Oban

The weather since last writing our blog has been atrocious. We spent our second day on Gigha tent-bound, the only camping survivors. We did venture out for an hour or two to the Gigha hotel at lunchtime. Other refugees from the weather were in there, all of us making large puddles on the floor. If you want to live on Gigha, as in many places in Scotland, you need to be able to produce a lot of children in order to keep the community alive. There are a healthy 20 children on Gigha at the moment but no babies. The lady in the gift shop reckoned it was time for another drunken ceilidh.

Hats off to CalMac ferries who seem to manage to reach Scottish islands on time however wild the weather. Apparently the thing that stops the Gigha ferry isn’t storms or fog but a build-up of seaweed at Tayinloan.

For thirty hours our tent received a lashing of non-stop heavy rain without letting a drop in. It’s a Vango Equinox and we’re really pleased with it. However, everything starts to feel damp after a while so we were relieved to escape on the early ferry yesterday morning naively hoping for better weather in Oban. When we got here and found the weather just as bad, even Nigel- who rarely moans- expressed some mild grumblings. Oh, he’s got a cold too and now the car won’t start because it needs a new battery! (the duff alternator has wrecked the battery).

Anyway, we’re trying to sell the benefits of wet days in small tents to ourselves: no midges; no sunburn; you get lots of reading done; you get to lie down a lot…….do I sound convincing?? Kathy.

We are building up a picture of what gear is working well for us and what doesn’t.

Best buys:-
Drylite towels from Winfields – much better than traditional towels that never dry out.
Vango Equinox tent – excellent layout, very dry and warm – only issue so far is the zips tend to snag if not careful.
Holeysole shoes (cheap version of Crocks) from Millets – excellent for campsite use, very comfortable and light – great colours.
Vango double thermorest and Outwell double sleeping bag – good combination giving a very warm and comfortable nights sleep.
Trangia, Kathy’s 33 year old Trangia and my small version – we are eating very well cooking all our own meals.

What we got wrong:-
Too many clothes over ¾ have not been touched and are just taking up space.
Chris Brasher walking socks – comfortable but take forever to dry out.

Stuff we could do with:-
Small chairs with backs – like the Vango thermorest chair – for inside the tent.
An oven for baking!!! – Not had the weather yet to try building a stone oven on the beach.

Nigel