Camping in Fort William | Solo Van Life Scotland [ep 2]

Looks a little bit of a bodge job but it's literally all I can do. Good morning. Welcome to Fort William. This is where we stayed last night. We're just on a little industrial road here just off of a business park. It's not the most picturesque place in the world but it's really quiet. It's out of the way of the elements and I was able to get a good night's sleep which I'll take that over a good view any day. All right it's starting to rain pretty hard Shut the door and get ourselves in here. So yes obviously I made it down the mountain. I left you guys in the last video up the top of a mountain and just kind of ended the video. There's a few reasons for that which I'll explain later on but obviously yes I did make it down safe. I'm currently here in Fort William which is one of the biggest towns in the Highlands so we're here for a few days. Been here for a while anyway but we're here for a few more days. I'm going to get checked on a campsite this afternoon. We need to do a few jobs in town. I need to get fuel. I need to get food shopping. There's another shop I want to pop in. I need to have a look for a couple of bits of the van. So we're going to get all that done, head over the campsite. It's one of my favorite campsites as well so I'll give you guys a bit of a tour then I can explain to you a bit later on a bit more about why I got lost and what actually happened on that hike. But right now we need to get ourselves over to HomeSense which is the first shop on the list because we need to have a look for some things in there before getting fuel. Vans packed up, everything's turned off. We are good to go. Oh got to check my drawers. I always never shut these and they always fly open when I drive. All right. First of March. I can't actually believe it's the first of March already. It's crazy. Crazy fool. It's supposed to be raining all day today but clearing up during the week so fingers crossed because it would also be nice to go hiking again without getting lost this time. It's a thing. Home bargains. That's our first stop. Three minutes away. Rock and roll. Sour patch kits. No job. Let's see. Self-adhesive hanging strips. One of them black really. Had one of those for ages. Yes. We'll have one of those. That'll do. Amazing for the floor mat in the van. I think that's it. Hey how you doing? Nice one. Thank you. All good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good one. Mission success. Best purchase. My brush. I had one of these in my last van and it's fantastic for cleaning the mat which always gets caked. I've got my sticky pads as well but they're they're not black but they will do. Got to make some compromises. Food shopping, fuel, campsite. Good selection of stuff in there. Shopping done. Got a few extra bits for when we do some hikes to keep me fuelled up and a couple of extra bits for dinners as well but what I think I'll do is leave that in the bag and I'll put that away when we get to our campsite depending what the time is. Let's have a look. Yeah we'll do that when we get to camp because it's now 20 past 12 and we can check on to the campsite at half 12 which is really good. Nice and early. Campsites don't really allow you on until like three four o'clock in the afternoon so to be able to go on at half 12 and then when you check out you don't have to check out until half 11 so I think that's really good. I've just got to remember to drive nice and slow because otherwise that bag of food shopping is going to go everywhere. Ask me how I know. All right this is it and we are on pitch seven. So I've been here quite a few times. Got a really nice shower block there so five seven. All right we're driving that way we can get nice and close with the water. Great view of Ben Nevis up there as well. Let me show you guys. That right there is Ben Nevis. Got a good view of him. All right so we just had to phone the site warden because I went to plug in the electric and the socket's hanging off. Someone's obviously yanked it a bit too hard last time so we're going to park next door and then they're going to get that repaired which is even better for me because our water and electric is that side which is epic. So I had to move pitch because the electric socket was broken. This one here look it's hanging off so we just gave the site warden a quick call and they moved us over onto this pitch which is perfect because my hose now reaches and we can fill up with water. And this is a time where my cable is way longer than it actually needs to be. Had a bit of a resort with the cabling. Got everything tidy. Found my hard drive to do my backup as well because I need to do my time machine backup on my mac later. So I've got one quick job to do which is I had an issue with my heater. One of the pipes blew off and because it was way too short and it wasn't kind of on these little connectors here they have to go all the way in to be able to form a nice seal and the pipe that I made was too short and it wasn't pushed in far enough and it was a piece that was kind of between two pipes like this and it just kind of blew the pipe off. So I robbed a bit of pipe out the back of my one of my cupboards in the garage that does the hot water for the outside tap or the outside shower. So I robbed a bit of pipe off of there. Fixed that but now I've got no hot water in the back so I can't get any 12mm pipe delivered. What I bought was