WILD CAMPING in scotland WITH A 3 YEAR OLD:
loch coruisk, isle of skye
loch coruisk is a remote fresh water loch at the foot of the black cullins on the isle of skye. it is shrouded by folklore, full of magical views & the perfect place for an adventure.
NOTE
if you are planning doing something similar like this with your own littles, then please be prepared & research before. due to this area being remote you will need to be prepared for all occasions (eg boat not running) & weather conditions with a backup plan in mind. we were prepped for multiple nights stay if necessary if the boat was unable to come back for us the next morning, we let a few people know the details of our trip & timings should we be without signal or unable to contact if staying longer than planned.
after asking where little fancied going for our weekend adventure & her saying she wanted skye, i had a look at the map then picked loch coruisk. a bit of an ambitious choice but we had the perfect weather window & i wanted to finally go after having it on the list for a while. there are two ways to visit loch coruisk - either by boat from elgol, or by an 8 hour (average) hike from sligachan.
we opted for the boat option as i thought this would be easier for our first visit. i had booked a few days in advance for the sailing at 2 with bella jane boat trips, but it turns out this wasn't sailing wasn't going due to a staff issue & they couldn't get a hold of me due to signal to tell me i could get an earlier one at 1 or the later one at 330. so when we arrived & found out i would be rushed getting the earlier one, we opted to wait around the pier instead for the later sailing. it was a beautiful sunny day so i took my time packing our bag for the night & watching the people on the beach.
when it was eventually time for our sailing we ended up getting the rib boat much to my surprise as i was expecting a normal looking boat. i was pretty apprehensive about this since little hadn't been on a boat like this before & since we had cooper with us too. turns out we were the only ones on this boat, so essentially got a wee private trip for little & i, which she absolutely loved. she was laughing & smiling the whole sailing & thankfully cooper just slept at my feet the whole time.
the guy sailing the boat was fantastic too, he was super patient with little & made her comfortable before we set off. he showed us the seal pups which were freshly born on the nearby islands before we docked & wished us well on our trip.
i had a rough spot in mind for camping but underestimated the river crossing we’d have to cross to get to it, so had to bail out on that idea. on the map it looked like a wee stream but in reality it was actually huge & not something i was confident wading across with a toddler & dog in tow. we walked for about an hour trying to find a back up spot but it was either so boggy or so rock ridden that there was no viable options. trying not to panic at the thought of no potential camp spots we backtracked on ourselves to try find a spot closer to the bay instead. we passed by the memorial hut again, wishing it was open as that would've been the perfect back up spot but it was not to be.
realising eventually that if we climbed a little we would get away from the more boggy terrain which was stopping many spots from being viable. thankfully we managed to find a nice flat spot with views over to the isle of rum not long after making this decision, just in time for the wind to start easing up, welcoming the midgies out. quickly pitched the tent & set up inside before starting on dinner. we had our trusty noodle dinner with a lovely hint of burnt midgie, then decided to call it a night. within 30 minutes the wind had gone from keeping the sweat off our backs to gone & welcoming every midgie in skye to our location.
apart from 3 other hikers who passed us earlier in the day heading back to their own boat in the bay, it was totally quiet around the loch. the loch was still, the osyter catchers were singing away & we were tucked up all cosy in our tent.
when we were dropped off we were asked what time we would like picked back up so i said around 10, thinking this would give us enough time to wake, pack up & head back to the bay if we were in the original camp spot. since we couldn't get to that spot & we were pitched much closer, we had lots of time to spare since we woke at 0730. i decided we would just pack up & wait close by rather than wasting time & eventually rushing but man it was cold. the wind was like ice cutting through us & there was no where to hide from it but at least it kept away the midgies from last night.
as we were packing up i realised at some point we had lost coopers lead. baffled by this as i had it before bed, we searched around for a while but decided it was a lost cause. i had to sacrifice my good thermal trousers to use as a lead in order to get cooper down the ladder & onto the boat safely. raging!
however, we lucked out again with another private boat tour back to elgol, this time on their actual boat rather than the rib. it was nice to get to experience both boats but i have to say this one won out as it included free tea onboard. after a very cold start this was welcomed with open arms! little was offered to play captain but refused, instead choosing to sit with me & wave away the mountains we had called home for the night.
