the Forecast

It's all very well to plan a fortnightly camping trip. To get the food prepared, the gear ready, and the schedule organised. But come departure day there will always be just one, tiny, 78,772km² problem: this is Scotland. It might be beautiful and full of majestic vistas, but this can be hard to appreciate when your tent, clothes, and shoes are wet and freezing and there's so much rain dripping off your forehead that you might as well be trying to see those vistas through a waterfall. It's okay if you've managed to get everything pitched and ready before the rain sets in, and I'd be on my way to some hillside this very minute if I thought there was any chance of that. But the forecast for today and tomorrow calls for one thing and one thing only: rain. Rain, rain and a 60% chance of more rain. Even though the sky is a pristine and cloudless blue at the moment, bitter experience has taught me that if we take the risk and the weather doesn't hold, the cost of our recklessness will be high.

When I lived in Canada I was once the director of a leadership program at a small, no-frills camp in Northern Ontario. By frills, I am referring to such things as running water, or beds. So it was really more a semi-permanent wild campsite. As part of their training, I was required to take my group of 10 teenagers on a 5 day out-trip. By no means was I qualified to do this. Despite having grown up attending another, slightly more luxurious summer camp (I can still remember the way your cheek would stick to the plastic coating on the mattress if you accidentally strayed from your pillow, and the battle to limit any visits to the toilet facilities in an effort to avoid exposing one's tender areas to the swarms of mosquitoes and colonies of spiders in every corner. Unpleasant, perhaps, but luxurious in that there were beds and toilets to be had) which offered classes in things like 'paddle strokes', I'd never had the chance to try my fancy skills in anything other than perfectly still water. And to be honest, even that experience was limited; most of the paddle-in-water time I'd clocked was accomplished by sitting cross-legged on the edge of the dock, dipping the paddle into the lake and pretending to be in a canoe. I thought I was a brilliant navigator but it turns out almost anyone can keep an unmoving dock on course, even without a paddle or the ability to execute a flawless J-stroke. Needless to say, my confidence in my ability to handle rapids and waterfalls was not particularly high.

Battling the wind on the outskirts of Georgian Bay

I survived 2 ½ days of the out-trip with only minor difficulties. After getting over my initial terror of rapids I managed to run a few courses of them pretty successfully, only tipping my canoe once in an attempt to clear a small, narrow waterfall about 4 feet high. I did accidentally smash my head off a rock under the waterfall, and then proceed to nearly die of panic because every time I surfaced I was trapped under a canoe with an ever-diminished air bubble in it, but eventually I prevailed. So things were going relatively well. Or seemed to be, anyway, given my concussed state.

But then came the rain. Our situation was already looking pretty grim, as our scouts had neglected to scout quite far enough ahead, and as a result we had ended our last portage too early. All the canoes were back in the water, and we rounded a bend to find a set of unmanageable rapids pulling us in with alarming strength. Everyone battled to reach the side of the river before getting sucked into the gauntlet, but even though we were all successful our problems were far from over. We could see that portaging from our present location would be near-impossible, even without the rain. On both sides of the river, the land rose up in angles not far off 90 degrees. And thus, already soaked to the bone, we spent 3 hours emptying the canoes, guiding them down the rapids one by one, and then ever-so-carefully hauling our gear downriver like spiders: clinging to the rockface with hands and feet and trying not to let our heavy packs pull us down into the dangerously swift water. Dusk was creeping up by the time we got everyone and everything to safety. Unfortunately, the landscape hadn't changed much and there was no way to pitch the tents on such steep slopes. That's how we ended up still on the river as night fell, rainwater rising in the bottoms of the canoes, and blind terror rising in our hearts. Or mine, at any rate. I am not a very brave person at the best of times – the fear of a painful or drawn-out (or anything other than a peacefully-in-her-sleep) death keeps me from enjoying many things in life – and it had taken all my courage just to steer my canoe down rapids at all, never mind attempting it in the dark. But of course the river could not continue smoothly. Inevitably there was a patch of extremely rough water before the land to either side of river finally began to level out.

