Singing Sands

 We drove over to Arivegaig (nearest village is Acharacle) and cycled through the forest to the Singing Sands and Cul na Croise. This was the base of the "Eden" TV reality show broadcast on Channel 4 during 2017.  It was somewhere we'd long been interested to visit ... 

We set up camp on a blustery promentory...

..overlooking a row of glorious sandy beaches

Cycling was hard!

Loch Morar

 Portaging up to Loch Morar, was MUCH harder than we remembered... We realised we last did it 10 years ago.... but things have changed!!.... 

We no longer fancy doing that portage again!

But once on Loch Morar, we paddled up the loch and set up camp at a nice spot on the south shore.  The next day, on schedule, the sun came out the wind dropped and it was lovely.   

Spent a nice day exploring

On the way back we stopped to explore one of the wooded islands...

The weather forecast still wasn't good, and we couldn't car-top the kayak without a roof rack, (and our van was still at Arisaig campsite) we decided to leave the kayak locked up on Loch Morar, take the train to Mallaig, then take the ferry over to Eigg to spend a few days there, hoping that the winds would ultimately drop...

However after a few pleasant (tho wet and windy) days camped on Eigg, the force 4-6 winds were predicted to continue.  As we couldn't take the assembled kayak to calmer waters, we somewhat reluctantly we decided that we should retrieve the van, come back to Loch Morar, pack up the kayak, and call it a day (at least for kayaking) 

Back of Keppoch, Arisaig

 We arrived at our favourite  campsite near Arisaig, (Tigh-na-mara campsite, Back of Keppoch)  and assembled the Kayak ....

The weather forecast not looking good, with Force 4 winds,  so after a brief "warm-up paddle" we decided that tomorrow we'd paddle over to Morar, and portage up the road to Loch Morar, where it should be calmer.

A bad start...

 Our trip to Scotland started badly, when a week before we were due to leave, our car's engine blew up.

We hastily hired a van from Enterprise. 

This took all our stuff, but as there was no roof rack, we knew we'd be unable to transport the assembled kayak. This became a problem later..