Light Play

For the last couple of weeks Mike has been away working in Dunfermline, meaning we haven't had any chance to work on the van or get away in it. This has left time for other things, however.
While we're away both of us are keen to take decent photos of all the places we go to and the people we meet, so I'm trying to get in some practice and learn my way around my camera before we leave.
The weather in Fort William has been stunning recently, but when I finally got out with my camera yesterday, the clouds came in. As the sun was going down I went out to try something new to me - time lapse. The result was pretty basic and low quality because of the free software (do not enlarge the video clip to full screen!) and the lighting turned out to be disappointing, but never mind - it was just an experiment! There's also a lot of camera movement, remember my remote trigger next time! And definitely get some decent software!

I had also been wanting to get some shots of the night sky and maybe get some star trails, but the clouds forced me to play with some other night time lighting. Photos of traffic trails look amazing, but I always thought they were pretty hard to take. Turns out they're actually fairly simple!

A Weekend Off The Road

With the van fixed and after getting it off road, there was one more thing we were desperate to do - have a night out in the it. Last Friday I had the night off work, we only had a couple of days before Mike was working away for a week, and the weather was amazing! Along with Jakob, a mate from the course, we made the plan to drive up a track we knew of to see how far we could get. By the time we were ready to leave we had also roped in Kate, Leah and Kieren, three more folks from the course. Kate and Leah brought a tent with them but we didn't think we'd need it - 6 people sleeping in the van? No bother...
Driving up the track the van was brilliant and had no troubles, but in the dark the road suddenly disappeared in front of us. Time to park up and get a fire and some food on the go.
Getting into our sleeping beds we realised that six people on a flatbed was optimistic. With a 5-way spoon on the go and Jakob at our feet I think we all knew not much sleeping was going to happen.
The next morning, I don't know how everyone else felt, but I've never been happier to hear a 7 am alarm. It was time for a quick pack-up and get back to Fort William for a very sleepy day at work.

Last Sunday we both had a day off and the weather was simply stunning. After a lie in we decided to take the van for a spin, see if we could find any slightly more gnarly tracks. And we were in luck! The first one we found started off quite gentle but quickly got steep, loose and rocky. The van absolutely cruised it! Both up and down it took it all in its stride and showed that it's capable of so much more.
The second track was a bit gentler but took us pretty high up and gave us some fantastic views back to Ben Nevis. Half way along the track we arrived at a locked gate, so unfortunately we we forced to turn around and head back the way we came. All in all, an excellent weekend playing in the van.

On A Roll Again

After a few very frustrating weeks the parts we had been waiting for had arrived and work could finally resume.
As you may know, Fort William is a pretty damp place, but persistent rain wasn't going to stop Mike getting the van fixed. I came home from college one day to find him at work in the kitchen, obviously not cooking, but surrounded by various bits of van and a lot of tools.

As soon as the rain stopped the parts went on the van, however the nice smooth start up and test drive didn't quite go to plan. After weeks of sitting stationary in cold weather, all three of the batteries had died, and two days of trying to recharge them in our flat was unsuccessful. Luckily, Connors dad, Simon, arrived in town. Excellent! We can use his car to jump start the van. No. No we can't. We were yet again stopped in our tracks, this time by some interesting wiring going on around the batteries. By the time it was sorted Simon had disappeared into town, so it was down to our last option - bump start. And bump starting a two tonne van is actually easier than you may think! We were finally running and after a little drive around Fort William to charge the batteries a bit it was time to get off the roads.
Simon had driven up from Yorkshire to get in a few days climbing with Connor. The next day Mike, Simon, Connor, and our other flat mate, Will, were planning on heading up to Ben Nevis, and since we had a key for the guide car park we all decided it would only be right to head up and see how the north face was looking. What we all failed to notice until we reached the guide car park was the cloud base down at about 300m. No chance of seeing the north face from the car park but it was a fun drive and great to get the van back on - and off - the road.