these little 12mm straight couplings and what we're going to do, these little connectors, we're just going to put one of these in line to take out the gap of the piece that I have taken to then hopefully fix the issue in the back. It'll make sense when I show you. Okay this is the piece of pipe that I cut short which goes in this connector here. So as you can see it's only about an inch or so that I took out and what I've got to make sure of when I do this is to put these little pipe inserts in. They're really important because they stop the pipe from collapsing. Making sure that you get a nice seal around these so that we don't end up with any leaks which is very important. So we're going to take it about there, cut that piece of pipe and we're going to put our inserts in. There's one, there's two, so I'm in the end there. Push that up in there and then hopefully, see I'm still a little bit short so I'm going to have to put another one in line in there. Looks a little bit of a bodge job but it's literally all I can do while I'm on the road. That'll do. As long as we can get hot water out the back if we turn that on and I get my get my shower we should get hot water. Yes and there's hot water. Excellent. Just checking to make sure we ain't got any leaks. This doesn't look like we have. Go that way. Nice, job done. I keep a really long flat hose in the back here as well which comes in handy. It takes forever to fill the tank up with it because the hose is so small. It's three little hoses in there but it's nowhere near as big as a 15 mil garden hose. I'm glad I got that done because I've had those bits for a few days so that's a quick and easy job and I say it's not the most prettiest job in the world. I would definitely rather get a bit of pipe and do it properly but needs must when you're on the road. When I head back home and I'm at a base for a couple of weeks I'll then find some pipe, get it delivered from eBay or somewhere because Amazon doesn't sell that type of stuff. Then I can get it done properly but until then. I think what I'm going to do before the weather comes in anymore because it's been raining on and off for the last few hours, I'm going to get my jacket on here and I'm going to give you guys a tour of the campground and the shower block. All right so this is where we're at. This is the campground. That's the shower block over there and you've got bins and stuff here. That's where you drive in. I can't remember what those mountains there are called but you've got Ben Nevis over in the far distance over there. So anyway as it's raining I shall now take you for a tour inside. There's the site reception over there. Bins. This has all been recently redone as well. It's really nice actually. They've got railway sleepers everywhere and they've done a really good job. All new electrical points and water points. Really nice campsite. So this is the shower block which is really really nice. So yeah I like the skylight. Yeah you have toilets in here. In here is where your showers are. So really really nice. All heated floors and everything. So yeah it's one of the nicer campsites, nicer shower blocks I've been to. So that's the shower block. And if we go out here. So I mean it's lovely the way they've done it with all the railway sleepers. Around here your boot wash and chemical disposal toilet. So you can wash all your boots and stuff there which is really great. I've not seen anywhere have one of these before so that's really cool especially if you get back off a hike and all your boots are caked in mud. Then chemical disposal toilet point. Great view of Ben Nevis up there. And then in here is the laundry as you can tell from the door. Hi. So this is the laundry where you've got laundry machines. So and again these are some of the best laundry machines I've used. All your different programs and things on there. Your big dryers as well and it's all done wireless. So and all your washing detergent and fabric softener is all included. Sink there as well. Very cool. Very cool. It's one of the things you do spend a lot of money on is laundry when you're on the road. And I've paid the same price as what they charge for ones on the side of a road like next to garage forecourts and things. But they literally like take 25 minutes to wash your clothes and they're not the greatest quality. Those they'll run for like an hour or so. And then this is the kitchen. So in here there's a kitchen. So if you're camping or you just want to come in here and not use the stuff in your van you can come in here. So yeah it's pretty cool. And here's the rest of the site. So you've got pitches all the way around the edge and then pitches in the center as well. So yeah it's um it's a very nice site. Very nice site. There's Mr. T. But I'm getting really wet walking around so I'm gonna get back in and we're gonna figure out what we're gonna do for dinner. So I'm probably gonna save my washing and do that tomorrow because I've got a bit of a work day tomorrow and it means I can do it in between calls and working things. That way I can focus on just doing some food prep tonight, cook my dinner and have a bit of a chilled evening. Which will be nice because we've got a full week next week. It's time to get going on the meal prep and I have some steak that I need to use up. Some chicken that needs to be cooked today. And we have... So I think what we're gonna do is we're for next week. The steak here, I'm gonna