Camping Trip No. 2
When - 11th and 12th July 2004
Where - Braes, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Who - Andy Smith and John Siwek
Andy's Comment - I would have given this more than a 5/10. Maybe a 7.
Account by John Siwek
We had planned that the second camping trip would be along the lines of the first. I got both Andy and James out for my birthday, James went home and Andy stayed the night. It was planned that I would go camping with James in a few weeks after that, however that did not go through because of bad weather.
Andy and I prepared all our things, 2 small-medium rucksacks with our personal kit and then 2 extra rucksacks with the tent in it. This had to be shared between us. At the start they were attached to the back of the larger rucksacks but this proved to be very unbalanced (see fig. 1).
This was later changed, so that the tent rucksack was now on the front of the body making the going easier. (see fig. 2)
We left the house at around mid afternoon, taking some time to reach the same spot in the old barn that we used in the first camping trip. It was close to 4 o’clock when we got there. We pitched the tent and left our bags inside.
(The tent in question is my dads 30 year old tent. It is a one/two-if-you-can-stand-being-cramped man tent and is olive green on the outside and luminous orange on the inside. It weights about 4kg but is quite water proof and has good solid aluminium tent poles that come in very important 3 camping trips later.)
Using one of the smaller bags that carried the tent we took some food and water for dinner and set off on a walk up Stròc-bheinn. The hill is 400m high with smooth rising sides, an easy climb. Unfortunately we started off 1 miles away from the foot of it. We walked down to the main road, then over the river, next up the steeper slopes going up to the foot of it. After that we walked across the flat bogs to the real foot of the hill. All the time having many hilarious and fanciful discussions that have no idea what were about but I’m sure they were hilarious and fanciful.
When we reached the top we looked out across Skye, you could see from Braes to Carbost and from Uig to Sleat. Then we sat on a rock and had a meal of bread, cereal bars and cool beer (Oasis summer fruits original and Volvic touch of fruit strawberry flavour), I think we deserved that.
We spent the next hour or so exploring the hill. We found large mushroom shaped hills of peat so spent a while jumping off them while shouting “Elendil” swinging our walking sticks about.
Then came something that would pass into camping legend and later became a tradition to anyone of us who went back to the hill. We wrote “***** ********* ******* **/*/90 is sexy”. A fitting tribute to her, we thought.
At around 7 o’clock we made our way back down going by the side of the hill, rolling part of the way. Back across the peat bog flats and to the edge of a forest. Somehow we battled though the wood ignoring texts for Andy’s mum wondering why he did not contact his “long suffering mother”. Finally we got to the road and wandered back along to the way we came in to get to the road and walked back to the camp. Not before phoning my parents and lying that we had got to the tent ages ago even though we were about an hour away.
The night was peaceful and dry. We got up at around half-eight-ish, had breakfast (bread, Brunchbars probably), and packed up the tent.
While setting off we found a way of carrying the bags which we christened “The Frodo and Sam Technique” (see fig. 3).
As you can see one person is very over laden while the other is quote “happy as a daisy”.
We didn’t use this technique for long although it was quite well balanced.
While walking we stopped for a break and three deer ran past well disguised in the heather and long grass. Then I looked up and above us was a golden eagle circling. That was quite cool.
We reached my house just before lunch.
That trip was classed as fun but not very taxing. 5/10
Where - Braes, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Who - Andy Smith and John Siwek
Andy's Comment - I would have given this more than a 5/10. Maybe a 7.
Account by John Siwek
We had planned that the second camping trip would be along the lines of the first. I got both Andy and James out for my birthday, James went home and Andy stayed the night. It was planned that I would go camping with James in a few weeks after that, however that did not go through because of bad weather.
Andy and I prepared all our things, 2 small-medium rucksacks with our personal kit and then 2 extra rucksacks with the tent in it. This had to be shared between us. At the start they were attached to the back of the larger rucksacks but this proved to be very unbalanced (see fig. 1).
This was later changed, so that the tent rucksack was now on the front of the body making the going easier. (see fig. 2)
We left the house at around mid afternoon, taking some time to reach the same spot in the old barn that we used in the first camping trip. It was close to 4 o’clock when we got there. We pitched the tent and left our bags inside.
(The tent in question is my dads 30 year old tent. It is a one/two-if-you-can-stand-being-cramped man tent and is olive green on the outside and luminous orange on the inside. It weights about 4kg but is quite water proof and has good solid aluminium tent poles that come in very important 3 camping trips later.)
Using one of the smaller bags that carried the tent we took some food and water for dinner and set off on a walk up Stròc-bheinn. The hill is 400m high with smooth rising sides, an easy climb. Unfortunately we started off 1 miles away from the foot of it. We walked down to the main road, then over the river, next up the steeper slopes going up to the foot of it. After that we walked across the flat bogs to the real foot of the hill. All the time having many hilarious and fanciful discussions that have no idea what were about but I’m sure they were hilarious and fanciful.
When we reached the top we looked out across Skye, you could see from Braes to Carbost and from Uig to Sleat. Then we sat on a rock and had a meal of bread, cereal bars and cool beer (Oasis summer fruits original and Volvic touch of fruit strawberry flavour), I think we deserved that.
We spent the next hour or so exploring the hill. We found large mushroom shaped hills of peat so spent a while jumping off them while shouting “Elendil” swinging our walking sticks about.
Then came something that would pass into camping legend and later became a tradition to anyone of us who went back to the hill. We wrote “***** ********* ******* **/*/90 is sexy”. A fitting tribute to her, we thought.
At around 7 o’clock we made our way back down going by the side of the hill, rolling part of the way. Back across the peat bog flats and to the edge of a forest. Somehow we battled though the wood ignoring texts for Andy’s mum wondering why he did not contact his “long suffering mother”. Finally we got to the road and wandered back along to the way we came in to get to the road and walked back to the camp. Not before phoning my parents and lying that we had got to the tent ages ago even though we were about an hour away.
The night was peaceful and dry. We got up at around half-eight-ish, had breakfast (bread, Brunchbars probably), and packed up the tent.
While setting off we found a way of carrying the bags which we christened “The Frodo and Sam Technique” (see fig. 3).
As you can see one person is very over laden while the other is quote “happy as a daisy”.
We didn’t use this technique for long although it was quite well balanced.
While walking we stopped for a break and three deer ran past well disguised in the heather and long grass. Then I looked up and above us was a golden eagle circling. That was quite cool.
We reached my house just before lunch.
That trip was classed as fun but not very taxing. 5/10