsite (the one where we sneakily used the campsite loos - twice!). The site seemed more expensive, yet more basic than any of the other sites, but, crucially, you had to pay extra for showers, which really annoys me, partly on principle, and partly because you can’t enjoy a nice hot shower when you’re paranoid about your time running out when you’re still all soapy. 

The best campsite facilities were at Dunvegan, and if it had been nice weather when we were there, I’m sure it would be my favourite site. But despite the rather tired old spidery and mildewy showers, the site at Sligachan was my favourite. Probably in part due to it’s proximity to the pub and the mountains.

We plan on going back to Skye, but as there is so much of Scotland that we haven’t seen, it probably won’t be for a while.

A Walk in the Park

Thursday 26th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 11

I woke up this morning to sunlight streaming round George's curtains, and peered out of the window to see blue sky everywhere, and the tops of the mountains. I couldn't have asked for better birthday weather!

We got ready quite quickly (for us), as I was keen to get going before the sun disappeared. I opened my birthday cards (all two of them - thanks to the Parents and Claire - I'm sure I'll arrive home to a pile of them on the door mat), but decided to delay opening my presents until later, such was my enthusiasm for going up the mountain. Yes, it really was that nice a day.

We set off at about 10am. Today's walk was about 5 miles long, up Bla Bheinn, which is 929 metres high, and we had to climb all but 10 of those metres. The walk started off along a lovely little river with waterfalls and nice pools (lots of nice pools around here - if you didn't look where you're going you'd probably fall in one). I filled the antichrist bottle before we left the river and started off more steeply uphill.

We passed a couple who looked, quite frankly, in no fit state to be going up a mountain. They both looked exhausted, were having their lunch (at 300 metres at 10.30am), and, strangely had climbing helmets and alpine packs with them (alpine packs are narrow rucksacks - good for scrambling). We passed them, and had our lunch at about 600 metres once we were on the ridge.

After lunch, it didn't take us too long to reach the summit. There was a bit of scrambling, but nothing difficult, and we may even have been able to avoid it altogether by taking a long way round. When we reached the summit it was still a lovely clear day, and a huge view opened up before us of the Black Cuillins (the big scary ones), along with the rest of Skye, and what appeared to be most of the Scottish Highlands. There were mountains and sea as far as the eye could see.

We could also see the previous mountain we climbed, and very impressive it was too. The final climb to the summit looked every bit as steep as it was! The mountain in question is part of the range on the left of the photo, and the summit is the third pointy bit from the right (yes, the big pointy one!)

Bla Bheinn itself actually has twin summits. The one we had ascended was 1 metre higher than the other one. You can cross between the two, but according to the book, it is a bit awkward. It looked a bit tricky but not too bad, although we didn't bother as we were safe in the knowledge that we were already at the highest point.

We enjoyed a rather special ginger and dark chocolate chip muffin (a Co-op special), took loads of photos (I'll upload some of them when I get home to connectivity heaven), and finally decided we'd better head down when we started getting cold. We were a bit baffled about where the couple with helmets had got to, but decided they must have turned back.

We went down the same way we came up, and were rather shocked to spot the helmet couple doing some proper rock climbing up a part of the mountain that really did call for ropes and helmets. I wasn't aware they made ropes strong enough for one of them, but hats (or helmets) off to them anyway.

We got back to George at about 4pm, and drove round the loch a bit to enjoy our tea and scone with a good view of the mountain.

We both thought today's walk was a lot less challenging than the previous Munro, in fact it was a walk in the park in comparison. The views were a lot better though, and our legs and feet feel a lot happier about things today.

After my scone, whilst I sipped my tea, I finally got round to opening my birthday presents from Claire! And despite all the build up in my earlier blog, I am unwilling to tell you what my special present that was delivered by Fed Ex is. You probably think it's something rude now, but it isn't. It's just that it's given me an idea for a present for someone else and I don't want to tip them off. It is an excellent present, and I was still busy with it long after I'd finished my tea.

We've returned to the camp site at Sligachan tonight, and have had dinner in the pub again. Rather annoyingly, we'd both been looking forward to having the mussels all day, and they hadn't got any left! We managed to pick something else though, and are now mulling over puddings, and possibly a birthday Scotch!

Tomorrow is going to be our last day on Skye. If the weather is fine then we will do a low level walk at the foot of the Cuillins, along the river Sligachan. If it's reverted to being rainy and misty then we will be starting our journey home.


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Location:Isle of Skye

Seafood Gumbo

Wednesday 25th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 10

We dragged ourselves out of bed at about 8.30am this morning, mainly because I thought we'd been in there long enough (about 10 hours). It wasn't raining but the mountains were half in cloud, so we still haven't seen what the mountain we went up yesterday looks like from a distance!

Our feet were still hurting and our calves had started hurting too, so a lazy day was in order. I was hoping to have lunch at a little restaurant I'd been to several years ago called Creelers. It's in Broadford, which was on our way, and is the same town as the shop with what we think is Skye's only supermarket - a decent sized Co-op. I assumed the restaurant wouldn't be open until midday at the earliest, so in order to kill some time I washed and dried some more clothes (no pants panics for us for the remainder of the trip), and by the time we'd got to Broadford it was gone 11. So far so good.

