Just call him Noah

Our poor local guide, Karl, is really at a loss when it comes with what to do with us now.  The rain, even for here, is pretty relentless.  We get moments of brightening and apparent pause, but by the time the 10 of us get out of the vans, grab all the gear and start to make our way to whatever it is we’re shooting, we’re all wet again.  He joked this morning that now we just ought to call him Noah.  I feel for him, he’s digging deep for indoor things for photographers to do.

The day started at the same time with the same breakfast as yesterday. I woke up with a scratchy throat that didn’t clear up all day.  I was also cranky (yes, really!) and tired of being wet.  But I signed up for this, so I’ll stop my griping.  Until the next paragraph.

I’m in the second van, driven by Don.  He just follows Karl.  He has a loose idea of where we’re headed.  This morning we headed out despite knowing it would likely be a washout all day.  Our first stop was Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe.  It is a gorgeous ruined castle at the base of a mountain and on the loch.  When we pulled up at the side of the road, it was raining moderately but I saw Accuweather said we’d have a window of about 40 minutes in 20 minutes.  So we waited, and Accuweather was right.  The rain abated and we were all at the ready to hop out. The problem was we were on the road and between us and the castle was about 1/8 of a mile of soggy bog.  Off went Karl in his Wellies.  I’ll cut to the chase, I followed and gave up. It was far too deep water for me to keep going.  I didn’t want to sit in wet shoes all day.  I thought for a moment that maybe I should have brought my hiking shoes from Rwanda but now in retrospect and in seeing how wrecked my fellow travelers’ shoes were, I don’t think they would have helped.

So I found a somewhat solid plot of land for me to stand and shoot.  It was bright enough that I thought I could handhold the camera.  And I shot shot shot away.  Then I realized I probably ought to bump up the ISO a bit but then noticed all my menus were different and couldn’t find that setting.  So I kept shooting. Turns out I was still on the sunset setting from last night when the camera was on a tripod.  Long story short, I got crap photos on the camera.  Only a few iPhone shots and not very good at all.  I tried to make my way to Don for some help but he’d made it so far down to the loch and then the rain really kicked in again, I just abandoned the effort.  I was really cranky and frustrated.

Our next stop was Saint Conan’s Kirk, a 15th century church on Loch Awe.  It is a gothic church and the thought was that we’d do some detail work here.  Part of why I’m doing this trip is because I don’t feel I have a great creative eye, and I have trouble breaking a whole down into parts.  But my camera settings were still mucked up and I was frustrated from the castle, so I was spiraling.  Don finally miraculously fixed my menus and I dug in to try to salvage something from the church shoot.  I found a lion statue in the cloisters that really lit me up, so I started there.

Lunch was from Karl’s shop while standing in the cloister.  I had a cheese, tomato and pesto sandwich with chips and the best pound cake I’ve had in a long time.

We next went to the Cranachan Power Plant for a quick walk through of their exhibit and a snack in the cafe.  I really enjoyed the birdwatching outside the cafe.  I added 4 more birds to my life list here (this is after 4 yesterday and 2 in Edinburgh). Then we started heading back towards our hotel.

Karl took us down a single lane road into Glen Etive, which ran several miles into the mountains.  The rain coming down the mountains in naturally carved downspouts was so intense, with waterfalls letting off what looked like sheets of smoke half way up the mountains.  It was almost unnatural how the water was just streaming down the mountains and joining with the small stream that was powering down towards the loch and onwards to the sea.  It was a lot of water.  That was an understatement.  We stopped to shoot the rapids which was great because I’m still practicing my long exposure photography.  We lasted a few minutes until the rain powered up again, so then we packed back up into the vans and off we went again.

We passed a bothy, a small cottage that is used by trekkers and hikers for a bit of respite as they make their way through the highlands.  I’d seen it in photographs and knew it was the iconic shot of the wee white cottage against the backdrop of the mountains.  The scale of it is just hard to describe.  But it was raining too hard to stop.   Fortunately we passed a similar cottage a bit further on and stopped there because the rain had pressed pause again.  I got some good shots, since I’d rectified my camera settings and used my tripod.  So the last shots of the day were good ones.

Dinner tonight was leek and potato soup, which was really good, hot and a bit of a kick; felt good on my throat.  The main was salmon, cod and coley fishcakes, which were wonderful with big chunks of potato in them and topped with a tomato salsa.  And the dessert was Eton mess.  Right there my day turned around 10000%.  It was quite good (although I still give the edge to Chef Luis at the Sunset Marquis!).  Tonight instead of a G&T I had Inch’s Apple Cider which is a local seasonal hard cider.

We’re all up early tomorrow to hopefully shoot sunrise here on the bay outside our hotel.  We move on to Isle of Skye tomorrow too, so hopefully Noah can work some magic and dry things out.  In the meantime I’m flipping my shoes again on the radiator. Hopefully they’ll dry out by morning!