Well it had been on the cards for a while now, Loch Awe. It was booked last week. A full week up in a log cabin on the banks of loch awe. Me and Lee made the executive decision to get the train to taynault and cycle to dalavich (home of loch cabin). Lee had been there before and knew what the 15 mile trek to dalavich…this was the problem…no he didn’t. Miles upon miles of hills…mostly up. It took 3 hours to get there with bags and bikes.

Upon arrival (roughly at about 3) we soon realised all shops in the area were shut. Having taken no food with us we had to settle for pasta and chicken gravy (the only food the cabin had to offer). Venturing to the local pub we got some top scran (see below). let it be noted there was an extra bottle of kopparberg but lee fell over and smashed one.

next day up relatively early to hire a boat and go fishing…no luck..well I caught a pike, but not off the boat. Then to the pub for food. Dalavich has a post office and a pub. tis all. The pub did great food..I had scampi…magic. The food in the post office was limited, Even the loaves were frozen!

Saturday richie and his lady friend come over to play. Arriving at about 5 we took a bbq to the beach after richie brought with him some manly supplies (mostly meat). From here the midges took charge and chased us away. Then to eurovision. My favourite occassion. My Money was on france…awesome tune. not to be…lost a fiver. The finals were on in the local pub…who knew? from here it was back to cabin until this…

Sunday seen us jetting round loch awe doing some island hopping. Including an island with a castle and breaking a boat trying to get to a graveyard…mostly my fault :). ritchie had to go home so there was no other option but to go to the pub.

Monday my folks were heading over to say hello. So just a bit of fishing in the sunshine just infront of the cabin until they arrived. No luck but topped up my tan :). when they arrived my mum cooked up a top notch sheppards pie then back to pub…hoorah. Monday consisted of walking my folks dog. I found a snake turned out to be a slow worm.

we got a lift back to train station…ahh luxury. back to normality…well a public enemy gig

It seems my blog has gone all a bit great outdoorsy of late. So this is the official invite to come join the festivities. Things to do this year. The west highland way in september. Loch awe for some fishing this month…maybe even the next bank holiday Monday. And last but not least a wee jaunt on the caledonian canal. So who’s coming out to play?

Well we knew Monday was gonna be a scorcher…and it did not disappoint. Macca came over on sunday night to play games and we decided since he’s been constantly busy and he got a new camera but hasn’t had the chance to use it. So a random jaunt was required…the destination…Ardlui…the reason…A random jaunt :). It looked like it had a bit of everything…hills, lochs, trees, beach and a waterfall? so the adventure was on to find a waterfall.

Breakfast started with an onslaught of sausges and beans…magic. Then off to queen street to get our tickets. Upon purchase of our tickets we looked around and seen it would cost us £15 each. When we got there the ticket man only charged us £15 for both of us? We had been sold a daytripper ticket…never seen one of these before. You can travel all around with this ticket, use buses ferries all sorts. It looks like a bingo card and you just scratch off the day you want to use it…find out more here(we could have taken 4 children too if we wanted…but macca scared them off). It was decided we needed pic nic ammo. Sausage rolls, buns, ham coleslaw and pork pies…obviously. Nipped into boots to pick up some sun tan lotion (yeah serious)… Where the women who worked in boots threatened to stab us unless we took her with us (only in glasgow).

The train journey was magic…the route heads up to mallaig. Loads to see runs the length of loch Lomond. 1 hr 30 mins we arrived. A wee map at the station (which by the way if you want the to catch the train you actually have to flag it like a bus or it doesn’t stop) showed us roughly where the waterfalls were. We ventured. Ardlui itself doesn’t have much. It has a pub with a marina though…so that’s reason enough. we walked for about 10 mins to find a way of getting over the other side of the train tracks, eventually finding a bridge where the waterfall ended. 40 mins walk up the hill we stopped for a pic nic…pork pies…mmmmmm. macca went crazy taking pictures of anything…most of his pictures consist of me taking pictures

30 more mins up the hill we found the main waterfall. It was massive about 70ft of free fall. Was great…it was absolutely roasting so down by the base of it there was a nice cooling mist.