The Co-op was as good as a Co-op supermarket can be, and we stocked up on all the essentials we'd run out of (cake, wine, biscuits, chocolate, muffins), plus some other bits and bobs like milk and bread. When we pulled up outside Creelers it was 11.56, and the sign on the door said they opened at noon. So we sat outside, staring at the door for 4 minutes, and were in there as soon as they opened.

Last time I went to Creelers it was winter, I was freezing, and everywhere else was shut, except the post office, who told me to go there. It hadn't changed much and was just as good as before. If you go to Skye, it is well worth a visit.
The restaurant is a tiny little building, with about 10 tables. The walls are covered with certificates and awards for how good their food is, along with some photos of Skye scenery (none of yesterday's mountain though). Their speciality is seafood, and I was hoping they still did the seafood gumbo I had enjoyed last time. They did, and we both had that, despite the waitress' warnings about it being hot and we ought to taste it first. It was just the right hotness, and just as nice as last time. We declined puddings (having just bought scones), and despite not having rushed, were out of the door at 12.30!

We set off along the road to Elgol, which is at the end of a peninsula across the bay from the main chunk of the Cuillin hills. It was still dry and the clouds were high, and most of the mountains were visible. The first big view is of a very big and craggy looking mountain across Loch Slapin. It's not the first time I've been wowed by the view, and whilst Claire was taking photos, I consulted the map, and found that it was actually the other Munro I'd planned to (maybe) go up while we're here - Bla Bheinn.

We continued to the end of the road, took some more photos of the view from Elgol, Claire got her ear nibbled by a very friendly and enthusiastic puppy, and then we found somewhere to park up and relax for a bit with tea and scones and Kindles.

I had a nap and woke up with a crick in my neck, but Claire said it had been too noisy to sleep.

We've stopped for the night in a car park at the foot of Bla Bheinn. There is one other camper van here, and gangs of midges, which have spent most of the evening lurking outside George, waiting for some fresh meat to emerge.

We're going to get a fairly early night, as Claire is tired out (no nap), and she needs to be fully rested ready for the mountain tomorrow if the weather behaves.
And I need to be up early to open my birthday presents!


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Location:Isle of Skye

Munro Bagging

Tuesday 24th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 9

I sneakily set the alarm clock a bit earlier this morning without telling Claire. I was hoping that the weather I would be as good when we got up as it was when we went to bed. And it was! I could see all the mountain tops peeping over the trees, with a background of blue sky. After a boiled egg, and some marmalade on fried toast, we drove round the mountains to our start point for today's walk - the Hotel Sligachan, which is at sea level, so makes any mountain walk much more of a challenge straight away.

We managed to squeeze George into a car park full of badly parked cars, and one badly parked tour bus, and were soon on our way up our first Munro of the trip. In fact, it was Claire's first Munro ever, and (I think), only my second. The mountain was called Sgurr nan Gillean, and, much to my annoyance, was the only mountain we could see with it's head in the clouds.

It was about 11am when we got started (after we'd turned round because we were going up a path on the wrong mountain :0), so we both wanted lunch quite soon. I was adamant that we needed to put a bit more mountain beneath us before we had our lunch break. So we walked past the inviting pools in the river (nearly as nice as the Fairy Pools, but not quite), over the scary footbridge (two planks of wood), and started the upward slog up the mountain. It was tough going as there was a lot of scree, and big loose rocks as well. We eventually had our lunch about 2/3 of the way up, by which time we were absolutely starving.

It didn't get any easier after lunch. I remember saying "I'm not looking forward to coming down", and it turned out we were on an easy bit then! We eventually reached the crest of the ridge leading up to the summit. By this point we were in the clouds, and were uncertain whether to carry on or not. We were concerned we wouldn't be able to find our way down if the cloud came down further, although I had been paying a lot more attention than usual for that very reason. I wanted to go up. I felt like I'd invested too much effort in the mountain not to, even if I couldn't see a thing when I got up there. Claire was uncertain, and at that point, two blokes appeared out of the cloud (coincidentally, they are now sitting behind us in the bar).

I asked them if we had far to go, and they told us about 150m, straight up. About 25 minutes. They looked at us slightly doubtfully and asked how we were at scrambling. They told us that the key to gaining the summit was a big slab of rock just before, which was the most difficult part, although there were lots of hand holds. After that, I just decided we were going up, and fortunately Claire followed me!

The slab of rock did turn out to be quite tough going, but, it turned out, that it was not the key to the summit at all. Getting to the actual summit took me 3 tries. After the big slab of rock was a ridge about a metre wide and 10 metres long at the most. Sounds like child's play, but when you've got jelly legs from the climb, the wind's blowing, and there's a massive drop on each side, it becomes like a tight rope over Niagara Falls.

I eventually realised that it would be a whole lot easier if I took my rucksack off, and after that I skipped across the little ridge as if it wasn't there. The summit itself was tiny, and I couldn't see a thing for the clouds. But the sense of achievement made up for it. The photo above is stolen from Google (obviously, as there is a view in the background!). It shows the the tight rope ridge viewed from the summit.

Getting down the mountain wasn't as hard as I was expecting, although we were both exhausted when we finally got back to George. The scree slopes seemed easier, and less scary to negotiate downwards. We stopped briefly for a flapjack on the way down, but we skipped the tea, as time was getting on, and we were keen to get in the pub.

