Day 1 of our Scottish expedition: We're on our way

For our second year module expedition preparation and planning, we had to plan and do an expedition so Izzy and I decided we would go up to the Highlands and use a canoe as our mode of transport around the lochs to get to some remote mountains. All said and done (and a little more planning) we picked up a canoe and gear from Inverness, we drove to Elphin; we didn’t think we were allowed down the road to the fish hatchery according to a sign on the gate so we drove further around to Cam Loch and camped in a sheep field on the gravel in the rain. It sure was a cheery start.

In the morning we saw where we were and congratulated ourselves for sleeping on gravel, we pulled the canoe down to the river and paddled into Cam Loch. Things were going fine until we remembered that the reason we hadn’t wanted to start in Cam Loch was because of something marked on the map between us and Loch Veyatie so on hearing a roar of water we quickly got out and trudged around the corner to see a huge set of waterfalls. We portaged everything up and over the bump and found the fish hatchery and got down into the right lake. From there it was plain sailing, the views were amazing, unlike any other mountains I’d seen before; Suilven and Cul Mor looked really intimidating and I half dreaded going up Suilven the next day (it looked quite snowy and steep). We joyfully got a bit of moving water when the lake narrowed into a river to flow into Fionn Loch and from there it was a hunt for good camp spots.

I noticed that Izzy possessed a certain preciseness on the spot we chose, it had to be dry and sheltered; my only premise was flat. We ended up settling on a slightly less flat spot behind one of the many lumps (as they became affectionately known) out of the wind in a boggy spot due to the impossibility of avoiding it, this also made it hard to find at 10pm at night but that is a story for another time. We buckled in with some food to plan the next day and hope for good weather, good luck with that!

I would like to say a thank you to Donald from Explore Highland without whom our expedition wouldn't have gone ahead, so a thanks to you and your music taste isn't so bad. http://www.explorehighland.com/