Wild Camping in Scotland

Off to Scotland, where for two days I huddled in a tent against the elements, because there's a first time for everything. Why? Just to see what it was like.

Scotland is one of the few places in the world where you're allowed to camp in the wild. You can in theory pitch up a tent on any patch of unowned land, although I imagine if you tried to camp just outside a primary school the police would not be pleased. Or just outside the Scottish estate of 1980s actress Lysette Anthony (for example). Or anywhere else that breaches the terms of an exclusion order.

Castle Stalker. The railway line is apparently used to pull boats into the boathouse that's just behind me. Historically there was a train line at nearby Appin, but it was closed as part of the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

Let's not dwell on bad things. I wanted to see Castle Stalker, which is an awkward distance from the nearest train stations at Oban and Connel Ferry. It's too far to walk, close enough to cycle there and back in one day if you're really keen, but I wanted to try out camping, so I used Google Maps to pick a green spot called Gleann Dubh, which is near Castle Stalker. It's a reservoir.

Gleann Dubh isn't famous at all, and I can find no record of anyone on the internet camping there, although while there I saw a couple of tents, so perhaps it's a favourite local spot. Who knows.

Let's share tips. I have never camped before, but I've read Into Thin Air and at the very least I didn't die, but you are probably much more experienced than me. Perhaps you want to know how a novice got on.

Tent
My plan was to cycle to Castle Stalker, so I had to save weight. Cycle with a Brompton, not ordinarily thought of as a long-range touring bike, but it can be done. If you're planning to do this yourself but you aren't keen on camping in the wild there are several motor caravan parks in the local area, and of course you could cycle to Port Appin and stay in the hotel there instead. Port Appin is a scenic half-hour stroll to Castle Stalker. I wanted to camp. To experience the glamour of army basic training and/or being homeless.

A few years ago there was a fad on the internet for hammocks, strung between two trees, with a V-shaped tarpaulin on top, but I expected to camp on open ground, so that wasn't an option. Hammocks also strike me as being very conspicuous. Another popular option is a bivouac bag, or bivvy bag. They're essentially sleeping bag liners made of breathable waterproof fabric, although the more elaborate models have a hooped head area. Some bivvy bags even have provision for guy ropes, and are essentially low-to-the-ground, sausage-shaped tents. One that stood out to me is the Terra Nova Jupiter Lite, but it seems to be discontinued.

Bivvy bags have discretion on their side, and they're easy to set up, but I wanted a way to keep all of my gear inside away from the rain, including my folding bike if necessary, which meant a tent. Hiding the bike from plain sight might also prevent passing wildlife from nibbling the brake cables or peeing on it. Of the lightweight tents the Terra Nova Laser Competition 1 stood out, especially because it's easily available online in the UK, but I settled on a Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo, which is slightly lighter and around £100 cheaper. They aren't sold in the UK so they have to be imported, but they're lightweight so postage isn't especially onerous.

The Lunar Solo is around 700g, but you have to factor in some tent pegs - six, with fittings for two more - plus a 49" tent pole. Six Moon Designs expect you to use a walking pole, but I bought a lightweight carbon fibre tent pole from eBay:

Did it snap and shatter? No, although the length is an awkward fit in some backpacks. I was worried I would shoulder my backpack, and - crunch - snap the poles in the process, but again I was being too cautious. The pegs and pole probably didn't exceed 300gm so the package was less than 1kg. On top of that I had to add an inflatable bed and a sleeping bag.

I pondered bringing a sleeping bag liner - or alternatively only bringing a sleeping bag liner. In the event it was warm enough to do this, but I didn't know in advance, so I left the liner at home. On reflection I could have saved more weight by using a half-length sleeping bag. The external temperature at night was apparently 11-13c, but inside the tent I only really needed to keep my feet warm.

The Lunar Solo has a small internal half-hoop at the top but is otherwise structured with a mixture of guy ropes and the central pole, which fits into a pair of rings in the top and bottom of the tent. The tent itself is an odd shape. Imagine a pyramid sliced in half from one corner to the other, with an insect net strung across the slice, and a foyer area just outside. The floor hangs down from the sides of the pyramid, with a strip of ventilation netting running around at ground level:

A so-called bathtub design. At first I was concerned about privacy. It reminded me of those avant-garde homes where the walls are made of glass, but the tent flares out at the base, making a little roof over the ventilation nets, so it's much more private than it looks. It's a clever design that ventilates the inside of the tent, keeps out bugs, and lets you see what's going on directly outside the tent.