divide that up. I'm gonna freeze some of it and then I'm gonna cook the rest of dinner tonight. Might even do smash burgers. I'm not sure. Might save that for another day. But yeah we'll see how we get on. We're gonna cook the chicken first. Get our big pan out here. And we need to freeze the lid as well. Use that one as well. Seasonings we're gonna want salt, pepper. I want some chicken seasoning, a bit of garlic and herb. I think that'll do. So we got all our chicken diced up. Just gonna add some salt, pepper, some chicken seasoning. Because it's so good, a bit of garlic and herb. Tiny bit of oil in there. We got the chicken on the go. We are gonna do the avocado and greek yogurt mix. Not done this before so we'll see how it goes. Just looking for something slightly different and something that is easy to have. And if I go out hiking I can take one with me as well which would be nice. So let's see what our avocados are doing. It feels like it might be all right. They've got such a terrible shelf life. Yeah that's not bad. And once they're ripe, they're ripe for like a day or two and then they go bad. Really annoying if you like avocados. All right I think I managed to get like one and a half avocados which is good. Yeah I'll put my extractor fan on a little bit more. We will do no I don't know. Let's do one, two, let's do three. Three big dollops of greek yogurt. This is literally me winging it because I've no idea. I'm gonna do a bit of salt. I'm gonna do a bit of that garlic and herb. Some chives and we're gonna do some onion, some garlic. Mix all that together. Never done it this way before but just thought I'd try something new. I think it'll be all right for a few days. So that's what our chicken looks like. I suppose I could try a bit of this. That's not bad. Oh yeah definitely with a bit of garlic in it. So for the wraps we are gonna go a dollop of this. Nice helping. Then we are gonna go for what might have been easier is to mix it together but this is all just trial and error. So let's see how good we are at folding wraps. Let's see. See if we can do it without it splurging out everywhere. That's all right. That's cool. Then we're gonna wrap that in foil and I guarantee it's gonna keep its shape. In with that one. All right four wraps. Done. I've only got one wrap left so what I'm probably gonna do is just throw this chicken in and do it with a bit of cheese rather than cook up burgers. Whoa that's quite a lot more chicken actually. We'll make it work. Well it's not the best thing I've ever cooked but it'll do. So that's tonight's dinner. I've done half the washing up. I'm gonna do the rest in a minute but this is where I'm gonna leave you guys. I will check back in with you in the morning. I'm gonna get cleared up, go and have a shower and then enjoy a chilled evening. I'll catch up with you guys in the morning. Good morning. Waking up here this morning it's an absolutely gorgeous day. It's a little windy, a little cold but it's absolutely stunning outside. It's the first time you've been able to see Ben Nevis as well. Not socked in my cloud for a couple of weeks so that's pretty cool. Last night I managed to get myself a shave and I got a shower as well which was awesome. First time I've had a hot shower in a week so that was that was pretty good. Then I just chilled out for the rest of the evening, dumped the footage from yesterday, got basically a rough edit done on the timeline and then I went to bed nice and early which is good. I was up at about five o'clock this morning and I've been working all morning. It's currently half 12. There's a couple of new people just arriving on site but I've got a good amount of work in this morning so really really happy. Probably going to kick back and relax for the next hour or so. I might fly the drone, do myself some lunch, try one of those wraps we made yesterday, maybe go for a little walk this afternoon. I'm not sure yet. I have got a call with a client at five o'clock which will probably last a couple of hours so I need to get out on a walk this afternoon if I can but it's a nice relaxing day so far. Some new people on site looking very confused. Okay so you guys are probably wondering what happened on the hike last time in my last video. I'm just going to pull up my phone here and give you guys a bit of an explanation. So I drove to the end of this lock where I was parked up for a few days and at the end of this lock is basically a bit of a clearing which is kind of like a car park. You can park there and then go for a walk around the Glendiserie estate which is amazing and it's got lovely woodland and all the rest of it and there are some marked out trails which you can go on but the one I was looking at on osmaps, well I thought the one I looked at on osmaps was a marked out trail but it turns out that it wasn't. So if I overlay my screen here you'll be able to see. Alright so this is the map I downloaded. So it's called Can't Get More Wild and it's a distance of 12.89 miles, roughly seven and a quarter hours. So if I open up the map you can sort of see, let's see if I can minimize that, so you can see where it starts which is down here at the end of the lock. So you can see the road in yellow there and then you can see where the starting point is and then you can see that you walk along and you go through the woodland which is around the side of this mountain. Let me turn it around like that and then when you get to the