This photo was taken from the Sligachan hotel a couple of days later, when the clouds had finally lifted:

We are staying at the Sligachan camp site tonight, which is just over the road from the hotel and bar. We have never been so relieved to have a shower. We both felt absolutely filthy, which is no wonder, as today has been quite a sweaty day, and aside from our dip yesterday, it's been 3 days since our last shower. The showers were hot, and had unlimited hot water, but even so, we were still in the bar 15 minutes earlier than we thought we would be.

We've both had venison stew (again), and are just waiting for our crumble to arrive. Our feet are killing us, and we have both got our shoes off under the table. Tomorrow we are going to do as little walking as possible, although we will have to walk into a food shop at some point, as supplies are running dangerously low.


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Location:Isle of Skye

The Fairy Pools

Monday 23rd September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 8

It was still grey and drizzly when we got up, so after polishing off a mountain of scrambled egg, bacon, and fried toast (like fried bread but less greasy), we set off for a walk around the Glen Brittle forest. Which is the same forest we'd been in overnight. The walk was about 10 miles along forest tracks with a bit of uphill and downhill but nothing major. According to the guidebook, there were lots of picnic tables around the route, the first of which took an awful long time coming, so much so that we were starting to think that maybe the picnic tables had been removed.

We had lunch at the long awaited table in the drizzle, and a cup of tea made with antichrist water, and continued on our way. By the time we'd done about 3/4 of the walk, the rain had stopped, and the clouds were starting to lift. We could see that there were big mountains emerging from where the clouds had been. We had another break, watching the clouds roll back and reveal the mountains that, unbeknownst to us, had been towering over us as we slept last night.

On our way back to George, we were treated to the sight of a pair of Golden Eagles soaring around us, probably hoping we'd startle a rabbit for them to eat.

The infamous Hi-Tec boots performed well, in fact, they seem to be surprising comfortable. No blisters or leaks (although they didn't really get a good leak test today), so it's all systems go for going up a mountain in them now.

When we arrived back at George, we went straight back to Glen Brittle campsite and purchased another loaf of bread, as lunchtime and breakfast supplies were getting dangerously low. Then we returned to the car park we'd left George in all day, and made ourselves comfortable, with the intention of resting our legs, admiring the stunning view, and maybe spending a bit more quality time with the latest Jo Nesbo thriller. Or so I thought. Claire was gazing out of the window at the mountains and said "I'm tempted to go up there now". I nearly fell off my seat, thinking that 4.45pm is a bit late in the day to start a mountain excursion. But then she said "no, not the mountain, The Fairy Pools!".

The Fairy Pools are some pools in the river that flows down from the mountains that I thought she was gazing at. They are a popular wild swimming spot, and apparently are on Claire's Bucket List.
Now, to be honest with you, I didn't really fancy going to the Fairy Pools at that moment in time. I was looking forward to an hour's laziness and then dinner. We'd been planning to go tomorrow. But after thinking about it for a minute, I realised that if we went today, then we would have a whole extra day in which to do other stuff, and when you've only got 4 days of holiday left, that's quite significant.

So we set off at a gallop (well, a brisk walk at least), with my rucksack stuffed with towels, and Claire clutching a big blue Ikea bag full of wetsuits.

The pools were about a mile and a half away across the moors, but there was a good path. I hadn't been sure about whether I'd be going in them or not, but after my first glimpse, I knew I'd have to. They are series of deep pools in a river with perfectly clear water, linked by small waterfalls.

The water looks a very inviting light blue colour, almost like a swimming pool. There was a bit of an awkward climb down to them, but we were soon dressed in wetsuits and ready to take the plunge.

Claire sort of fell in, screamed, and then jumped straight back out after a matter of seconds. I gathered it was cold in there. She got back in again though, and told me that I'd soon get used to it. After a few minutes of dithering on a rock, and several false starts, I eventually jumped straight in, partly to get away from the midges that were beginning to gather.

It was breathtakingly cold, and I got out straight away too. But I managed to get back in and splash round for a bit. There is an underwater arch you can swim through that links two of the pools, but it was so cold that it made us feel dizzy if we put our heads under the water for more than a second, so we didn't try it.

A few people spotted us swimming and took photos from above, and I hope that at least one of them has a photo of me in their holiday snaps standing besides a waterfall looking like Lara Croft, as we have only got photos of me looking cold.

When I got out, I was engulfed by midges within seconds of undoing my wetsuit zip. We've hardly seen any midges this trip, and they were obviously making up for it today. We got semi-dried, and dressed as quickly as we could, and then scampered up the awkward climb as if it wasn't there. We weren't even slowed down by the man who may or may not have been taking photos of us getting changed, we were so preoccupied with the midges.

A short while later and we were back in George, our wetsuits hanging on his bike rack/airer, and our venison cooking on the stove. Claire's been unable to wipe the smile off her face all evening.

We're staying in the same spot as last night, as now we've had a swim, we don't need to go to the campsite for a shower! I am not sure what we are going to do tomorrow now. Maybe a Mountain. I am going to spend half an hour planning before I get back to Jo Nesbo.


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Location:Isle of Skye

Castles in the Skye

Sunday 22nd September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 7

We spent a pleasant enough evening last night watching an awful film called "Safe", which featured Jason Statham beating various people up in order to save a 10 year old mathematical genius who didn't like maths. But George's DVD player worked a treat and we are looking forward to watching Forrest Gump next time we have electric hook up.

