Thursday 18 June 2009

The Scottish Midge.

So we got the ferry from Larne in N. Ireland to Troon in Scotland on the 11th of June.
We spent a couple of days helping out with my parents new house. Jess learned how to plasterboard and practiced her delegation skills when it came to the plastering.


The house is starting to look house like (rather than building site like as it was when i last visited).



From there we drove north a little hunting good weather.
We had hopped to climb on the Etive Slabs in Glen Ettive but the weather would not play nice.
We stopped for the obligatory GlenCoe picture before driving on to Fort William and found a break in the weather in Glen Nevis.
We got one very good climb in. Storm, HVS 5a on Cavalry Buttress before getting chased off by rain and midges.
Fantastic 4c middle pitch (Dunk had pitch envy cos it was mine ho ho ho!).


Midges ruled the rest of the day keeping us in the van and even found a way in during the night leaving us scurrying to block midge leaks.

The next day we were booked in to The Ice Factor in Kinlochleven to try a different sort of climbing.
It was actually surprisingly easy, as long as i remembered to forget any sort of footwork associated with rock climbing.


When our forearms eventually gave out we returned to Loch Awe-side to the parent's house.

The next day my parents had the day off so after a little debate over what to do we all settled on a boat trip exploring the many runis on the little islands up and down Loch Awe.
You should be able to see our trip here.
(My phone battery ran out on our way home so you don't actually get the last bit...) (I would just like to say I don't condone this high level of geekiness - Jess)





Our next destination is still a little undecided. The weather forecast *nearly* looks good enough to head up to Ardnamerchan but we will probably decide for sure when we are on the road.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Those damn midges - never realised they could hamper life so much!!

Ice Factor looks like fun :)

asn said...

Hmm, board and plastered...sure the 'rents had us three at that at Easter...