Now, the first time I erected the tent I was in a hurry, and the ground wasn't ideal, so my pitch was a bit floppy. I picked a little bowl in between fallen trees, and tried not to imagine that there was a dead sheep carcass underneath it all:

Furthermore the mossy ground didn't give much purchase for the pegs. Excuses. Even though my pitching was rubbish there was still plenty of internal space for me, a backpack, my boots, and a Brompton bike bag. You could almost certainly do a better job. During the night it rained, but the tent stayed upright and dry:

In that shot my boots are in the foyer area. The laces got wet but the boots remained dry. For the second and final night I rearranged the pegs, which gave me more space internally. The picture of my sock further up the page has the second configuration, as does the following shot:

As you can see it rained again, and the tent got floppy again, but I still had ample space inside. On the positive side there was almost no wind where I camped, albeit that on the negative side this encouraged midges, but on the positive side the netting kept them out. The anti-bug netting has a inside-outside two-zip design, thus:

It was easy enough to reach outside the tent and set up my camping stove without letting flies get in. Six Moon Designs provides their own bag, but I used a slightly larger bag that I had lying about because it had straps:

The Lunar Solo will pack down even smaller.

As you can see I also brought along a collapsible water container. I camped near a reservoir, but the water didn't look appealing at all so in the end I filled it - very slowly - from a stream. I was near the top of a hill and there didn't appear to be farming uphill, but nonetheless I added a water purification tablet (taken from, off the top of my head, a Polish MRE). And boiled it.

One thing that came in handy was an empty plastic drinks bottle. It's surprisingly difficult to fill a collapsible water container. If you hold it under water it collapses. I ended up using the plastic bottle to fill up the container.

Sustenance

I also took along my Trangia stove, which burns alcohol. You're supposed to use ethanol or meths, but I used 80% alcoholic hand sanitising gel, which worked just fine and also doubled as hand sanitising gel, important given the prevalence of midges. Could I have used vodka? Apparently the alcohol content isn't enough to sustain a good flame, and it would be a waste of vodka.

A Prevalence of Midges would be a good name for an early-80s dark ambient record. By Coil, Nurse With Wound, Current 93 etc. The Anti Group. Etc.

My plan was to use the Trangia for coffee, washing, and food. In the end I used it almost entirely for coffee, because cycling is thirsty work, and I wasn't all that hungry.

A rare glimpse of an MRE beverage bag (bottom-left) in the wild. They're intended for hot drinks - you're supposed to put coffee in them, shake up the bag, heat it in a flameless ration heater, slip it into a plastic sleeve and drink - but no-one does that. Instead I used several of them as waterproof pouches to keep things separated from each other.

I took along a plastic tub with savoury rice, some curry powder, some beef jerky, and some stock cubes. I have a bunch of dried onions that I should really have taken along with me as well. Rice is tricky in a Trangia because it's difficult to simmer things without using the awkward simmering ring, but I brought along an insulated pot cosy, so after boiling the water I let the rice cook itself while I made a hot drink.

The end result was edible but very bland, but I suppose that's the nature of dried food. For the second meal I simmered the beef jerky in hot water with a stock cube, which made a very salty meaty broth. I understand now why there are low-salt stock cubes.

All of this put me in mind of Das Boot, the famous novel of a Second World War submarine. At the beginning of the trip they filled every available space with eggs, bread, vegetables, chicken etc, but after a week or so all the fresh food had been used up, so their diet for the rest of the patrol consisted of tinned potatoes, Scho-Ka-Kola caffeinated chocolate, and whatever Germany had instead of spam. Dried food is even more spartan than that. I could have spiced my diet up with porridge and soup, but I was only camping for two days, and I was never more than a five miles away from a shop. Bear in mind my original plan was to hike for a week in [foreign land]; I overspecified for three days in Scotland.

Trangias are bulky, and when you account for the weight of liquid fuel they're heavy and slightly awkward, but they're compelling because they're a complete set of pots, kettle, windbreak, burner, stand etc. In retrospect I wish I had brought along some lemonade powder and much less food. I'm not a nutritionist, so I have no idea if I could have compensated for the loss of calories by drinking lots of sugary coffee instead. Or alternative if I could have not compensated at all and just lost weight instead. I have some surplus weight.

The other good thing about a Trangia is that it gave me something to do. It kept my mind active. The process of assembling it, trying to light the fuel without setting the tent on fire, juggling the two pots and the kettle, it all ate up time that would otherwise have been spent contemplating the fact I was sitting in a damp forest in Scotland.

The other thing

I bought along a trowel, but one consequence of eating so little and drinking so much is that I didn't have to use it. I was cognisant of the Apollo astronauts, who went on a low-residue diet before spending six days velcroing a plastic bag to their buttocks whenever they wanted to poo.

The diet sounds surprisingly appetising - baked potatoes, pound cake, toast, bacon and eggs. I assume the idea is that the food was high in oils and carbohydrates and low in fibre. I took a much simpler approach and simply ate a light lunch for three days in advance of the trip, and nothing else.

