Ok so the title is a bit of a mis-sell; the fishing was more of an occasional feature on a weekend that was all about wild camping really.
When my mother turned 50 a few years ago, me, my sister and our significant others hatched a plan to take her to Iceland in what would be her first holiday abroad in nearly 2 decades. A 5 day agenda of Ice cave tours, mountains, black sand beaches, volcanos, lava fields, waterfalls, ziplines, geysers and seeing the northern lights twice can probably in hindsight be marked as the catalyst for her new found obsession with all things outdoorsy. If you’d have told me a few years back MY mother would join a weekly ramblers group or go wild camping I’d have laughed in your face. But that Iceland trip set off a rocket and her adventure bucket list appears to grow daily.
One activity that has been high on said list is wild camping, so a plan was hatched late last year to chalk off her first wild camp with a trip to the Scottish highlands in the spring.
As it was her first rodeo, I plotted a route on the south shore – starting from the middle of the loch around Taynuilt and making use of the main Land Rover track pretty much all the way up the loch to Ardmaddy Bay. There’s little in the way of civilisation here save for one or two Croft farms and small holdings along the way.
The track meanwhile is easy to navigate and well maintained – if you’re into combining wild camping with biking you could certainly choose worse places.
With half our troupe less seasoned when it comes to distance walking with heavy gear, I’d assured everyone that I had chosen a route with no hills, which considering the Glencoe and Ben Starav backdrop, I figured was a perfectly reasonable statement to make. Apparently some of the steeper banks and “inclines” of the track did constitute something of a hilly nature however, judging by the low level cursing coming from the rest of my companions as we trudged along.
With a couple of stops thrown in for a coffee and a breather though we had the opportunity for photos and a general take-in of the landscape.
If you were leaning towards a shorter distance walking wise you probably wouldn’t need to head all the way up to Ardmaddy to find a suitable pitch for wild camping, although given the track ends just before the bay it’s definitely where to go if you’re looking for more isolated territory.
I think in all with a couple of stops it took us around three and a half hours to reach the bay. Amongst the many gorse bushes that fringe the beach we found plenty of accumulated driftwood which had clearly been washed up at some point whenever the loch was last over-flooded. Clearly it had been some time since, as a lot of it was perfectly dry enough to feed the campfire without smoking the place out, supplemented with some dead standing birch logs and tinder me and Luke managed to forage from a nearby woodland to get things going.
A bit of fishing
Camp erected I did what any self respecting opportunist angler would do. Like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, I produced an old telescopic rod from my childhood that I’d stowed away in my pack, clipped on a small spoon and set about the local trout population with vigour. Surprisingly, my initial lack of confidence turned out to be ill judged – there was actually quite a few wild Brown/Sea Trout in the area, although i didn’t do the best job at keeping a lot of them on the hook long enough to beach most of them them. Most of my lures I tend to switch to single hooks, and trout, with their aerial acrobatics, are especially adept at throwing these whether they’re barbed or not.
I did manage to land a couple though. None were really worth skewering for the campfire, but what they lacked in size they made up for in appearance with some of the most beautifully marked wild Trout I think I’ve seen.
After giving my mother a few casting lessons she had a dabble for a bit but wasn’t quite getting the distance required and soon lost interest when all she could catch was weed! Give her some credit though – over 50 and she’s hiked over 3 hours into a remote Scottish loch with a heavy pack for her first time, set up her own camp and helped forage and prep wood for the fire. I was quite impressed to still see her enjoying it despite being knackered!
A surprise camp-mate
The trip wasn’t really about fishing so very little time was dedicated to it anyway. We busied ourselves for the last few hours of daylight surveying the surroundings, with intermittent forays into the surrounding bush for more firewood. We’d noticed a little Ringed Plover sticking close by to camp which seemed reluctant to leave. On closer inspection it turned out she had a small clutch of eggs on the beach just above the high water mark 20 yards away from where we’d set up. So we made a point of giving her plenty of space so she could sit in peace.
Evening antics
Grey Dawn
I didn’t sleep particularly well. Testing out my new thermarest for the first time time told me one thing – that apparently I appreciate a wider mattress. My previous one from OEX was quite broad shouldered, with a good amount of room either side, whereas this one is clearly designed to be low profile and very much align with the general contours of someone who sleeps immobile on their back all night. There’s probably only a couple of inches overlap by the time I’m lying on it and unfortunately if either my elbows or legs trailed over the edge of the mattress during the night it was enough to trigger my brains “you’re falling!” response and would jolt me awake. Never-mind – I’ll just have to get used to it!
Opening the tent we were greeted to a moody but still Etive. Having been to the loch many times over the years, I never get tired of seeing it in such settled conditions. Looking across to Barrs and the surrounding area I could make out some of the new manmade features in the landscape since my last visit – namely the new access tracks and logging breakwater which I presume are part of the longer term plans to do with the Glenn Etive hydro scheme, although last I heard this initiative still hadn’t been fully given the green light so who knows.
It transpired the others hadn’t slept amazing either, a mix of first time camper nerves and Luke feeling claustrophobic in their 2 man tent, though this did little to dampen my mothers spirits as she emerged from her tent and deftly trudged to the shoreline in a full swim piece, announcing she was going for a dip. Credit to her – she followed through. I reckon they heard the exclamations of how cold the water was back at Taynuilt!
With everyone already knackered, none of us were particularly relishing the prospect of the 3 and a half hour tab back to the car or the subsequent 5 and a half hour drive home, but rather than make excuses we broke camp reasonably early in the morning following a hasty breakfast.
The hike back was pretty uneventful apart from coming across an abandoned lamb. We suspected a ewe who was nursing another lamb not to far away was probably the mother and had either rejected the twin or it couldn’t keep up with her, as it did unfortunately appear to be lame and seemed to be on its last legs. Reluctantly we left it at the side of the road covered In one of Luke’s t-shirts hopeful that the farmer may turn up soon.
And that was that. A bit of a baptism of fire for mum, sister and brother in law who’d never wild camped before – but despite the grumbling on the hike back I think they mostly enjoyed the experience. Mum still seems keen to go again at some point anyway so I haven’t totally sickened her off!