Neither of us had a particularly good night's sleep last night - I was woken several times by the wind rocking George. We eventually dragged ourselves out of bed at about 9am, when the wind and rain seemed to have died down a bit. By the time we'd had breakfast and packed up, the rain had stopped and the wind had dropped to a level where I might have considered letting George have his pop top up if we weren't leaving.

Clearly the woman in the laundry room had been wrong with her weather prediction. But the day was OK from mid morning - overcast and misty, with low clouds, but not raining. So the man in reception was not far off with his forecast. We decided we'd have a bit of a lazy day and go to Dunvegan Castle, the seat of the Macloud Clan for 25 ish generations, rather than risk the weather.

The castle is one of the indoor type castles with oil paintings, and swords and things in glass cases to look at. On the whole, I prefer ruined castles, but that would have defeated the object of staying warm and dry indoors. We were greeted by a slightly odd Welsh lady at the door, who was rather surprised at having some English visitors. It turned out that she'd come to visit Skye on the Sunday, and bought a small field on the Thursday, and had never left, or looked back since. It all sound a bit like a Craig David song to me. She was quite insistent that this was in no way impulsive, and we didn't like to argue with all the ceremonial swords lying around.

There were two things that I found particularly interesting about the castle, or should I say it's occupants...

1. There has only ever been one female Macloud clan chief - Flora - who of course reached the dizzy heights due to her various male relatives being unable to produce enough Y chromosomes at the critical time. When one of her own children eventually succeeded, she relinquished her leadership to the current chief, her grandson John.

2. When a new clan chief is "sworn in", he (or she) has to "down in one" half a gallon of claret (!) from a ceremonial drinking horn (a hollow horn, possibly from a Highland Cow or woolly mammoth, with a tassle and a silver rim). Half a gallon! I came to the conclusion that they must either water down the wine, or use ribena. Or maybe I'm just not cut out to be the head of a Scottish clan. I think I would have to drink mine out of the antichrist bottle rather than the ceremonial horn.

After we'd had our fill of Scottish history, we stopped for lunch at the cafe, which was called Macloud's Tables - those of you who know your Skye peaks will be suitably impressed by the double meaning - before heading off in George towards the Cuillin hills in the southern part of Skye.

On route, we failed miserably to buy the ever elusive bread rolls, and I for one was starting to get quite concerned about tomorrow's packed lunch. We did however stop off at a strange shop advertising "game and oysters". There was a young Scottish man in there, dressed in butchers wellies, and a yellow rubber apron (serial killer clothes if ever I've seen them), who was very chatty and friendly, but slightly odd when he started telling us about his pet pig, who was now minced up in the freezer behind us.
Never deterred by a little strangeness, we bought some diced venison (shot in the Cuillins - possibly using a sniper scope like the one in the scary gun shop), and some of the pet pig sausages.

We drove around for a while, surrounded by amazing scenery that was hidden in the clouds, and ended up at Glen Brittle campsite, which is where we plan to spend tomorrow or Tuesday night. We sneakily used the toilets, and, finally found a loaf of freshly baked bread in the campsite shop of all places! So my worries about lunch are over, and breakfast plans have changed from porridge, to egg, bacon, and slightly fried bread dripping with butter.

We've stopped for the night a bit further up Glen Brittle from the campsite - in a little car park in the forest. Either the wind has dropped, or the trees are sheltering us, but George's pop top is up so we have a bit more room. The woods are a quite creepy - full of red toadstools with white spots, and wisps of mist amongst the trees, and that was just in daylight. I've yet to venture outside in darkness.

Apart from bread, tomorrow will involve breaking Claire's new boots in, either on a forest walk, or maybe a coastal walk if the weather is nice.


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Location:Isle of Skye

Coming Down in the World

Saturday 21st September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 6

We were rudely awoken at 7.45am by what sounded like someone angrily pounding on George. I got no response to my shouting "who's there" or whatever alternative phrase I may have come up with after being woken from a deep sleep. We peered outside and saw that Kayak Man was out of his car stretching, but perhaps more significantly, George was surrounded by sheep. None of them owned up to it, but we suspect that one of them might have been having a scratch on the bike rack, or possibly a nibble on the waste water bucket.

The alarm had been set for 8 anyway, and as it was dry and bright, we got up and were on our way earlier than normal. We were soon on our way up Waterstein Head, which is a big wedge shaped headland, that misses out on being the most westerly point on Skye by being maybe half a mile or so too far east. It was a bit of a slog uphill, in strong winds, and up into clouds that were swirling around us. It didn't rain on us but Claire was grumpy. Every time I've said the words "walk" or "boots" over the last day or two, a black thunder cloud has appeared over her head, and today was no different. She cheered up a bit when we got back to George, changed her shoes and socks, and I cooked us an early lunch of heart shaped fried eggs, frankfurters, and hot potato scones.
After that I thought another walk was out of the question (and besides, the weather was looking more and more unpleasant by the second), so we headed over to Dunvegan where we are spending the night.

