Rain, rain, lovely rain…

After the excitement of the Devil’s Pulpit, we headed north to Loch Lomond.

It was way beyond teatime (that’s dinner time to you southerners), and we were hungry, so set up camp at the first place we saw, which happened to be the bottom end of Loch Lomond at a place called Duck Bay.

It seemed an appropriate place to teach the Lovely John a tune called Duck River, so that’s what we did until rain stopped play.

The rain didn’t stop for days. Days and days of rain, cloud and fog.

We’d made plans as part of my ‘holiday’ section of the adventure, to head to Fort William and climb Ben Nevis. We’d climbed Scarfell Pike a couple of years ago in thick mist and a howling gale, and last year we did Snowden, and the clouds descended as we got to the top.

The top of Snowden is a funny place – there’s a cafe and a train station, and I was desperate to have a wee as I neared the top, so decided I would hold out for the toilets in the cafe. The cafe, of course, was closed, so as soon as we’d had the obligatory photo at the summit, I found a little crevice to crouch in, not that I needed one because it was thick fog. Until I started peeing. Then miraculously the fog lifted, a train-load of people appeared from nowhere, and I was crouched with my knickers round my ankles peeing like a horse saying ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stop. Watch your step, it’s flowing over the path.’

But I digress – being an expert on mountaintops where you can’t see anything, we decided to give Ben Nevis a miss, as you could barely see one end of the street from the other in Fort William, so I wasn’t expecting a view from the mountains, especially as there weren’t any to be seen. But next time I’ll conquer Ben Nevis. Here’s a helpful site that will get me there: https://bennevis.co.uk/

There were a lot of hiker types in Fort William, unsurprisingly as it’s where you set off for BN and other mountains, and two of the paths I had planned to walk on (The Great Glen Way and The West Highland Way) began and ended in the town.

Astute readers may have noticed the change in tense there from ‘I’ll be walking on’ to ‘I had planned to walk on’.

Yes, it’s true. I am no longer going to walk through Scotland to John O’Groats.

Neither am I collecting tunes and meeting musicians in Scotland.

And I’m not chickening out; I have realised that Scotland is a vast and glorious country that needs a bit of research in order to do it justice. And hell yes, I want to walk the Great Glen Way ad the West Highland Way, but I want to do it when I’m feeling fresh and ready for it and even though I’m time rich right now, I’m cash poor, so I want to do my research, save up, and do it in B&B style, not hiking tent cheap. A girl has certain standards, you know.

I know that it takes about twenty minutes to drive what would take me a day to walk, so I figured that I could enjoy the holiday, still get to John O’Groats, but in The Stealth Campervan rather than on foot, and still have the most wonderful adventure.

And still it rained…

The Loch Ness camping was wonderful – we had a tiny beach to ourselves, and wood to make a fire and a big umbrella so we were warm and dry, and we just sat under that big old umbrella, stoking up the fire, watching the rain clouds rolling in, drinking whiskey and playing music.

Tomorrow – I’m doing it – I’m going to tell you about reaching John O’Groats, seeing seals, stealthcamping in harbours and beaches in mists so thick that we couldn’t see the castle on the beach, and how much I love Scotland.

But for now, I’m writing this part of the blog at my mother’s, and I hear the kettle going on again…