Loch Maree Revisited.

Friday the 27th of august finally arrived so Sandra and I were up early packing the van with camping gear, food, drink etc. We had arranged to meet up at Slattadale with Peatbog, Christine and Peat, and our daughter Laurie and boyfriend Dave to once more visit the majestic Loch Maree.

Just about to set off.

Laurie experiencing the joy of "the midgie" for the first time.

This would be us setting up camp, while being devoured by these tiny pyhranna's of the insect world. Ricky, (Peatbog) got the Yukon fired up and cooked us a beef cobbler, thats beef in a rich onion gravy with dumplings, served with new potatoes and green beans. Real stick to your ribs stuff, followed by a few mugs of plonk.


Saturday morning was a bit overcast with a ligh north westerly of about 10 knots. Ricky wanted to have a paddle on a loch on an island on a loch so we headed south to Eilean Subhainn.

Exploring the islands on the way.

This is Ricky folding up his Windpaddle.

This is Meggy, our ESS, happiest when wet.

Having tea and cake before the portage to the loch on the island on the loch, while Ricky puts his Pal on the C-Tug.

No-one thinks to take a pic of the portage. Ricky invites me to be his bow paddler to explore the wee loch. It's the first time I've done this so experiment with a few draws and bow jams.

The wee loch has just about the shortest river section I've ever seen, so we're very quickly back in the main loch and paddle around to meet with the rest of the group.

We saddle up and head to the south of Eilean Subhainn in search of Isle Maree. Laurie and Dave particularly want to visit the Viking graves and the wishing tree.



I think this is Peat drinking the loch in preparation for peeing on Christines sleeping bag.

Throw a stick Dad


The older headstones are of Viking origin, the more modern ones are family of the owners of the Loch Maree hotel, and go by the name Maclean.

Hammering a coin into the wishing tree is a centuries old tradition. Queen Victoria visited the island at some time during her reign.

I found a large stone and knocked in a whole 20p, which is very generous for a Scottish person. Copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen deciding ownership of a 2p coin.



I think that this dove and bits and pieces were placed here by witches or who knows?


Wallace stretching the aching back muscles.

Time to head back to camp, the wind has increased to about 15-16 knots so hard paddling, no pics and a few scary moments going around the points. Sandra gets into a strop because I'm telling her to paddle harder.


Obligatory pic of Slioch.

Back at camp, the clouds clear, the sun comes out, and so do the midgies.

I'm cooking Alloo Ghosht, a lamb and potato curry.

It's a bit of a disaster because I serve it with basmati rice, rogni naan and midgies.

The dogs seemed to enjoy it though. We sit there for a few hours, supping wine and putting the world to rights, finally hitting the sack at about midnight.

At about 3am we are rudely awakened by heavy rain and gale force winds that take out our tarps, chairs tables etc, and its hard to get back to sleep with the fear of a tree being blown onto your tent.

Next morning we awake to a sunny but very windy day, and wonder if we'll be stranded here for a while.

Our spirits are raised by cups of tea and bacon sarnies, and we just sit around blethering, fishing, and chucking sticks for the dogs. Ricky and Christine make a pot of Minestrone for lunch, followed by fruitcake and stilton, and a brew.

MRX makes a nice table.


A wild and windy Loch Maree.


Late afternoon and Laurie makes us barbecued steak, new potatoes, and a creamy mushroom sauce, yummy. The wind by this time had dropped a wee bit, and Laurie and Dave need to get home tonight as they have work next day, so decide to make a break for it. This will mean a 1500 metre crossing in a cross wind so Sandra and I decide to go with them for safety in numbers. We quickly roll up our tents, load the boats, tidy up and say goodbye to our campmates. Ricky and Christine are far better equiped than us for longer stays, and being millionaires, dont need to worry about wether they can make work the next day.

Another pic of Slioch, Sandra just loves this mountain and wants to climb it next year.

By the time we reach the middle of the channel we realise that the wind is decievingly stronger than we thought, and the last few hundred yards are decidedly lumpy with some substantial waves hitting us side on. We decided to ferry glide downwind with Sandra paddling like a demented dervish and your narrator bracing and steering. With a big sigh of relief we reach the lee shore closely followed by Laurie and Dave in the Adventure.

Just for the record, I had always thought of the Mad River Adventure as a sort of recreational peddalo type of craft rather than a serious open canoe. This is not the case and it comfortably carries two people and all their gear in some challenging conditions.

Another pic of, you've guessed it, Slioch.

And another.

Slattadale.

Back on terra firma.

Unloading the boats. The treeline that you can see looks like a coast, it's not until you get closer that you realise it's actually a group of islands.

The trees behind give shelter from the wind and the midgies are out in force, so it's back on with the nets.

We stop at the viewpoint and have a last look at Loch Maree.

I have to say this, to anyone who has'nt yet been there, this has got to be the ultimate Scottish paddle. The scenery is stunning in all directions, and exploring the islands is an adventure in itself.

We're only here for a short while, and dead for a very long time, so here's one for your bucket list.

Loch Maree.

Loch Maree, no tics, no beasties and one black throated diver.