There isn't much to Dunvegan. An over priced cake shop, a bakery with no bread, a filling station with a tiny shop, and a village store with somewhat limited supplies (no popcorn, minstrel type sweets or appetising cakes). But, there was a rather scary gun and fishing tackle shop at the end of town. Apart from a miniature tank, and a selection of rifles, shotguns, handguns, and most alarming a "sniper scope for moving vehicle or human targets" (!), there was also a fairly respectable range of budget walking boots.

After trying a few pairs on, she settled on a pair of size 9, full leather, and, according to the scary shopkeeper, fully waterproof Hi-Tec boots. Now, I don't have a problem with Hi-Tec. In fact, I owned 3 pairs of Hi-Tec "Silver Shadow" trainers back to back in my youth, and more recently have owner 2 pairs of Hi-Tec "Magnum" work boots, which were excellent until they developed an annoying squeak. However, Claire is a snob when it comes to outdoor clothing brands, and under normal circumstances wouldn't be seen dead in such a budget brand. But when the alternative is wet feet all week, or an all day trip to Fort William or Inverness to find better (and more expensive) shops, then the Hi-Tec won. Just about.

After our shoe shopping trip, we settled in at tonight's campsite, where we enjoyed very hot power showers in the newly refurbished, and fairly warm shower block, and then washed and dried all Claire's wet socks (and a few other things) in the laundry.

I have been told by the man at reception, and also a lady in the laundry room, that the awful weather we are currently experiencing (strong wind that rocks George, and horizontal rain), will have blown over by tomorrow, and we are in for a beautiful day, with highs of 25 degrees. I've taken this with a huge pinch of salt, as the BBC says different, and I am planning a day at Dunvegan Castle. With the Coral Beaches as backup.

Tonight we have electric hookup, and are going to test out George's DVD player for the first time. In the absence of popcorn we have Doritos and wine.

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Location:Isle of Skye

The Antichrist in a Bottle

Friday 20th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 5

For once it wasn't throwing it down when we woke up today. We made a quick visit to a local outdoor clothing shop, searching for some full leather boots, in the sale, to fit Claire's weird feet. We didn't find any boots, but Claire did buy a new pair of socks that are supposed to stop you getting blisters even if your feet are wet. They are called 1000 mile socks, and as they don't sell them at Cotswolds, she's never tried them before.

Whichever weather app said it would be excellent today got it wrong. It didn't rain that much while we were out, but has been very gloomy with low cloud all day. The walk was nice, and I'm sure it would have been spectacular on a clear day. We nearly got blown away looking at Macloud's Maidens, and had to retreat behind a hill for shelter.
We came across a few other people, one couple in particular who we saw several times when we both stopped for lunch in the same area. They were walking so slowly that they must have set out at about 6am to get as far as they had. We overtook them after our lunch and didn't see them again, so we think they must have given up and turned back.

Last night, I was allowed to open one of my birthday presents a week early! This was because I'd commented yesterday that it seemed stupid carrying water around in my rucksack to make tea, when we were constantly crossing mountain streams full of spring water. Claire had got me a "Water to Go" bottle, which is a water bottle with a built in filter to remove just about everything bad from water (e.g. sediment, chlorine, tadpoles etc). You just fill it up from the water source of your choice, and then squeeze the bottle, which pushes the water out through the filter.
We are curious about what would happen if you put wine in the bottle. I've seen an advert where they put Coke in there, and it comes out clear! So we assume that the wine would come out as water, and so the bottle is now affectionately known as the Antichrist Bottle. When the filter is due for replacement I am going to try putting wine in. Not too much though, in case it works!
We had two cups of tea instead of our usual one whilst out today, and very nice they were too.

The photo above was actually taken a few days later, but is an action shot of me standing in a Scottish mountain stream, swigging freshly filtered spring water from the antichrist bottle.

It started raining a lot just after we got back to George, and we were glad to have got back dry again. Well, mainly dry. Claire's feet were soggy, but are still blister free, so maybe the 1000 mile socks are working. In hindsight, she should have just worn one of them, to see if the other foot got a blister.

We're staying the night by a little jetty near Neist Point and Waterstein Head, where we are planning on walking tomorrow. It's not as good as other spots we've found as there are a few too many people around for our liking, but it's the best we could do without driving miles, or getting blown away. There were a few people fishing off the rocks when we arrived, but they've gone now, and the only person remaining is a man in a green Vauxhall with a kayak on the roof. We wonder if he's planning on sleeping in his car here, because unless we've accidentally parked up in a dogging hotspot, we can't see why else he'd be here now it's dark.
We've spotted some seals in the bay, but they don't hang around long enough for us to get a good look let alone a photo.

I feel really tired tonight. I'm not really sure why, as I've been sleeping well in the enhanced memory foam bed. I can only assume that today's walk was harder than it sounded in the book. It's quarter to 9 now, and I'm already looking forward to getting off to sleep. I just wish kayak man would go away, as I'm going to have to be very selective about my bedtime wee spot if he's still here.

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Location:Isle of Skye

Old Men And Mountains

Thursday 19th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 4

Once again we woke to awful weather, and once again we switched the alarm clock off and went back to sleep. By about 9.30, things still hadn't really improved, so we got up anyway and had some porridge (less dangerous than bagels), and 2 cups of tea back to back. Then we washed the dishes, faffed around a bit more, drove into town and got some diesel for George and some provisions for us, by which time it was looking slightly better outside.