edge of the end of the woodland here you have a path that or a direction that shows that you immediately go left and you follow this tree line. So I was looking for a trail, I was looking for a path that follows that tree line and there wasn't one there and that's why I was going backwards and forwards a lot trying to find it and it isn't actually on all trails, there's no trail shown there and actually when you look properly at this osmap there's actually no trail there at all. You literally just walk up the side of this mountain and at this time of year it's just like marshland, it's boggy, it's snowy, it's ice, it's just it's not pleasant hiking conditions. I thought as it's just a tree line I'm following I would try it and it took me almost two hours, I think I said in the video it took me almost two hours to hike that one little stint to get to the top of that mountain. I think it was something like 1300 feet in less than half a mile so it was insanely steep and when I got to the top it was like three o'clock in the afternoon because obviously I was trying to do my filming earlier on in the day and when I got to the top it was like three o'clock I was really really cold it was like I reckon between minus five and minus eight degrees maybe up there and I knew I only had three hours of daylight left as well so I wasn't panicking but I was very self-aware that I knew if I carried on and I went over the top of this so if I followed the route there look which goes over the top of that ridge line and then goes over to the other mountain on the other side and then doubles back over another mountain and down the other side and through the woodland there's actually no trail marked out for that hike so I could have actually got very lost and the fact that I didn't actually have a paper copy of this map and a compass or anything like that I just had my phone I didn't even really have like a GPS or a Garmin on me or anything so I thought to myself it was probably best just to head back down the way I came and then go back through the forest what made it all the more hard though was the fact that I had my camera bag with me with a load of gear and it just made the whole trek really tiring because I wasn't used to carrying a bag of that weight and doing a hike as well I've done lots of hiking in the past I just haven't done one that long and with a camera bag full of gear as well at the same time so it was a little bit stupid on my part but I wanted to try it and I thought the OS maps would be kind of accurate and I'd just be able to follow a trail and enjoy the day but it didn't pan out that way so if you look on all trails so on all trails here you've got the end of the lock there and then if I spin them you can see the Glendistery Wood there so if I spin the map round without going into 3D view you can see the trail that I would have taken through the woodland here and then when it gets to the end of the woodland the trail goes off to the right hand side but there's nothing along that tree line and when you look at it there's also nothing over the top of that mountain and nothing connecting the other mountain the other side either for me I probably would have been out a long long long time with no direction and the fact that it snowed as well and the reason I didn't film the hike going back was just because it was so brutal going down that descent with the weight that I had on my back as well by the time I got down to the woodland I was kind of done I still had at that point two hours to go back through this woodland trail to get back to my van I managed to get down in about an hour so it was half the time but then I still had a two hour hike back to the van which was just really really hard and I got back around I think it was around six just after 6 p.m I got back to the van I saw some deer on the way back there which was really cool they were kind of crossing the the trail the path and yeah they were running off down into the into the lower ground which was really cool to see and you can see kind of that the sun had already gone down at that point so yeah lessons learned from from now on I'm probably going to stick with all trails and not use os maps purely because I want to hike on trails I want to hike on paths that have been marked out and I've got way markers and things and that I know where I'm going and routes have been plotted people have walked it before and I've got a good idea of where I'm going I think os maps is good but you need to have a lot more experience to to use that and if you're going to go off the beaten track anyway that gives you guys a little bit of an idea as to why I didn't film at the end of the video and the reasons why I kind of said I got lost and didn't really know what where I was or the route I was taking but I've got a lot more hikes planned I've got one plan tomorrow actually which I'm really looking forward to so stay tuned for that that'll probably be in the next video but I think I'm going to wrap it here I'm going to go and chill out I'm going to go and fly my drone for a bit capture some footage and just have a bit of a relaxing day and kind of enjoy the site because the weather's not been this nice for a long time so but as always I truly appreciate you guys watching your support really does mean a lot if you haven't already think about hitting that subscribe button drop me a like on this video while you're down there and I will see you in the