Last weekend my wife and I, accompanied by our ESS Meg, daughter Laurie, her partner Dave, mate Ricky(Peatbog), his partner Christine and ESS Peat made the long drive north to the beautiful and majestic, Loch Maree. The fifth largest body of water in Scotland, and undoubtedly the most picturesque has aproximately 60 islands to explore. We arrived at about 1800 on the Friday evening with grey skies and a brisk westerly breeze blowing, and decided to quickly head for Eilean Ruaridh Mor as this was the closest island to the picnic area at Slattadale. My wife, Sandra was solo in her brand spanking new Mad River Explorer 14TT. She recently had an operation to repair her Carple Tunnel thingy in her wrist and after half a mile or so was struggling and basically going round in circles so I tied her canoe to mine and towed her the rest of the way.

However we arrived safely on the island and set up camp.

Ricky had made a delicious chicken and smoked sausage gumbo for supper so we had that, and a couple of glasses of wine, and as we were all knackered, had an early night.

Laurie and Dave did'nt have a good night in their hastily bought, £20 sleeping bags so after a breakfast of bacon sarnies and tea decided to paddle across to the mainland and head for the outdoor shop in Gairloch to buy some decent sleeping bags and waterproofs.

Meanwhile, the remaining four decided to explore some of the islands.

It was'nt long before we spotted a nice sandy beach and stopped for a brew.

A wee while later we paddled on to Eilean Subhainn and climbed up to have a look at one of the lochans, and of course another brew. By this time it was about 1300 and we were getting hungry with all that good, clean highland air so headed back to camp. aurie and Dave arrived back shortly after this with their new bivvy bags and some stylish outdoor clothing. They had been looking for us in the maze of islands but finally gave up and came back to camp.

After a wee snack I fired up the wood burning stove to make Kleftiko. This is my version of a Greek dish that is normally made with stolen lamb. On the way up we stopped at a very good butchers in Fochabers with the intention of buying a couple of kilo's of lamb but they did'nt have any. The butcher suggested venison instead so I went for it. I never mentioned to my camp mates that we were going to be eating Bambi because some folks are a bit squeamish about that sort of thing.

I browned the meat, and added white wine, carrots, onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, rosemary, cinnamon, salt, pepper, fresh and dried chilli, and some lamb stock cubes, and simmered it for about three hours. I then added a dozen or so new potatoes for the last half hour. It went down rather well and when everyone had finished I asked my fellow campers if they had enjoyed eating Bambi. No complaints!!

Laurie made a lovely lime cheesecake for dessert.

We sat around for the rest of the evening supping red wine and chatting in front of the fire.

Around 8pm Laurie announced that she was "starving" so I knocked up a skillet of Fazulye, green beans, shallot, garlic and chilli in a buttery tomato sauce, and garlic mushrooms with toasted flatbreads. It must have been around midnight when we finally hit the sack.

I awoke first on the Sunday morning and made bacon sarnies and a kettle of tea.

I then took the remains of the driftwood and put it back on the shore where it came from.

I dug a hole next to where the fire had been and burried the ashes under the sand.

By this time everyone was up and dressed and set about rolling up our tents etc as we were leaving this morning. We loaded up the canoes, and gave the camp area a last tidy up before saying goodbye to Ricky and Christine as they were staying another night.

We slowly paddled back to Slattadale picnic area, admiring the scenery and taking pics.

We were quite lucky this morning because as we were loading the canoes onto the trailer a very strong northerly wind whipped the loch to a foam. I was glad we were on the mainland because Sandra and Laurie had decided to tandem in the 14TT and neither of them are very confident in strong sidewinds.

Ricky and Christine were out in the main part of the loch when the wind got up, but their experience and presence of mind told them to quickly head for the nearest island.

The wind dropped as abruptly as it had started, but they decided to call it a day as more northerly squalls were forecast, and ended up getting home around the same time as us.

To finish the tale we had a bit of car trouble on the way home. The clutch release bearing on my Peugeot 307 diesel estate has been noisy for a few thousand miles, and disintegrated around Garve. I knew it was in a bad way because it sounded like a cement mixer full of stones.

We have RAC cover but the very basic package and I doubt that they would have relayed us home, so decided to just drive and see how far we could get. When I had to move off I put it into first gear and started the engine so it would move off, then changed gear by timing the revs and avoiding using the clutch as much as possible. We made it home, and I even managed to drive it to Charles Butler, Gearbox and Clutch Specialist, Forfar where it finally farted and shit itself in the customer parking area. He said do'nt expect much change out of £600!!

First sight of our camp.

Laurie and I discussing cheesecake.

We even had a visit from Mickey Mouse.

Sandra and Laurie tandem.

Armada of Mad River Canoes.

Sunday morning ready for the off.

Ricky and his NC Pal in RX Light.

I made this wood burning stove/cooker from a

stainless steel oil tank salvaged from the skip at work.

Works really well, I'll add a door and damper later.

Getting lunch ready.

Slioch in the distance.

What a beautiful place.

Dave in his adventurer, very stable boat.

Wallace in the action man jersey.

A last look and pic of Loch Maree before the clutch

packed in. Might have been that steep hill that did it.