Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

As you can see from the photo on the previous page, Gairloch isn't short on stunning views. We've spent the last few days mooching about Moglet getting some chores done, a couple of days updating the website and sorting photo's, and generally relaxing and chilling out. We did stretch our legs a couple of times, once to walk around the bay and see what the view was like from the other side (just as stunning), and the other to take a hike up a local hill to look at the site of a WWII aircraft wreck. The start of the track is marked with a sign, quite clearly making the point that you're on your own from here on in!

As days go, we really couldn't have picked a better one for the weather. It started out a little grey and overcast, perfect for the uphill trek (especially as the path wasnt really clear due to the amount of snow on the ground so it was all a bit off-piste and unsettling in a i-dont-know what-i'm-standing-on kind of way). Then as we got closer to the top, the snow started to fall, and on the way down, the sun came out :-) I wimped out a short way from the top as it was getting more and more icy and I'm not a big fan of falling on my arse, so Jason left his pack with me and scampered off like the little mountain goat that he is. It always worries me a little bit when he goes off on his own, especially as we have no way of contacting eachother, but we were pretty close to the top and still had lots of light left. My next biggest concern was getting cold and wet as the snow fell harder and harder, so I did what anyone else would have done - I made a snowman to keep warm!

Meanwhile, Jason had found the top of the right hill and was busy exploring and snapping away. Pretty grisly when you see the engine parts, then the propeller blade just poking out of the loch. The whole top is scattered with all kinds of mechanical remains, gruesome in some respects but although it wouldnt have been a very nice way to go, its a pretty spectacular resting place.

So here we are, getting ready to break camp and move on in the morning. Jason has just found out that Moglets MOT date has been set for the first week in March, which means we need to get to the Lake District inside two weeks. While she's back with Atkinson Vos for the MOT, she's also having a few little bits and bobs sorted out for us. We're going to have to hide up in a B&B for a few days so as to not get in the workshops way, which will rack up the pennies, but not much can be done about that.

It feels kind of weird to suddenly have a timeframe to be working to, to be back in the world of third party imposed deadlines. So many of the places we've stayed at for the longest or been the most pleasantly surprised by have been the ones we didnt know about before we got there, the wild cards if you like. So to now say we'll basically spend a week on Skye and then a week in Loch Lomond is going to be hard - just getting from one to the other is going to take us through some spectacular landscapes and its going to be hard not stopping. But there you go. We're incredibly lucky to be able to be doing this in the first place, so I really shouldnt be moaning because we have to trim a few days off here and there.

Jason hasn't been best pleased that I've had to sit at the laptop pretty much non-stop for two days now to catch up with the website, if nothing else it takes up most of the living area in Moglet so he's been banished to outside or the bed! So I'm sure I'll be better in the future at typing up updates, even if posting them still remains at the mercy of other peoples internet connections :-)