I'm pretty sure I came very close to dying of panic in the five minutes it took to guide my canoe through the unseen dangers of the rapids. But I made it to the bottom, where I felt as much like I'd survived a battle as I am ever likely to. Euphoria! In the proper sense of the word. I am rarely worried enough to feel euphoric when things take a turn for the better, but in this case, I am embarrassed to admit that my reaction to the night-rapids was to believe I wouldn't survive, and thus my response on coming through successfully was equally disproportionate. Despite the rain, despite the cold, despite the fact that two of my 17-year-old charges had ended up in the river, I felt amazing! But it was not to last.

By the time we pulled our canoes to shore at a flat stretch of ground, the sky was impossibly dark. And despite all the horrors that had gone before, this was when I really discovered how awful it is to camp in the rain. You pull your tent from your bag, only to discover it's already wet. It takes three people an hour to pitch it, because the fabric is sticking to itself and the sodden channels through which the tent poles should go are just not having any of it. On the plus side, the tent pegs require no coaxing upon sliding them into the muddy ground. On the down side, however, they slide right back out again the moment the wind picks up. Which it does. Repeatedly. There comes a depressing point where it's still not pitched quite right, but you are so cold and fed up and hungry that you can no longer be bothered fighting with it, so you turf your gear inside to prevent it blowing away and retreat to attempt a campfire.

I'm still not sure how the fire ever got started. I remember digging around with bare hands in the frigid muddy ground, trying to get below the layer of leaves to find some dry kindling. I also remember a fair amount of flammable liquid being poured onto the kindling as encouragement. Whatever it took, we did succeed in getting it going, or I may not have made it through to be telling you this today. The kids all gathered round as we began to cook up a big pot of mac n' cheese. Flashes of lightning every few minutes illuminated our pale, sallow faces, so eager in their hunger, and the sad, sagging attempts at shelter pitched behind the firepit. The food smelled amazing. At long last the pasta was tender and the sauce was mixed in, and everyone rushed the pot at once. Ah selfish humans, see how your greed is your undoing! For now your mac n' cheese is all spilt upon the dirty ground, and you are so hungry you will scoop it up again. Down on hands and knees each of you will grasp handfuls of pasta, pine needles, and mud, and you will be thankful for the darkness that hides what you are forced to eat from your finicky eyes. But darkness can't hide the sharpness of a pine needle when you try to swallow it. No, it cannot.

Surprisingly, even with our bellies full no one feels much better. It's so cold, though, that our expert out-trip guides force us to do the hokey-pokey. And then the macarena, and a conga line, and that Sunday School one about father Abraham having many sons. Finally they judge that our heart-rates are restored as fully as possible, and we are allowed to crawl into our damp sleeping bags and attempt unconsciousness. It is mainly this scene – 13 depressed people doing the hokey-pokey in the rain with mud around their mouths – that deters me from heading to Loch Glentool today as planned. The only thing sadder than 13 people in the situation previously described would be 2 people in the same, one with a Scottish accent who I'm pretty sure would be pure ragin and like as not to be substituting profanities for all the lyrics of the songs. Even after relating all this I am kind of tempted to go, but it would have to be alone as there is no chance of Mark leaving his armchair today. And I just can't be bothered being miserable by myself.

Overturned canoe the morning after the storm

Loch Lubnaig

It’s the Thursday before a bank holiday weekend. A royal wedding that is otherwise pretty meaningless to my daily life has resulted in an extra day off work, and the last thing I want to do with it is to sit and watch said nuptials. I’m sure the bride will be lovely and the hats will be of unbelievable proportions, but even still. I have better things to do.

Mark and I have planned a camping extravaganza! But the Post Office’s close of business has come and gone, and the only bit of camping gear we’ve received so far has been our double adventure mat (which, I realise, is pretty awesome all by itself – it must be with a name like that, double adventure! – but even though it is “guaranteed to provide you with all the warmth and comfort you need for a good night’s sleep” we are reluctant to brave the wilderness without any further protection). We are settled in the living room with novels and computer games, resigned to a weekend like all the others that have come before when suddenly there’s a knock at the door.

