During 2020, the Covid-19 virus has slowly but steadily eroded a mark into every facet of life. Wake up and watch TV, the presenters are sitting 2m apart from each other. Go to work, now means just walking from your bedroom to your spare room. Informal team meetings that used to be held in the foye are now typed out over messenger. Picking up dinner from the shops used to attract police attention if you wore a hood and bandanna around your face, now, its Wednesday.
Category: Scotland
Wet Walks And Waffles
After Aimi had been reminding me for days, leading up to the trip, I still hadn’t gotten any new waterproof walking trousers. We had made a special trip to Hathersage, and been to GoOutdoors twice, but still not found any I liked or fit properly. I wasn’t in a mad rush, I sort of remembered owning a cheap pair of plastic over trousers that may or may not have been stored in the overhead locker in the van. Well this afternoon it was due to rain, and we had just walked 3.5 miles into Oban to take a look around
Nevis Range MTB
Glorious Glencoe
This morning rose quietly on the Loch, us probably first to rise. Good thing too because without a toilet I had to sneak out a quick nature poop (bagged and stowed – leave no trace)
Dark Sky Luck
After a quick argument about my engineering prowess, we set off for Scotland.
Continue reading Dark Sky Luck
Hooternannys
We had chosen to stop at a caravan park last night because we thought it prudent to shower before meeting our friend for a night out. After 4 nights wild camping with only a brief dip in the ocean to quell the growing stench, we could not have chosen a better place. The campsite facilities were amazing with actually hot, powerful showers and decent washing up facilities.
Ice Bath
There is a joke in England that throughout the ages, after all the clan wars were done, the political arguments settled and the bar brawls ended, the border to Scotland is actually demarcated by the sudden absence of the midge. A vampiric little blighter that serves no other purpose than to make the inhabitants of Scotland want to peel off their skin for the itching. Luckily, up to this point we have avoided them. However I think this morning they had a meeting and realised they had let us slip past so converged on us in mass at sunrise. Buzzing around the van, there was a midge cloud so thick you could have described it as midge soup. Instead we chose to drive away and fix breakfast somewhere less dangerous for our skins. They must have been so annoyed not to even get a taste of our exotic southern blood.
#VanLife
Grey misty weather greeted us, like a fluffy throw that’s been left in the summer house after a rain shower. It was dank but still comforting as the warmth of the sunshine attempted to start the day. In the words of a young boy from skye, “What makes a great view – distance”. The clouds smothered any hope of a view from the top of Old Man of Stowr and as beautiful the coastline is, there was no distance to be had this morning.
The V-Dubbers
Today was a mixture of complaining about our various aching body parts, and groaning in pleasure at the views we were treated to as we trundled past. After a leisurely breakfast of bacon butties we packed up the van.
It had been a very successful first couple nights in the van. Some of my fears had been dispelled; there was no leaking from the roof, it didn’t rock in the night with the wind to wake me or make me feel sea sick, and it was definitely warm enough. Also, most of the day was spent with the windows and doors open which means, so far, we haven’t had any condensation or damp issues. This was something I had taken great care to avoid so I am very happy its worked.
Ben Nevis Knees
OMG my knees, my terrible knees!
When we got back to base camp, they both ached fairly evenly. It was quite surprising seeing as one of them had been through 2 major surgeries in the last 3 years and the other was completely unmolested.
Our route up Ben Nevis could never have been the “normal” one, we are proud graduates of the SUMC! We had brought all our climbing gear along and scoped out a good looking climb. Well within our climbing ability technically, but stamina-ly, far beyond us it turned out. Not because we attempted and failed it, we did not even attempt. The weather looked soggy in the morning and from our experience on welsh rock, we could reasonably expect the climb to be “seepy”. Not an enduring quality on a 450m long climb and by the end of the day, knew we had made the right choice.