By the time we got to the start point for our walk, it was noon, and we were hungry and had to have one of the just-bought scones before we even started. The first part of the walk was a bit of a slog. Partly because it was quite steep uphill, up sort of uneven steps (which are one of our least favourite sorts of uphill), and partly because we'd spent the morning doing nothing, and were full of scone and low on enthusiasm. But the weather had sorted itself out, and we had a lovely lunch break sitting below the Old Man Of Storr. The sun had come out, it wasn't windy, and it wasn't raining, or even looking like it might rain. After that we felt a lot better and the rest of the walk from then on was much easier.

The Storr is a mountain (well, at 719m, mountain pedants would argue that actually it's a hill) with a load of spiky bits of rock below it a bit like The Quiraing. The biggest and most famous bit is called The Old Man of Storr, and the Storr and the Old Man can be seen and recognised from miles away. (I have to confess that I've borrowed the photo from Google, as despite having 4 cameras between us, neither of us got a photo of the Storr and the Old Man)

There are signs of recent rockfalls everywhere, and also some signs warning you about the rockfalls. We ignored them all and carried on below the mountain cliffs, along a lovely little path on a gentle uphill slope with amazing views round every corner (this is our preferred type of uphill). The last part of the ascent was along the grassy shoulder of the mountain (as it said in the route instructions), with views right along the Trotternish Ridge and out as far as the Outer Hebrides.

When we reached the summit, we had it to ourselves (apart from a pair of Ravens), and struggled to decide where to sit and eat our belgian buns because the scenery in every direction was so breathtaking. Once again we had a nice break without the weather cutting it short.

Just from looking at our route down, it was obviously going to be quite steep. We bought some walking poles last week for this very purpose. As you may recall from previous blogs, my dad kindly passed on his dodgy knee genes to me, so I am willing to try anything to make going downhill easier.
Further testing is required, but my knees weren't hurting coming down and they're still not hurting now, which is a good sign.

Part of the route down seemed very steep, and a bit awkward as it involved climbing down a waterfall, and over a very recent rockfall of very big rocks, some of which were split in half from the impact. But we soon passed that bit and after a mile or so of sloshing around in swamps again we were back at George with the kettle on. When we looked back on our route, we were quite taken aback by what looked like sheer cliffs with no obvious way down at all.

We decided that The Storr has all the required ingredients a mountain should have, and that in our eyes it is most definitely a mountain. So far, it is also our favourite mountain walk ever. The walk we did is highly recommended if you come to Skye - and thanks to Trail magazine for publishing it in the only edition I've ever bought which happened to be last week!

We've found ourselves a nice little spot for our overnight stop near to a village called Bracadale on the west coast. We've had meatballs and mash for dinner and a glass of wine whilst watching the sun set over the sea, and the clouds lift from over the Cuillins. The sunset was red, which is supposed to mean a nice day tomorrow!

The actual weather forecast for tomorrow is excellent to OK, depending on which weather app we use. We are planning a coastal walk of about 10 miles to see Macloud's Maidens, which are some sea stacks just off the coast not too far from here, and then another night camping somewhere random before we need to check in at a site to get clean again.

A Table For Two

Wednesday 18th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 3

I woke up at 7.30 this morning to the sound of rain beating down on George, and immediately turned both alarm clocks off and went back to sleep. An hour and a half later sunshine was sneaking through a gap in the curtains, so I dragged myself out of bed and forced Claire to do the same. I noticed that a couple of blokes who'd been sleeping in a slightly converted 4x4 had got up at the same time, obviously waiting for a break in the rain. They'd been sleeping on a wooden shelf in the back seat/boot area of the car, on thermarest sleeping mats. Better than a tent but not a patch on George. And I bet it smelt of boys

We managed our bagel breakfast without any injuries today, and arrived at our walk start point late morning. We weren't rushing, as it was only a fairly short walk, and we didn't really want to start it in the pouring rain. The start point was teeming with Japanese tourists, so we left George in their company and set off into the strange landscape of The Quiraing.

The Quiraing and the surrounding area was all caused by a big land slip back when Skye was all new and still made of steaming lava.

We spent ages looking for something called The Table, which is like a raised up bowling green in the middle of all the rock columns. We couldn't find it, and found out later that we'd been looking in completely the wrong place. Well, the wrong side of the path anyway.

The weather was going from throwing it down with rain, to glorious sunshine, and our waterproofs were on and off constantly. We had the option to return the way we came (the easy route), or to make our way back to George on the hill above the path we came on. We decided on the difficult option, more because we wanted to see how cold and windy it was up there, as a sort of test for later in the holiday.

The wind wasn't too bad (good job really, as the path was right on the edge of the cliff!), and the weather was 90% good while we were up there. We also spotted The Table, and realised that we'd got the best view of it from up top, so were we're glad we made the effort. We thought it would be a great place to wild camp in a tent one night, if the resident sheep didn't mind.

We made it down before the rain started again. Most of the route down was through a swamp. I was glad I'd decided to bring my full leather boots instead of my goretex fabric ones, because Claire's goretex fabric ones leaked. Claire has funny feet and can't seem to find any leather waterproof boots that are comfortable, so as a result she has to put up with wet feet. And I have to put up wet socks hanging up in George.