“It’s 9:15! Who on earth could that be?” I ask Mark, but in typical fashion he ignores my unanswerable question and keeps on pwning noobs. I jump up and run to the door, quickly straightening my hair so as to look a bit more presentable. Upon opening it, though, the man standing there tells me with his face that I haven’t succeeded. I look down in shame. And realise that I’m wearing a tiger-striped onesie with ears on its hood.

The man recovers first. He is sweating and breathing heavily, and for the first time I notice the oversized box at his feet. He proffers the electronic signature-taker thing that there is probably a word for, wishes me a happy weekend, and trots off down the stairs. I squeal something unintelligible at Mark and rush back into the living room with the box, whereupon he looks over and unexcitedly says “Oh, the tent. Huh.” I tear the box open and immediately remove all the packaging from our fancy new stuff: one 3-berth, double layer tent with porches at front and back, and a trangia spirit stove complete with two pots and a frying pan that all packs up in a tidy lightweight bundle. I’m in gear-induced heaven! Nothing I love more than really top-quality stuff that lets me go do other stuff in a professional manner. However, there’s still one thing standing between us and an idyllic weekend at Loch Lubnaig: our undelivered sleeping bag.

We do have sleeping bags already, but they are of the super-cheap, ultra-hot-weather variety (little more than a sheet sewn in half, really) and will not be sufficient to let us sleep through an April night in Scotland. And so I try to temper my excitement with a little realism, and once again the trip is off.

Cue Friday. At Westminster Abbey a middle-class girl is about to become a princess, meanwhile another girl of similar upbringing (namely, me) is about to go grocery shopping. I suppose you could say I’m in the less exciting situation, but thanks to that much-loved Kate Middleton the shops will be deserted so it works out in my favour nonetheless. I am calling “bye!” to Mark over my shoulder as I exit the flat, and nearly fall on my face tripping over the big box left outside the door. What’s this!? Our sleeping bag? Delivered on a bank holiday!? It’s a backpacking miracle! I am instantly even more excited about our now-unstoppable trip than I was before, because obviously everything has been coming together to make it possible, and therefore it will be the best thing ever. Mark seems somewhat less excited. This could be because he had already overcome his disappointment about the cancelled trip and begun looking forward to a weekend of gaming, or alternately he could just appear unenthused next to my (over the top?) jubilance. In my defence, I have been working really long hours. It will be nice to get out of the city.

I’m ambling through Queen’s Park on my way to the supermarket, enjoying the strange solitude, when I stumble upon a group of children on a hill. I’m glad there are at least a few other people in the country who aren’t glued to the television right now, I think. But then I get closer. The children are throwing daisies at each other, emitting gales of forced laughter and not-quite-real glee. Then I notice the photographer, weighed down with loads of professional equipment. And then, getting even closer, I realise that the children are wearing matching t-shirts with a picture of “Wills&Kate” printed on the front. This is the first indication that the service might be over, and it also gives me some insight into how deeply some citizens are taking the royal wedding to heart – I am imagining the parents who hired this photographer, and the album they will create from these ridiculous photos, and it scares me.

There is a long grocery shopping trip, with many calls to Mark about potential purchases. Mark hates to shop, and also hates talking about shopping, and further dislikes planning things “when somebody is constantly asking me useless questions that have no answer”. And because of this, he gets fed up with the trip preparations before I’m even halfway ready to go (perhaps I shouldn’t be asking his opinion on every sock, torch and matchstick I am thinking of bringing?), forcing me to step up my packing to an unhealthy speed almost as soon as I return from the shops. There’s no way everything will be remembered with this sort of negligence! Mark is downstairs smoking and I’m running around in a frenzy trying to put the final items in my rucksack. On the way to the train station I discover he wasn’t trying to hurry me, he just went out for a smoke. Oh. For that I left the towels, wet, in the washing machine, where they will develop my least favourite smell in the world by the time we get home? And forgot a camera of all things?! I should really stop reading impatience into every cigarette.

Finally, we’re on the train. It’s only about an hour to Stirling, through lovely countryside and with a donut to keep us entertained on the way. Upon arrival things are looking grim. The sky has darkened, it’s kind of raining a bit, and everyone we encounter at the bus station is either creepy or creepy-by-association-with-the-other-creepy-folks. We shiver in the strong wind and wait for the bus.

