Scotland: National Rural Network
By Patrick Vickery
Gregorian Chanting in the Fannaichs. Not my sort of music, but I know a woman in Rosemarkie who enjoys a spot of Gregorian chanting whilst walking in the Fannaichs. And why not? Ross-shire, of course, is a musically vibrant place. There's music everywhere.
We went to the Loopallu music festival (which is Ullapool spelt backwards) last September, and also the Belladrum music festival near Beauly last August. Vibrant music. The weather was kind on both occasions.
Ullapool was a smaller affair, two and a half thousand people or so, with Belladrum around the seven thousand mark. A good variety of music at both venues.
If you're camping at such an event, then tent positioning is important, for you can never be too sure who your neighbours will be. Best pitch against a fence if possible, that's our experience anyway, minimize being surrounded on all flanks by wild parties (yes, I seem to have evolved into an old fogey, more's the pity).
The first year at Belladrum (which is Murdalleb spelt backwards and means absolutely nothing at all) we camped in the general area and as the night progressed our accommodation shuddered periodically, accompanied by a sort of pinging noise as the odd inebriated reveller walked through our guy ropes and detached them from the main body of the tent. There's something to be said for having insecure tent pegs, now I think about it - could save on the pinging noises in the middle of the night.
I know this noise well, of course, because as a youth I cut grass on a ride-on mower at a local campsite and detached a few myself. Elastic guy ropes make more of a zinging rather than a pinging noise actually, though these days most are made from cord. That's my observations on the matter anyway.
Camping has many other pitfalls apart from pinging and zinging guy ropes. Moles burrowing up through the groundsheet, for example, which isn't very funny at the time, though makes for an interesting story afterwards. Half asleep, middle of the night, when something comes up through the floor! What do you do
Well, evacuate at speed actually and investigate later.Then there was the Rogie Falls incident. Years ago we camped in the car park (probably not allowed to these days, so better not do that) in a camper van, not a tent, one of those Volkswagen camper vans from the old days, and we were hit by a car at three in the morning.
I pulled my gardening boots on quick, just in case they were required as weapons of self-defence. "So sorry," said the one and only other car driver in the car park, eyeing my boots suspiciously, "just parking". (Just parking, just parking, whatever next? At three o'clock in the morning? An unlikely story.) So I grunted something innocuous, as you do, and went back to bed with my boots on.
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