We had a well deserved cup of tea with a packet of mini party rings (not had party rings for years, and never had mini ones before!), and then made our way to Portree where we are staying the night.

The site here is fairly basic but has everything we need - showers, toilets, water to top George up, and sinks to give the dishes a thorough wash. The shower block has nice hot showers but is not heated and the tiled floor is like walking on ice. I can see why the site's closed October - March. There are still quite a few people camping in tents, despite the squelchy pitches and chilly weather and we're rather smug we've got George.

We've treated ourselves to a meal out in Portree tonight. I had haggis and mash and Claire  had a goats cheese vegetarian thing. Both were really nice, as were the cheese boards and 2 pints of Cuillin beer I washed mine down with. I'd even go so far as to say it was the best cheese board I've ever had.
Aside from diesel, today is the first time we have spent any money on this trip!

Tomorrow the weather forecast is similar to today - a mixture of rain and sunshine. We are going to climb The Storr if its not too rainy, and if it is too rainy then we will just do a longer walk below the hill. Then we're off to the western side of Skye for a couple of days of wild camping.

Chasing Rainbows

Tuesday 17th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 2

I got up at 7.30am today when my alarm went off. Getting Claire out of bed was more difficult, but I managed eventually. It seems that the memory foam mattress topper was money well spent anyway. Last night was uneventful, with no unexplained noises or lights outside, and we both slept fairly well. We were on the road just before 9am. It was raining on and off, but the scenery was 100% more interesting than yesterday, which was spent mostly on the motorway.We stopped for breakfast after about an hour at the Green Welly Stop, which is a few miles north of Crianlarich. We were both starving, and looking forward to our bagels.

One of the things I bought for George recently is a Sandwich Knife made by a company called Kuhn Rikon, who make very good knives. I already have one of their bread knives at home, which is exceptionally good at cutting bread, and is the reason why I bought the Sandwich Knife. Anyway, I was happily cutting the bagels in half, all the while being suitably impressed by the Sandwich Knife, and thinking "I must be careful not to cut myself", when, yes, you guessed, I carried on slicing right through the bagel and into my finger. You probably saw this coming as soon as I mentioned the word Knife, especially when you noticed it was Capitalised. I certainly should have seen it coming, as I also had a similar accident with the afore mentioned bread knife a while back.
The end result of all this, is that Claire had to finish cooking the breakfast, while I patched my finger up and then spent 10 minutes lying on George's floor feeling queasy. I'm OK with other people's blood these days, but still not with my own. It's just a good job that George has his own First Aid Kit for such moments.
I have inspected The Finger this evening and don't really understand what all the fuss was about.

I should really tell you something about our day, rather than just my finger. After I'd recovered enough to get back behind the wheel, we continued our journey through the Highlands. Our route was up to Crianlarich, then Fort William, and to Skye via the bridge. The rain had pretty much cleared up by late morning, and we were treated to amazing views of the mountains, lochs and waterfalls, some shrouded in clouds, and some behind rainbows.

We stopped at one viewpoint, initially to look at a rainbow, but then noticed that there were hundreds of piles of rocks, like mini cairns, on the land by the side of the road. It was quite spooky really, and we were glad we hadn't stopped there after dark, to wake up to them at day break.

We arrived on Skye late afternoon, and have stopped for the night near a village called Staffin, which is in the North Eastern area. It's about as far North as we will be going. We've found a spot right on the coast, by a little beach, where we can hear the sea from the van.

George had a near miss when we arrived, when I only just managed to save him from an inept Japanese tourist. (You should know by now that no blog of mine would be complete without the appearance of an annoying Japanese tourist).
This particular one was part of a convoy of 3 cars full, none of which seemed to have any concept of the etiquette required on single track roads with passing places, or indeed how to drive at all. They just ignored the passing places, leaving me to drive George onto the verge to let them pass. I had to shout out of the window at the first car to stop him ploughing straight into the side of George. The first car squeezed through with literally about an inch to spare, so after that I decided to reverse George back rather than gamble further with his body panels. I am pleased to report that I can drive better backwards than any of them could drive forwards. George remained rather quiet about his Japanese roots, and I wonder if he was a bit embarrassed by his heritage.

We are only a few miles from the start of tomorrow's walk, which is to a place called The Quiraing. It's not a very long walk, but will be far more energetic than we've been for the last couple of days. And there are interesting rocks there.
After that, were are going to stay on a camp site near the main town of Portree, where we will get clean, and then treat ourselves to a meal in town.


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Location:Isle of Skye

On The Road Again

Monday 16th September 2013

Isle of Skye - Day 1

We finally set off up North today on our way to Skye. We'd originally planned to go on Saturday, but when we saw the weather forecast, we decided we'd go on Sunday. But then Claire got an e-mail to say that Fed-Ex were delivering an extra special birthday present for me on Monday, so we eventually left on Monday afternoon. I am told that the present will be well worth all this build up, and will let you know next week.

The forecast for Scotland on Sunday and Monday was storms with 70mph winds. We've seen plenty of rain on the way up the motorway, and it's been a bit gusty, but nothing major. We've stopped for the night by Loch Lomond, and it's not particularly windy here either. Hopefully the wind will not get up in the night and George's poptop will still be there in the morning.

This is our second big trip in George, and we're planning to spend just under 2 weeks in Scotland, mainly on the Isle of Skye. We're also toying with the idea of climbing Ben Nevis, but that will depend on what the weather's doing towards the end of our holiday.

