What do campsite wardens do on holiday?

I love camping, and always have. I never sleep so well as when I am camping, and if it’s a wet, wild night and I’m snuggled in my sleeping bag in our small green tent, I sleep even better.

A problem until now for us in our three years of running the campsite has been, ironically, lack of camping. Three years ago we spent two entire months kayaking and living in a small tent in a very wet and windy summer in the Scottish islands. Now, our time off comes from November to February but the little Calmac ferries, which stitch the islands together in summer, will soon be heading up the Clyde for the winter. Seizing the moment before this happens, and leaving campsite-sitters Carol and Alan in place, we finally went camping again, heading north to Knapdale.

A good thing about living in a place of islands and remote peninsulas is that you don’t have to go far to be somewhere completely different. Knapdale is an area of long sea lochs and ancient woodlands, and if you like the wild nature of Lochranza, you would like this area too. We sea kayaked round the Faery Islands, looked for signs of beavers, felt very small watching the awesome power of the tide rushing past Jura, and put a foot in the footprint on the (replica)Stone of Destiny at Dunadd, where Scotland’s earliest kings were crowned.

We stayed at Leachive Campsite in the attractive village of Tayvallich. I’ll wild camp if I’m on a mountain or sea kayak journey far from civilisation, but I don’t find sleeping on boggy tussocks relaxing, nor digging a hole every time nature calls. I positively enjoy the quirky nature of small campsites. Leachive Campsite itself was a very pleasant base, right in the middle of the village and close to the water’s edge.

It was all happening in the Kilbrannan Sound on the way home to Lochranza, with porpoises and a basking shark swimming unconcernedly beside the boat.