It’s a shocking £4.50 each for a one-way ride to Callander, but we don’t argue because we are quite keen to get away from that unsettling bus station. After a while the price starts to make sense anyway, because the bus seems to travel in concentric rings that allow each passenger to disembark almost at their doorstep. In this way we see some of the lesser-known marvels of Scotland, including a town square with a clock tower that is only 1.5 metres tall but has the huge face of a much more impressive structure, the World’s Ugliest Church, and an exciting wildlife specimen that was definitely swimming in the river but that Mark says I imagined. There are also fields full of sheep, and darting between them are the tiniest lambs you ever saw. Oh, they’re so tiny. And some of them have little tiny black faces and tiny black legs, which is my favourite kind of lamb. I can hardly handle it.

Mark’s favourite kind of lamb is the kind on a plate.

Eventually, after many winding roads and just as I am starting to feel really motion sick, we arrive in Callander. The sun’s not out but it isn’t raining, so we hoist our heavy rucksacks and set off down the road.

Because we rarely plan anything properly, we aren’t actually sure how long of a walk it’s going to be to Loch Lubnaig. Mark keeps saying we’re nearly there, but then it usually turns out that we’re not, and everybody’s getting kind of footsore, weary, and, in my case at least, a bit whiney. The fancy gear is not quite as light as it could be. The scenery is undeniably gorgeous but kind of ruined by the busy road we’re walking along. At long last (after 3.6 miles, as google maps later confirms) the river starts to widen, and from there it’s only another 2.1 miles to the middle of the loch. Finally we stumble down a steep verge to the lakeside, nearly colliding with a guy who’s chopping down one of the few trees left in the area. The beach is fair hoachin’ (you would call it busy) with tents and families and fires. Mark and I are practically notorious for how little we enjoy spending time with strangers, and are not relishing the thought of spending the weekend in such close proximity to really loud children and soon-to-be-drunken youths. We stand around dejectedly for a while, and then Mark decides to cross the loch. Despite the plethora of tents on the East bank, there is not a single one on the West. As there are no bridges or stepping stones or zip lines we figure it’s down to the lack of access, but we’re not like everybody else so that sure as heck isn’t going to stop us. Mark rolls up his trouser legs and wades in, just below a very small dam with water flowing over it. I’m thinking to myself you should really be walking above it, where the pressure of the water hasn’t made it deeper but he’s too far out and looks really determined so I just leave it. He’s slipping around on the mossy rocks, nearly falling over, getting a bit soaked, and then quite suddenly he is across. I applaud loudly, much to the amusement of the tree-felling couple behind me. Mark drops his rucksack and crosses back (this time above the dam, thanks to my shouted, expert outdoorsman-type advice) to find me dragging my heels in reluctance. I have no desire to end up in a freezing cold loch (it really is very cold), I am not wearing submersible footwear, my trousers are too tight to roll more than halfway up my calves, the wind is definitely going to blow me over, and I can provide a host of other great excuses at a moment’s notice. But Mark is not taking no for an answer. Eventually we reach a solution: I will remove my boots and tie them around my neck. Mark will shoulder my pack. I will carefully, in sock feet, teeter from stone to stone right at the edge of the dam (it’s only about half a foot high) while Mark, in sandals and therefore more sure-footed, will walk beside me and hold my hand for balance. In this way we will provide a good 10 minutes of priceless entertainment for everyone on the East bank whilst simultaneously winning ourselves a secluded encampment on the West.

It is past 7:00 by the time we pick a site, our feet numb with cold and the rest of us numb from the gale-force winds. The sun is on its way down as we pitch our new tent for the first time, slowly, having to chase it down every few minutes when it is blown away. We do manage though, and Mark proves great at stomping tent pegs into reluctant ground after I have failed to do so with my girly hands. Which later have bruises from my efforts.

Exhausted and freezing, we climb into the haven of a tent and out of the wind. The first part of the adventure is successfully completed! I find myself wondering whether most people feel such an out-of-proportion sense of accomplishment upon pitching a tent.

