I don't care what anyone says, you can't beat a camping holiday. There is just something special about camping that makes up for the inconvenience of shared showers, shared toilets and/or mud outside your front door for a few days. Outside our front door last week, almost literally, was Loch Lomond - the Camping and Caravan Club site at Luss goes right down to the shore of the Loch and it is lovely.
What is best though is the privilege of being by the loch before the coach loads of old ladies bearing carrier bags from Edinburgh Woollen Mills, when there are the best views of the loch - the views you see when the dog has dragged you out of your sleeping bag at 7.15, when the mist is still on the water and it is perfectly still.
For these views I even forgave the site for having traffic howling past on the A82. If we are to compare C And C sites around the loch I think that its position wins hands down over the site at Milarrochy Bay on the Eastern shore. What made it even sweeter though was when strolling along the beach of an evening, we were sharing these views with the patrons of the Lodge on Loch Lomond, a hotel whose car park was packed with high end BMWs, a few Porsche Carreras and a Ferrari 350M and many of whose clientele were well heeled Americans who thought the beach was exclusively theirs:
"Hi there, we are staying here, are you here for the day?"
"No we are staying here too"
"Oh, which room are you in ?"
"Ours goes right down to the shore..."
To be fair, by this time they'd sussed that our clothing designers were more Primarni and Ebay than Dolce Gabbana, but still, I think they thought we were quaint when they stopped to consider that we might not be entirely serious. And in any case, I challenge them to say they had a better time than we did.
Further along the loch shore, just beyond the boundaries of our site, lived a chap who played the bagpipes. To hear the sound of his evening practice drift across the loch was just enough to forgive Scotland for the other pipers you might hear hanging around the tourist locations in clan tartan with a cap held out hopefully to the passers by. Try as I might I couldn't stop the hairs on the back of my neck standing up when I heard the skirl of the pipes; it was all I could do to stop myself shouting 'Freedom!' in a loud voice with an accent somewhere between Glasgow and Melbourne.
9 comments:
i love camping, we normally go to wales around Barmouth way, the views are wonderful. Its the best nights sleep i get when i camp out.
The only thing puts me off is having had a drink or two is that eerie visit to the loo in the middle of the night which is always miles away from your tent.
Oh yes, the night time wees. Of course when we chaps were younger you could simply stand outside your tent in the pitch black and, well, do it.
These days though I have to admit that we have our own small chemi-loo just for that purpose.
hey crofty, i am in a chalet this year, my dad is paying. But a chemi-loo, i'm so disappointed in you. Please don't now tell me you have one of those tents like a big top with proper beds and shelves and stuff, tee hee.
My hubby was camping on his own a few years ago, it was about 6 in the morning and he gets out of the tent, its day light and just gets his tackle out and does a wee, half way through this much need wee, he looks up and there in front of him are an old couple outside their tent have breakfast....he just looks at them still peeing and says, good morning, looks like its going to be a nice day.
Camping is a New Zealand summer holiday tradition. My happiest memories are of camping. And as for the night walk - what could be better than blessed coolness after a blazing hot summer day, a hushed campground, the swish of waves, and the REAL black night with no street-lights and the sweep of glorious stars across the heavens. Breath-taking. Gosh, I've waxed all lyrical.
Did they let you out of Sctoland, Crofty???????
Yes! I'm free, just stretched a bit thin at the moment!
I miss you Crofty. Don't work too hard.
Ah, thanks. I'm not entirely gone. Bill Blunt jolted me in to a post - but thanks for your good wishes.
I wish it was just work that was occupying us at the moment but you know how families are!
Nice camping blog, thank you for sharing............
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