We trudged back down the hill towards the pub where we sat it out waiting for the train. A nice shiny magners or 2 went down very well. “More food!” shouts macca. So we stopped at ardlui hotel where the food was awesome. I had gammon steak which was huge and macca has a massive yorkshire pud filled with goulash. All in all an awesome random adventure. I recommend the ardlui hotel for a pint…they have a dog called wookie…magic. Back to the train station where it back to games throwing stones. The game to hit the bottle as many times as you can in a row. 2 stoney boys with deadly aim we knew it was gonna be a good one. I won with 6 consequetive hits to maccas measly 4. All in all a great day…roll on summer!

Well what an adventure weekend I’ve had. Yesterday me and Lee went back to Loch winnoch for another spot of fishing. Not to be disappointed Lee took a disposable bbq…it wasn’t till later he admitted he had bought his own burgers…I was fishing for my dinner!. It was an absolute scorcher…even got sunburnt. Beer, BBQ, fishing and a monster pike….brilliant. Lee also caught one but it got away (better say that or he’ll go in a huff)

Oh and I did put it back and it swam off happy as an evil looking fish could…

Saturday me and saunders went on a biking adventure. Looked at a map and decided tarbet would be a good place to start and initially headed for Argyll forrest. Deciding against it we went for a wander to get lost eventually following signs to Glen douglas. With parking at the top it was ideal however we soon discovered it was owned by the M.O.D that didn’t put us off. A 5 mile winding single track road, great fun hardly any cars that we just flew down…loads of blind summits and saunders brakes didn’t really work. This took us to Inverbeg just a wee place but we joined the main road and headed back to tarbet.

of course we had to stop for pints.

It was here after tarbet we joined a construction road leading up the side of the hill back up into Glen Douglas. Loose rocks and mud pretty much uphill all the way. Some seriousdoubts towards my fitness were thrown in the mix. Had some great downhill bits if you look into the distance you can see the lord of the rings style incline which we pretty much endured for 2 hr total. Eventually the path brought us out right next to where we parked the car…thank god

Last but not least we picked up fish and chips on the way home….magic!

Another weekend of jaunty spontanious fishing. This weekend found me and lee at Lochwinnoch. Just 20 mins on a train from central, we did a bit of research and found it comprised of 3 big lochs supporting all sorts of fishing and water sports. Once at Lochwinnoch we walked just 5 mins to the RSPB Lochwinnoch visitors centre to find out where we could go to fish. From here we walked another 15 mins round the banks of Castle Semple Loch to another big shoreside visitors boat house that hired out allsorts of boats. Here we purchased our “fishing permits” which turned out to be the wee guy at the canteen who supplied us a receipt for £2 each. Quids in we walked up the side of the Loch till we arrived here.

we walked past a load of people fishing but wanted to be hidden away so no-one would ask us questions and rumble us as being to be honest ridiculous amateurs. Trawling through loads of mud we settled. Lee on the Friday went to our now local fishing shop and stocked up on all sorts of goodies, including a bait box, spinners, maggots and worms. Not knowing what we were doing we went straight for maggots. Lee refused to touch them and settled for using forceps. Hours of so of fishing not one bite. Then a friendly man sauntered passed gave us some top tips and we were sorted. Changed to spinners and went for pike.

bomp within an hour landed a wee pike. I thought it was a baby one. Speaking to my dad he informs me these are the male ones and don’t grow much bigger. It’s the females that are the monsters and frequently eat the males. I was over the moon. About 40 mins later I landed another one…whoop. Lee needless to say was not happy. It was a lovely sunny day until c2 phoned (he lives not far away) and told us it was snowing round by him. Minutes later c2 the weather jonah was correct. It got windy horrible and freezing. We stuck it out…only cause lee was determined to catch something. Ended up staying until about 7pm when it brightened up again. From here we went to the corner bar where we drank a well deserved pint of tennents. And so to food. Just up the road from Lochwinnoch train station there’s a wee hotel called The hungry monk. It was here we discovered it was actually quite posh and we were caked in mud…no worries we had to wait an hour for train anyway. It was quite posh and expensive but we didn’t care. It seemed to specialise in nice fancy seafood dishes…me and lee unphased straight for the burgers…lush. Train home followed by bus…magic. Quality saturday.

