THIS TIME, surely nothing could go wrong.

Dad spent weeks of meticulous planning to ensure our first real wild camping trip with the Aye Pod over the water tae Harris and Lewis would pass smoother than one of my dug poos after I’ve drunk sea water… and believe me… it disnae get smoother than that, as any dog owner who has witnessed a dose of the ‘sea squirts’ can confirm.

So, off we set to make the short trip up to Uig to catch the ferry over to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris, in high spirits and for Laoch to have his first ever trip on a boaty.

One good thing with CalMac, is they are rather dog friendly, and after a painless check in and boarding, we made our way up to the open deck area and got settled in for the voyage.

Once on deck, I had Dad ‘leave’ one of the YES ROCKS we had made on one of the seats, so I wonder how many of the Minch crossings it will manage to make.

The first part of our plan was to disembark from the ferry and head straight up North to Lewis and do our first ‘pitch’ at Tolsta beach, and so off we set on our way to Stornoway, which we should be able to bypass and miss any traffic.

Cue first error…yep…Dad got lost on the outskirts of the town and we ended up heading East instead of North.

Sadly, this happens to Dad on a rather regular basis, although rarely on the mountains. (I think that’s because I’m in charge of navigation there)….

On the plus side, the ‘intended detour’ as Dad described it, took us near to the Iolaire Monument. This was an incident we had never heard of until reading the Peter May books, so of course, we had to go visit.

Of the 283 men onboard, 201 of those perished

Boatshed at Ness

For those unfamiliar with the tragedy of the Iolaire, it was on January the first, 1919, when the ship, full of troops returning home from the Great War, struck rocks on her way to Stornoway.

One can only imagine how quickly the happy mood of the men who were returning home to crofts, wives, sweethearts and families dissipated, whilst those onshore waiting to greet them realised the horror of the situation.