The summer of 2019 was approaching and there was still great enthusiasm amongst all that there would be a substantial camping trip. This enthusiasm was music to my ears as both Andy’s are now fathers and have cracking wee bairns. During spring time we had met in my garage for some beer and darts along with our other friend Russell. After some tooing and froing we decided that we would go to England and see a Sheffield United (my team who had just been promoted to the giddy heights of the English Premiership) game. Anyway, as time moved on and months slipped away Andy Cowan text to say he fancied a rethink and to get back to roughing it in the glorious hills and glens of Scotland. I had already been thinking this way and the England idea was booted into touch with a murmur of we could look at doing both (this was us paying our previous idea lip service. It was unlikely to materialise). With this news Andy Cowbag got straight into google maps and found some potential spots in the Lochgilphead area. This was the original idea before the beer fuelled England one. After the success of camping beside a forestry campsite in Carradale in 2018 Andy identified 3 more forestry campsites near Tayvallich. A date was confirmed and that was that. A three day trip at the end of August. Until I threw a spanner in the works by realising I couldn’t get off work on the Friday. So for the first time ever we would take two cars.
You can see they weren’t happy we are a tight camping group and this was not acceptable. The Andy’s headed off at their usual appallingly early time and I left a soaking wet North Ayrshire at 4pm. After getting lost in Ardeer it was plain sailing and I made it to the spot in 2 and a half hours. There was some mild panic on the way up when I realised neither Andy had much signal and weren’t answering their phones. Normally this would be fine but a drunk Andy is a whole other monster.
I arrived about half six and the boys had done a great job finding a spot about 3 miles shy of Tayvallich. We had a great evening drinking, playing cards and making dinner. We don’t see each other much these days but we just immediately settle in to old ways and told stories and laughed. We fell asleep about 12 or 1. I was tired and I guess it isn’t easy being a dad as the other two were more than happy to crash out too.
We would only have one full day in the knapdale area but we would go on to absolutely smash it out the park with a magic adventure.
Above are pictures of our tent. I have enjoyed the forest more and more over the years. I think this comes from when Andy Tait got some fake Asda jaeger called Walter Schmitt or something more German. Anyway it talked about how you taste the herbs and flavours of the forest. We proceeded to make the most of the bottle and I’ve never looked back.
We had a rough idea where we would go on the walk. We would head for the Crinan Canal and then head along it to the pub.
We enjoyed breakfast and a trip into Tayvallich before heading back to the campsite and making our move. Heading for the Crinan canal we took the beaver trail(sounded promising) and then decided to head to a view point that was likely to be a dead end but we had time on our side and we headed up the hill. Spirits were extremely high and the weather was being kind. When we got to the top it was warm, there was a picnic table and it was one of my happiest moments of the entire year. We were so close to the canal but there was a cliff in the way so we headed all the way back round and to the pub where we enjoyed some food. On the way to the pub there was a torrential shower. Luckily we had taken a shortcut and sneaked into someone’s woodshed. It was ideal. We headed back from the pub and avoided some more rain showers under trees before getting back to the tent. The day was immense and had taken it out of us. We stayed up for a while before crashing out again.
What a great weekend......