Technology

National cycle route 78 has plenty of signs. It runs alongside a main road for the most part. It's not Death Valley. A map comes in handy, though, because there's something to be said for having a bird's eye view of the local area. I have two maps, an old Garmin eTrex Legend and a much newer Motorola Moto G7 Power, so-called because it has a larger battery than the standard model. I use OpenStreetMap data on the eTrex and OSMAnd, which also uses OpenStreetMap, on the G7:

I mean, yes, there are also paper maps, but there are some things I will never be nostalgic for. Videotape, that's one. Having to share a bathroom with four other people. Being constantly distracted by lustful thoughts and spontaneous erections. That's not a problem any more. Oh no. And paper maps. They're great to study at home, horrible to actually use on the move.

Many many years ago I took the eTrex with me whenever I went abroad. You can set it to find shops and restaurants within a certain radius, which was useful more than once. However the basic technology is ancient, and the map is tiny, and it's very slow. The eTrex Legend was launched in 2001, and my module - with a colour screen and support for a MicroSD card - came along a few years later. In the pre-smartphone days it was probably terrific, but mobile phones have caught up. In its favour the eTrex takes standard AA batteries.

A few years later I compared it with my Moto G2, which picked up GPS satellites just as quickly and had the benefit of being able to make calls and connect to the internet, which are very useful if you're travelling. Furthermore the screen was a revelation in comparison. The G7 is a modest Android phone, but after three days of camping (without the internet) and taking a lot of photos it still had around 75% battery life left. I didn't bother with a power bank. No, spontaneous erections are no longer a problem. In a way I'm free.

Just visible at the bottom of the map screen is the bridge that links Castle Stalker with Port Appin:

I spotted it on the map and it piqued my curiosity. I wouldn't have thought to explore it otherwise; a quick search with OSMAnd revealed a corner shop in Port Appin, so I popped over there and bought some supplies. This is why OSMAnd is the only open source project I have donated money to. It's genuinely useful. It benefited me, and Port Appin's economy, a little bit.

I also took along my iPad Mini 2, on which I read Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. It's a fascinating book about the making of the hydrogen bomb, although the entire first half is about the espionage that went on during the Manhattan Project. It's one of those enormous, well-written, extensively-sourced books that's almost tailor-made for long train journeys.

Anything else? As pictured above I wore a well-worn pair of Altberg Defender boots, which had no grip on the bike's pedals but did keep my feet dry over what was occasionally boggy ground. See, in order to get from my tent to the nearest path I had to do a little jump over a stream, which was difficult with my Brompton, so I decided to wade the stream, only to find that the bottom was mud. And yet my feet stayed dry because the Defenders didn't let in any water.

I have the impression that ultralight camping is an unattainable goal. It's appealing but unattainable. The biggest issue I faced was weight. It's hard to be free when you're carrying a weight. That's why I don't mind losing custody of the kids. It's hard to be free when you're carrying a weight. The Brompton carried one of my bags, but a bike-mule would be awkward over bumpy or muddy ground. Are drones sufficiently advanced to use as pack mules? Not yet.

Could I have saved weight? The Model 27 Trangia weighs about 1kg. Back in 2001 this chap tried to shave some weight off his Trangia by leaving out the aluminium baseplate, which was surprisingly effective. For three days in Scotland I could have just bought food from the nearest shops, or brought along a couple of bars of Kendall Mint Cake, but it was nice having access to hot water. My sleeping bag is more bulky than heavy.

Camera-wise I took along my old Fuji S3. Hence the unsubtle sky gradients. It's good at that. I could have taken along my Olympus E-PL1 Micro-Four-Thirds camera, but I only have two batteries. Would they last? The S3 takes AAs, which are widely available, but as far as I can tell batteries for the E-PL1 (and other early Micro Four Thirds cameras) were discontinued years ago, so powering it is surprisingly difficult nowadays.

The Brompton bag itself is surprisingly heavy. I could have shaved off some weight by putting everything into a single larger backpack, but that would have concentrated all the weight in one area. And of course I could go on a diet and eliminate some weight that way. Ultimately it would have amounted to a handful of kilos before getting into the expensive world of carbon fibre and titanium, but nothing that I could have compensated for by simply moving a bit slower.

On the other hand soldiers carry far more than I did when on route marches. It seems that throughout military history 25kg is a common basic load, but during actual military operations they carry more than that. That source gives 50kg for the British soldier during the second Gulf War, and I've seen photos of soldiers alighting from landing craft during the Falklands War whose backpacks were as large as them. In contrast the combined weight of my gear was no more than 10kg, rising to 20kg during the thankfully brief periods I had to carry the Brompton, so I had it easy. Perhaps I'm just incredibly unfit and out of shape.

Glasgow

Oh yeah. Glasgow. I used Glasgow as a base, renting a hotel room at the beginning and end of my trip. I only got to see the city for one day. The central streets were draped with US flags. At first I thought it was a banking thing. Had the NASDAQ opened? But it turns out that the new Indiana Jones film is being shot there, because inner-city Glasgow looks like New York.

In fact a few years back I saw Florence Foster Jenkins, which also used Glasgow as a stand-in for New York. It looked slightly off, but only because it seemed too clean to be real.