An hour out of the wind is sufficient to restore some feeling to our limbs, so we pile on all the clothes we’ve brought and go out to gather wood in the dark. Our flashlights are both the self-powered kind, and while this is really convenient it also means that, as far as illumination goes, they are a bit crap. But mine is shaped like a cow and has light coming out of its mouth, so that makes it worth it, doesn’t it?

A few near-falls into a stream hidden by darkness and a touch of methylated spirits later and the fire is roaring away behind the tent. We spread out a picnic blanket and huddle in the lee of the tent; our eyebrows singeing every time the wind changes. And then it’s time for the debut of the new camp stove! Of all the new gear the trangia stove is my very favourite. Things that are both well designed and food related tend to hold my attention rather longer than simply well designed ones. We cook up some tomato soup accompanied by buttered baguettes, and then I remember why I love camping so much: every tiny bit of food tastes amazing (and that is really the only way I measure enjoyment). It is probably down to our exhaustion and the fact that we walked 5.7 miles on empty stomachs but I don’t even care. Yum! Soup is followed up by the Scottish make-do version of s’mores: dense, weirdly-textured marshmallows and chocolate sandwiched between two Fox’s butter crinkle biscuits. They are both amazingly tasty and, equally amazingly, even more unhealthy than their North American counterparts. And so to bed.

The “double adventure mat” will not self-inflate very well the first time you unroll it. I read this handy advice on a camping website from my iPhone as we lay atop a stubbornly airless mat. We also read that you shouldn’t blow mats up manually because the condensation will ruin them, so we just leave well enough alone and crawl into the deliciously cosy double sleeping bag (no adventure advertised) that got so many 5-star reviews on Amazon. It is super cosy, but between carrying a rucksack through the day and sitting hunched-over on a picnic blanket for most of the night my neck and back are in no state to notice. In addition, the wind has not abated and I don’t sleep at all. And I don’t mean the kind of not sleeping where you just say you didn’t sleep at all but were actually drifting in and out of consciousness. I mean AT ALL. I am hesitant to disrupt Mark’s sleep so I limit my noisy searches for painkillers to four attempts – all unsuccessful. I know I saw my pill container in the tent earlier, but no amount of cow-mouth-illumination can find it now. I weep with frustration but there’s no point in waking Mark up and forcing him to help me, though I do consider it – I have already searched everywhere. The night passes with excruciating slowness. At about 5 I finally make my way outside into the frigid, windy morning.

There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the little stream we nearly fell into the night before is a beautiful, crystal-clear bit of enchantment to a city dweller like me. I wander around collecting more firewood and trying to find a place to huddle out of the stupid incessant wind. No chance. I sit down behind a stone wall anyway, and pretend to be sheltered.

Mark eventually leaves the tent, and as soon as I crawl back inside I find my painkillers. The half-assed inflation of the double adventure mat somehow managed to hide them from me all night, despite the fact that I was sleeping (well, trying to) right on top of them. How ridiculous. Fortunately a few capsules of ibuprofen make me forget all my troubles and I am soon leaning against a fallen log beside the firepit, cooking up some scrambled eggs.

Breakfast is every bit as delicious as dinner was the previous night, just as I expected. It only took 25 minutes to cook the scrambled eggs! How very efficient. Mark is on dish detail (in the stream, freezing his hands off) while I take in the beautiful morning and admire all the firewood I gathered. We’re going to have one beauty of a campfire tonight!

I am distracted from these profound thoughts by Mark’s announcement that there is a couple approaching – not from the loch, but from the opposite side of our campsite where a road is hidden behind a line of trees. As these assailants bear down on us I get the sinking feeling that perhaps it’s not just laziness and lack of ambition that keeps the crowds to the East side of the loch. These suspicions are shortly confirmed.

“Ye cannae camp here, ye’ll need tae take tha tent doon!” exclaims the shorn-haired, middle-aged Scotswoman in an angry tone. “Och look, they’ve gaun an built a fire an’ aw. That’ll ne’er dae so it won’t.” she continues to her husband. She goes on at a feverish pitch for some time, but she’s wasting her time because both the speed of her speech and her thick highland accent are making her incomprehensible. Her husband is slightly less worked up about the whole thing, and eventually explains to us at a more reasonable pace that this side of the loch is actually protected, thanks to the likes of the campers we encountered on the other bank. “Soon ye willnae be allowed tae camp oor there neither,” he says, “too many folks’ve been cuttin and burnin doon the trees, an’ leavin their tents an’ bags an’ aw. Ah’m sorry but thair’s nawt can be done, ah’ll need tae bell tha polis if ye willnae go. Gaun pack up whit ye’ve got an we’ll gie ye a lift doon the way.”

