Grandtully Station Campsite, Pitlochry, Perthshire. (Day 3)

This morning David arrived bearing gifts. Who doesn't like pain chocolate?  We sat in Marge for a while discussing weather, tides, kayaking/pack rafting, and as the wind was not favourable today the options for getting out on the water. It was decided that Killin would be the best choice as the river Dochart flows into LochTay there and the trees alongside the river would provide some shelter from the wind.

Angela hadn't felt well when she went to bed the night before, and this morning she still had a headache. By the time she'd travelled to Killin sitting in the backseat of David's car she felt terrible, and upon arrival at the car park vomited. Nice. She decided to give the practical side of the day a miss.

John however launched into the windy conditions and paddled along the river towards Loch Tay, stopping to look at a beaver lodge on one of the small islands.

 Evidence of their presence could be seen on nearby trees where they'd sharpened their teeth. High in the sky, Angela spotted an eagle, riding the thermals before disappearing back towards the mountains. 

Tomorrow will be our last day on the course. Heavy rain is forecast for our paddle over the rapids. Grade one for Angela please, she can be a little sicky you know!

Grandtully Station Campsite, Pitlochry, Perthshire. (Day 2)

This morning anxiety levels were still high, but after a fractious nights sleep Angela decided to take to the water with an open mind, albeit a little nervously. All her fears were soon alleviated when we met with David from Emmaus Adventure.

He straight away put us at ease and we could tell the day would go well. Which it did. The only struggle was fitting into our wetsuits, bought a long time ago when we were a little slimmer. We ran through the self rescue, the part of the course that Angela was most bothered about and decided to wait until Friday to actually participate, although Angela did manage to fall out of her boat as we returned to the car. Show off! She can hear you laughing, Marge.

Back at the campsite, where there are just four of us staying tonight we grilled steak whilst admiring the beautiful display of thousands of Wood Anemones. Rabbits, unaware of our presence, happily nibbled on lush green shoots. 

We are tired tonight, hoping to sleep a little better before we 'do it all again tomorrow'.

Grandtully Station Campsite, Pitlochry, Perthshire.

We took the opportunity this morning to lay in, as the next three mornings require an early 7 am start. Whilst preparing to leave, a large motorhome reversed in next to us. He's going to reverse into that rock.

Oh, he's hit that rock! Don't look. Better the rock than his wife who dutifully took her place in the blind spot behind the van when her husband moved to another space to assess the damage.

Talking with the two lady members of staff at the visitor centre about reptiles in the area resulted in us being shown the resident slow worm (living under a small square of roofing felt behind the centre). There's a blast from the past, when everyone had one in their back garden, or so it seemed.

We were about two hours drive from Grandtully, a drive that thanks to a road closure ended up taking twice as long. The drive through the eastern Cairngorms mountains was long, hard and interesting.

After Marge summited the Glenshee high mountain pass at 650 metres we stopped to take a breath. The snow was almost now non existent and we could easily see the ski lifts standing idle. In the early 1960's the road was straightened out to by-pass the devil's elbow with its notorious two hair pin bends. Prior to this, buses used to drop off their passengers who had to walk this section.

Right Marge, rest time. No driving now until Friday. We will stay at the Grandtully Station campsite, (yes an old railway station) until Friday. The next three days we will be packrafting. Angela's anxiety is high about having to do the self rescue, but she'll just have to bear in mind that the thought of doing something, is often worse than actually doing it.