What an Easter weekend I’ve had. Me and Lee decided a while back we were going to go camping. Even with all this talk of snow and britains coldest weekend of the year…pah. We worked friday and left early for Bute. Rothesay ticked all the boxes for our adventure. Including a ferry ride…woohoo. We found 2 bays, one on the Southern Tip (glen Callum) and one on the east coast (Ettrick Bay) of bute. The buses on Bute run pretty much bay to bay so we thought we would have one night on each. We arrived on Rothesay at about 5 and knew we would have to be pretty quick getting a tent up before it’s dark. We soon descovered that the buses to Ettrick Bay didn’t start running until April…Doh… That made or decision a bit easier so we headed south for kilchattan Bay a bus ride that lasts about 20 mins. Here we found the West Island Way, a walk that runs 30 miles around bute. Had no idea it exsisted but it looks great. we walked for about an 1hr when it got dark very quickly we found a great spot at a place called Glen Callum nice and shelttered. Lee gathered wood I put the tent up. We quickly discovered it was freezing cold and windy and a fire just wouldn’t work. On with the pasta and stir in sauce…champion. It was officially the worst nights sleep I’ve ever had. I took 2 sleeping bags…good job otherwise I think an easter dose of hyperthermia would have easily been on the cards. In the morning (about 7) I took this picture.

Was an amazing place we never really got a chance to see it before it got dark. So next on the adventure ticklist was fishing. Me and Lee had bought Some telescopic rods and a load of spinners. so to fishing…we didn’t catch a thing but it did feel very manly. after 3 hours of spinning we went to put on our breakfast…bacon and beans only to discover the bacon had gone….this was the last straw. Sleep deprived we took down the tent and headed back to kilchattan bay in the hope there was a pub. It was only here we realised how rough the path we walked the previous night was. I don’t recommend it to anyone in the dying light…A bit tipsy. back in Kilchattan bay we found the st blanes hotel were we had a well deserved burger and pint. Here we waited 5 pints for the bus back to Rothesay…might I recommend reading up on the bus times first. Once in Rothesay we had to make a decision on what to do…we couldn’t just go home. So In town we found a cheap B&B at an amazing £35 a night for a twin room. We had a knocked down price as the shower didn’t work. Me and Lee were dead on our feet. straight to bed at about 7pm on a Saturday night….hardcore.

I awoke at 6am to this…

Gentle tapping on the window followed by endless squawking. This fella just sat outside watching me sleep. I quite liked it in the end…I want one for my flat.

Revitalised we booked the hotel for another night (we eventually fixed the shower but you couldn’t turn the temperature down…we just took it like men!) and headed for Ettrick Bay. The buses were now running there for the easter weekend…boost. However the bus we got only went as far as port bannatyne about a 3 mile walk away. Armed with our fishing gear we headed north up the coast for about 45 mins until we found a great spot. Still didn’t catch anything and lee lost 3 of our 4 decent spinners. The rest we had didn’t have enough weight to cast any good distance at was at this point lee considered using some old keys as weights before quickly realising he would probably never see them again and that he did actually need them. Defeated again we headed back to the ettrick bay tearoom for coffee and burgers…magic.

