Sunday June 9th 2013 - Goodbye to Invercaimbe

I woke early that morning to yet more blue sky and sunshine and the realisation that my holiday was coming to an end - as soon as I'd had breakfast I had to pack up and set off on the first leg of my long journey back home. First though was a walk on the beach with the dogs, and although I'd taken heaven knows how many photos down there during the course of the week it was such a beautiful place that I just couldn't resist taking a few more.

The tide was well in and the water lapped the sand in barely discernable ripples; in front of me the islands were tinged with pink from the sun and looked slightly blurred from the remains of an early morning sea mist, and over to my left a small dinghy slipped silently through the water, leaving barely a ripple in its wake. All around me birds were singing, lambs were bleating in the fields behind me, and from somewhere across the estuary came the distinctive sound of the cuckoo. This place was absolute heaven and I just wished that time could stand still and I would never have to leave.

Back at the tent I put Sophie and Sugar on their line out on the grass then set about making coffee and toast, which I lingered over while looking at the view. Unfortunately though I couldn't keep putting off the inevitable so reluctantly I cleared the breakfast things away and started on the packing up process, though this was hampered somewhat by various other campers who stopped to chat as they were passing. Eventually everything was in the van except the dogs, and judging by the look on Sophie's face they didn't want to go home any more than I did. Once I'd put them in the van though they settled down in their bed, and after taking a final few shots of the site in general from the small hillock behind my pitch I said a silent goodbye to Invercaimbe and drove along the track for the last time.

When I reached Fort William I stopped off at Morrisons to top the tank up again - a completely full tank would be more than enough to get me all the way home - then I settled in for the drive down to the C & CC site at Moffat, which would be my stopping-off place for the night. I managed to get all the way through Glen Coe and past the Green Welly without stopping for photos and when I finally did make a stop it was at Tarbet near the top end of Loch Lomond. There was a car park just off the main road through the village and from there a large and very pleasant area of well mown grass sloped down to the lochside where the Loch Lomond cruise boats took visitors out on the loch. I wandered round for about half an hour before putting the dogs back in the van and setting off once more.

It was when I was almost at Luss that I suddenly had a spur-of-the-moment and totally mad idea - it's surprising how quickly the human brain can process several different thoughts in the space of a couple of seconds - and swinging the van off the road I turned into the entrance of the C & CC site I'd stayed at the previous weekend. With the weather being so good I thought that if I could transfer my one-night booking from the Moffat site to Luss - providing there was a pitch available of course - I could do the boat trip across to Balmaha the following day before continuing on the second leg of my journey; also it was still a long way to Moffat and I didn't really feel like driving much further. So with fingers crossed that I wouldn't be quizzed again about the van being a motorhome I parked up and went across to reception, and I have to say that this time the warden was very helpful. He phoned the Moffat site, transferred my booking, and led me to an available pitch; it was on the same part of the site as before, and though it wasn't by the lochside it wasn't too far away.

By the time I'd put the tent up I was really beginning to feel tired; for the sake of just one night there was no point in setting it up completely so I left out the second bedroom and the larder unit and instead of making the bed up properly I just put the two self-inflating mats and the mattress on the floor - sleeping at ground level wouldn't matter for once. With all that done, and realising that I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, I made a brew and a sandwich and spent a couple of hours relaxing and reading my book before taking the dogs for their last walk of the day. It wasn't late but if I wanted to be on the 10am boat the following morning I needed to get packed up again early, and with a long drive ahead of me after the boat trip I didn't want to be tired so it made sense for once to have an early night.