If you just look at my Instagram account you’d think that driving about living and sleeping in a van was all one long sequence of beautiful landscapes, exciting discoveries, fun activities and meeting cool people. And don’t get me wrong, all of those things happen and they happen a lot. But that’s not the whole story of course. Because there is time that passes between these events and some days there may be nothing Insta-worthy to report.
After a brief detour to the village of Douglas, which seemed like the natural place for me to spend my first day north of the border, the first scenic spot we arrived at was on the west side of Loch Lomond a couple of miles north of Luss village. We stayed there for two nights and I spent much of the first one just lying with the back doors open watching the loch and the birds and the sky change colour as the sun set. So far so great then and with high spirits we headed towards Oban with no particular plan other to check out the town and see whether we fancied getting a ferry anywhere.
We arrived in Oban mid-morning on a weekday and first impressions were good, it had a leisure centre (which means showers!), plenty of shops to mooch about in, a nice harbour with a view of distant islands and the promise of trips away on the ferries to somewhere wilder.
We started our exploration at the perhaps unlikely destination of Lidl. But we needed to stock up on some supplies for hopefully some outdoor cooking attempts later in the week so there we went. They also had a toilet. And so before long with fridge full and bladder empty we needed somewhere else to go.
Taking advantage of Lidl’s generous three hours free parking I ventured for a wander around the town. I got some lunch, went to a bookshop and purchased Martin Dorey’s ‘Take the Slow Road’ which I’m currently enjoying reading, then went to the ferry terminal to check possibilities of where to go next.
And somehow this was where the trouble started. For some reason I found myself unable to decide where to go or what to do next. I had been thinking of going over to Mull, I quite wanted to visit the village of Tobermory there and have a look back to the mainland from the island. But to take Travis I needed to show that I’d booked accommodation overnight, which obviously I hadn’t and didn’t really want to do and there might not have been any available at such short notice anyway. That meant I would have to go and come back the same day but then I checked and the only availability was to go super early in the morning and come back on the last ferry late at night.
Or I could just go with me and the bike, which would be cheaper and give me more flexibility with travel times. But that meant finding somewhere safe and not too expensive to leave Travis unattended. Also the ferry drops you off in Craignure which is 21 miles from Tobermory and I wasn’t sure a 42-mile mountain bike trip in a day was what I was looking for either.
So I parked that decision and instead decided to go for a shower. Not at the aforementioned leisure centre because I’d since discovered that Oban has cheap public showers on its north pier. I learned that from here which is probably the single most useful blog post I’ve ever found. So big thanks to Adventures In A Camper for that, and if linking to it from here proves useful to anyone then I’m happy to have passed on the good fortune of finding it.
So having returned to Travis to collect towel and toiletries I headed to the showers. Which were closed. At this point I probably should have just gone to the leisure centre I’d found earlier (it’s not a big place and everywhere is walkable) but my car park time was running out and I thought I’d move Travis first. So we moved to a free car park just out of town and I tried to just lie down and chill there for a bit. I maybe hadn’t slept too well the night before, that’s something else that you have to accept sometimes goes well and sometimes less so, and I didn’t feel like walking around anymore. But there was some kind of construction work going on in the car park and it was noisy with machinery and people shouting and I couldn’t relax at all. I just couldn’t settle. I couldn’t find anywhere quiet to park, I didn’t want to wander around, I didn’t want to be anywhere that I could be right now. At that was the first time I’d felt that since I started to do this full time.
And that continued all day. We hopped to another supermarket car park, I walked around town a bit more. I tried to find somewhere to stay for the night. It’s not the easiest place for that either. There are a lot of vans there, because it’s the main jumping off point from the mainland to the islands, and a lot of them looking for somewhere to park overnight before their morning ferry. Couple that with the fact that Oban has a lot of parking restrictions, is on a hill so level ground is at a premium and doesn’t have a wealth of suitable locations and that too became more difficult than it ever had been before.
I realise none of the above is very interesting. But that’s kind of the point. There was nothing to report in the Instagram world from the day. I felt lost, unsettled and directionless. Oban does however have a decent mobile signal and wifi and I was able to chat to a few friends in the evening which at least was something. The overnight spot didn’t seem too bad either (there was a sign saying motorcycles and cars only hence more uncertainty but there were several local work vans there so I figured it would probably be ok), I could hear the water lapping away which was nice and as long as I was up and away before 9am I should be free of the dreaded parking restrictions. I’m not criticising Oban by the way, or Instagram, they’re both great and I take a lot of pleasure from both. It’s just that sometimes you don’t fit where you are, whatever kind of life you’re leading, and I want to document the reality of what this lifestyle is actually like rather than just show a highlights reel of all the best bits.
Now you do need to go and read Part 2 to find out what happened when I woke up the next morning. That’s not some marketing ploy, but this is already long enough and it’s necessary to see the full picture (pun entirely intended).