Back to hotel for some rothesay fish and chips…amazing. We decided a big nightout in rothesay was on the cards…what could a sunday night in Rothesay have instore? First to the Black Bull…just round the corner…empty, eneded up having some banter with the owner an old man who had one huge knuckle, about how things were done back in the day. Onto the next the brandane bar was playing really nasty beepy techno but was clearly where all the action was. It was here the next song on the jukebox was boys to mens end of the road…we left. Next up was the taverna lounge bar. A strange we pub where it was clear we were not local but it was playing mostly glam rock which I enjoyed. Our last port of call was the Argyll Arms where we were informed they would have live music. What a performance. One old guy 2 keyboards and a guitar i don’t think that was his band name. He was playing sweet home chicago…which i know was originally by robert johnson…I had to tell him…that I to was a robert JOhnson he was very happy at this outcome and played other robert johnson tune dedicated to robert johnson. I was very happy…I Bought him a drink Whiskey and tonic £1.60. As we left I shook his hand then he said “I’ve never touched a robert Johnson before” It was a bit weird. but now i might make it a t-shirt “have you touched a robert johnson today?” Back to the hotel where I passed out on the bathroom floor then woke up at a 6am Monday to my feathered friend. Today we went for lunch on the pier then caught the ferry home (just). Back on the mainland we discovered that we just missed a train literally by seconds and that the lines to glasgow central were closed. Got the money back for our wemyss bay to glasgow journey bit, turns out the ferry across to rothesay only costs £3.50…genius. We hopped on a bus…then I had the fun of walking through the centre of town a bit stinky and muddy with a tent and a fishing rod. Loved it…Anyone fancy the west Island Way? Also put some more pics up on my flickr

Well I have this week off work…woohoo. I was supposed to be going back to my folks to recover from my recent Amsterdam trip. But it’s all gone arse up, some work I agreed to do ages ago has come back to haunt me. Complete holiday sabotage. Eliza having finished uni has just gone back without me to gorge, leaving me to fend for myself…god I’m bored..

Today was lovely sunshine so to save my sanity I woke up at 1pm then walked to the park picked up a wildlife book from the oxfam bookshop for £1 and went a doodling. Emptied my ipod and filled it with some dross…kate bush? think I got sunburn…holidays are great.

I made an amazing beef cassarole which would feed about 6, There’s only me here it took me ages to make and I have some weird bug and can’t actually smell or taste anything…I’ve got some of that new chilli tomoato ketchup…BUT I CAN’T TASTE ANYTHING! oh the trauma…I was going to do a chilli ketchup vs reggae reggae sauce comparison…Damn my taste buds.

Ages ago we had a whip round at work and seen if anybody wanted to cycle edinburgh to glasgow…I said yes thinking that it would just never happen. Well today (and I do mean All day today) it did.

Got the 0930 train this morning (yes it’s sunday) through to Edinburgh waverley. 2 mins away you can get straight onto the canal which runs to Glasgow. It was at this point I cycled straight into a bollard…not the most ideal start to the journey.

The Edinburgh bit of the run was nice through Ratho, I only seen 3 bottles of buckfast in the canal…the Glasgow count when through the roof and I got bored counting after 22.

The milage knocked up today was 56 miles give or take. pretty easy going to be honest being a flat path all the way. First stop was Linlithgo…it was pretty dull and pretty closed to be honest and was the first place to quit and get the train home…nobody did.

The best bit of the run was the massive tunnel before the falkirk wheel…Dunno it’s name bit it was amazing. Was a bit like that really trippy bit in willy wonka and the chocolate factory…except a little psychadelic…so nothing like charlie and the chocolate factory really…it was just a tunnel.

The falkirk wheel was rubbish…Engineering wise…impressive. Once you’re there it looks like one of the rides off of that episode of father ted. I didn’t see any boats other than the tourist ones use it and even the old folk looked bored.

Highlights included seeing a barge called dignity (is it a ship?), a bus thats destination read “sorry, ahm no in service”, seeing an ewok (could be wrong) and watching a crow eat mayonaise

feeling the pain a bit now…and no doubt it will be even more stupid tomorrow…hoorah

If you haven’t discovered the delights of a boots meal deal by now you’re surely a fool! Breaking news the queen street station branch has been all done up and even better news they have a whole new range of everything in there. Imagine my delight. I still get that feeling when you buy one, almost like the deal is too good to be true…or like they have given you change from a £20 note instead of a £10…it doesn’t make sense…they must know.