We have actually done some planning before this trip (unlike the Ireland trip). We've got lots of walks planned and researched campsites, so hopefully we will be a bit more active and see all the things we want to see.

Since our first big trip in George, we have come up with a few changes. We've bought a memory foam mattress topper, as both of us kept waking up with dead arms and legs due to George's rather firm cushions. It only arrived a few days ago, so we are looking forward to testing it tonight. We've bought saucepans with handles instead of the camping set we were using before. We've had George's stereo fixed, and invested in an "Eddie Stobart Trucking CD" to keep me going on those long drives. Claire has also painstakingly been sewing new velcro onto the curtains, so no-one will be able to peer in now (I did one square of velcro, and gave up).
I've also bought a sat nav, and uploaded a list of free overnight stop over spots. The one it found for us tonight is right by the shore of Loch Lomond in a little car park off a layby. It's just off the A82, which means there is a bit of traffic noise, but we were glad to find somewhere right on route.

Tomorrow, we have decided, somewhat controversially, that we are not having breakfast! Well, not straight away. We're going to get an hour's driving behind us and then reward ourselves with a bacon and cream cheese bagel. We should get to Skye tomorrow, hopefully with time to fit in a bit of a walk somewhere along the route.


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Location:Loch Lomond

Puffins Galore

Monday 5th & Tuesday 6th August 2013

Ireland Trip - Days 12 & 13

We were up bright and early on Monday, excited about our boat trip. When we arrived at the harbour at Portmagee, there were about 6 quite small fishing boats all tied together, ready to take tourists over the the Skellig Islands. We checked in with a chubby Irishman who seemed to be organising the passengers. I didn’t understand a word he said, but Claire told me we had to get on the second boat in line. This involved climbing down the side of the harbour on an iron ladder, into the first boat, and across to the second. We managed fine, but there were quite a lot of other people who were on the verge of falling in or having panic attacks.

The weather seemed perfect - blue skies and sunshine, and not much wind. The crossing to the islands took about an hour, as they are quite far out. I spent most of that hour terrified the boat was going to capsize, or that the woman next to me was going to be sick on me. Despite the good weather, the sea seemed quite rough to me, but it might have just been that we were on a small boat. The boat was full, but there were only 14 of us, plus the captain, who spent most of the crossing reading the paper. Despite Claire’s seasickness on the ferry, she seemed to love every minute on the small boat. I was glad to get off.

We saw a few seabirds flying around during the crossing, but the gannet colony on Little Skellig was our first glimpse of the birds close up. Apparently, the rock hosts the worlds second largest gannet colony, with around 60,000 birds there. Claire rather poetically said it looked like a snow globe, with the white gannets flying around above the rock, and the white poo all over the rock looking like a dusting of snow. 

It didn’t smell very poetic, and I was relieved and amazed not to get my head pooed on. We didn’t land on Little Skellig (it’s closed to the public), but after a quick tour round it in the boat, we were soon docking at Skellig Michael.

This was the island we’d been looking forward to, because that’s where the puffins nest. We were pleased to see that the puffins hadn’t left the island yet, and in fact were all over the place. I’ve seen puffins before, so I already know they are my second favourite seabird (after penguins), but Claire had never seen them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so excited as when she saw her first one on land. They are very cute, and not really scared of humans, so you can get pretty close to them. As puffins don’t tend to come to the mainland, they haven’t encountered any problems with humans to make them scared of us.

We took loads of photos - Claire of the puffins, and me of Claire taking photos of the puffins. We walked up the 660 steps to the monastic area at the top of the rock, where there are some tiny stone huts that used to house monks in the 6th century. We didn’t linger there though, as the area was crammed full of people, and was extremely boring compared to the puffins.

We had our packed lunch overlooking the puffin burrows, before spending the remainder of our time on the rock mingling with as many puffins as possible. We didn’t see any pufflings, so we think they must have still been in the burrows.

We were sad to leave, and I was somewhat apprehensive about the return trip when the captain told us to put our bags in the cabin because they were going to get wet. We didn’t have to do that on the way there! The sea was rougher, and I was glad (not to mention smug) that I’d got my waterproof trousers on as the water was splashing all over us. I was actually less scared than on the outward journey though and quite enjoyed the return crossing.

When we got back to the mainland, we got changed, scoffed a couple of scones, and started our drive back home. We stopped for the night near Portlaoise, which was about 3/4 of our way across Ireland. It was about 8pm by the time we started looking for suitable overnight spots, and we knew we hadn’t got time to be too fussy. We settled on one of many small laybys off a tiny road alongside a canal. It was pretty quiet and no-one gave us any problems, but we did find that on the few occasions a car went past, it actually made George shake slightly! In future we will have to try and pick spots a bit further back from the road.

All we have done today is driven to the ferry port, hung around, got on the boat, ate loads more complimentary biscuits, and driven home. We got home at about 7pm, and, at nearly 11pm, I am still waiting for Claire to pick her favourite puffin photos out of the millions that she took. Hopefully I will get this blog posted, with photos, before midnight!

Our next trip in George will hopefully be in about 10 days time when we have a weekend off together. In the meantime, we will be giving George a good clean and polish, and adding a few more items to his inventory.