15 minutes later you would never know we’d been there. The ashes from the fire have been covered, the firewood I collected so excitedly is scattered, and all of our gear has been returned to our rucksacks. We trudge across the field to their car. I am admittedly pretty annoyed that they’re forcing us to move, but even still there’s no way I’ll turn down a ride, which will save me having to making the treacherous return journey across the loch. So there’s already an upside. Upon reaching the car I am made to doubt the wisdom of this decision, however. The man – Doug – opens one of the car’s rear doors. “Gaun, in wi’ ye. Mind ye dinnae catch yersel’ on thon raggy bits”. I am stunned to see that the back seat of the car is not only flipped down but also piled high with a good foot and a half of shingles, tools, wood, and tarps. I start to laugh gamely, thinking Doug is joking, but quickly stop when I realise he’s not joining in. I scrutinise the jumble for a little while, trying to work out the best plan of attack. Then I turn away from the car, bend at the waist and stand on tiptoe, backing up towards the door arse-first until I can hoist my bottom onto the pile of junk. It is, as warned, quite “jaggy”. I swing my legs round in front of me, bend a little further to get my head in the car, and am dismayed to find that my forehead has no choice other than to rest on my knees. Doug’s wife crawls in the other door in a similar fashion, somehow managing to turn her face to me to begin a casual conversation. With both of us folded double, our faces pressed against our legs, I am far too distracted to pay her much attention. Doug starts the car and her words, which I was neither listening to nor capable of understanding in the first place, are immediately obliterated by the blast of traditional Scottish music that pours forth from the speakers. It’s the sort of stuff you normally only hear in the souvenir shops on Edinburgh’s royal mile, and it’s hard to tell but I am pretty sure that Doug is singing along :

“The honest man, tho e’er sae poor, is king o’ men for a’ that

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord, wha struts an’ stares an’ a’ that...”

I recognize the Robbie Burns poem and the rousing tune makes me giggle, but I am fortunately kept from bursting into incredulous laughter by a screwdriver trying to bore a hole through my thigh.

After multiple stops to view potential campsites (I feel bad refusing any of them, but just can’t face the thought of pitching our tent in a thorny swamp so dense with growth no sun can reach it) we round the end of the loch and drive along the East side. We pick up speed as we leave the potholed road behind, and I am kept entertained by imagining all the various materials I might be impaled with and positions I might end up contorted into should we crash. I am a nervous passenger at the best of times, which this is not. Doug pulls to the verge and stops the car with a jolt. I manage to get the door open and roll awkwardly out onto the ground, where I check to make sure I’ve not inadvertently stolen any of the tools that were imbedded in my posterior. All clear! We thank Doug profusely for his kindness in giving us a lift, then shoulder our bags and climb over a stone wall onto the sunny, stony beach.

Though we initially planned to camp where we were dropped, it turns out that nothing is to our very particular tastes, and thanks to this we end up walking for another hour and a half along the shore. Every fifteen minutes or so we stop to discuss the merits of a site, then keep going, only to stop in another fifteen minutes to contemplate heading back to the last spot because we might not find a better one. It is a fruitless and frustrating search. There are people in all the best spots, and the second-best spots are too close to all the people.

Eventually we just give up. Our new site isn’t a patch on the old one, but it does provide some level (if muddy) ground on which to pitch the tent, and a half-decent selection of firewood to keep us amused through the night.

After this things stop being exciting, and are just relaxing and enjoyable instead. More s’mores, more poking around in the campfire, and more time spent in the undergrowth in search of stuff to burn. It's amazing how happy we are to sit on the beach, doing nothing but staring at the loch and the sky and the trees. It's a much more fulfilling kind of laziness than we usually go in for. I propose to Mark that we make this our new weekend routine, and it is decided: this will be the summer of camping wild.