Sea kayaking and Fire and Food yesterday before wild camping

Tuesday was a mix of sea kayaking and fire and food. The Blues took to the water first, mostly in single kayaks but with a couple of doubles too. We toured around the upper reaches of Loch A Chadh-Fi exploring the bays, coves and rocky skerries, learning new skills and flinging a bit of seaweed about. Good and calm, perfect in the bursts of sunshine and chilly on the hands in the shade.

The Reds set off for fire and food, foraging around the seashore for limpets and winkles to add to the mussels, and for tinder and kindling to light fires with a striking flint. They cooked a simple bread dough over sticks which is called damper and most tried the seafood.

After lunch, and hot showers for the kayakers, the teams swapped around. On their return we started to pack up for a camping night and after supper of shepherds pie and apple crumble we set off for a little stone cottage at the foot of the mountains.

The pupils pitched tents outside the bothy and the instructors lit a fire in the fireplace for everyone to sit around before bedtime.

On Wednesday, with snow still capping the mountains and the forecast not in our favour we decided to return to the Adventure School, with a short navigation and skills exercise on the land between the road and the School itself.

In the afternoon we spent some time inside the avoid the worst of the showers, with a couple of team games and then the teams looked at building the shelters that they will need out on Survival Island later in the week and made the first entries in their John Muir Award diaries.

Tomorrow we plan to rock climb and abseil amongst other things. The pupils are well and enjoying the adventure!