Hebrides Summer 2013 - Part 2: Relax, Recharge, Refresh, and Return of the Mojo

Where were we? Ah yes, heading to a Caravan Club CL in South Uist. 

'Oh, hello Mister Gàidhlig!' smiled Catriona, owner of the CL after I rang at the door. I guess that my Gaelic fleece is none too subtle: 

'Tha Gàidhlig agaibh?'
Tha

--> Gàidhlig agam, ceart gu leor, Sibh fhein?'

'Tha mi ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig, comhla ri Sabhal

-->Mòr Ostaig, ach tha Sassainach a th' annam'

'Glè mhath!'

-->

Almost every Gaelic conversation started off like this during my stay. This would be followed by something I'd fail to understand after which we'd switch to English, but it was a start. I liked Catriona very much, and immediately felt very welcome and relaxed. Phew!

It's all very nice travelling around here, there, and everywhere, but sometimes you just want to STOP. You want to plug in to the mains and keep the caravan dry and warm inside. You're fed up with cleaning the sand off the floor five times a day. You don't have the energy to chop kindling or crank up the woodgas stove outside. You just want to get the jobs done that are weighing you down, clean up, and chill out without having to worry about the weather or where to go tomorrow.

That's exactly what I did. The Airstream was washed and waxed. The motorbike unloaded, cleaned, oiled, and taken for a spin. I slept. And Dougal? Dougal made new friends:

Dougal's other good friend, Paddy, lives at Askernish Golf Course, just a few miles away from where we were. So of course off we went to go find Paddy, who, like Dougal, has matured somewhat and was less playful than he's been before. However, he still joined us for a good half hour, and you could tell that he and Dougal remember each other:

Just down the road from the CL is an abandoned church. I liked the building very much, and in my head sketched up a 'grand design' for a one-bedroomed house with a huge galleried ceiling in the living room and the bedroom on a mezzanine:

Lovely building, but wrong location. I like the Uists very much, and it's the island chain I visit to wind down and de-stress, but once relaxed I prefer Harris where there's a little bit more going on.


There was only one other thing to do during my short stay at Catriona's CL.



You may have noticed that now and again I wild camp on the islands. As well as applying common sense (ie one, maximum two nights in a spot, stay out of the way, leave TIDIER than you find etc etc) I have a little rule. That rule is to spend what I would have spent on site fees in the local economy. Therefore I HAD TO spend £20 on food and cake in the sweet wee cafe in the Lochboisdale Post Office to make up for the two nights wild camping. Tough, but I managed.

I'd have stayed at 'Taigh Chatriona' for three nights but I needed to head to North Uist. My friend Mat was coming over to join me for a few days, and was sailing to Lochmaddy. Off I headed to Moorcroft Campsite on the South West Corner of North Uist. The lovely owners remembered me and made me feel super-welcome again. And, I'm pleased to say, indulged my Gaelic a little too. 'We could tell you were bursting to have a go!' laughed Catriona. (Please note, not all Hebridean site owners are called Catriona, but it does seem to be a theme.)

Slight panic set in when I realised that this night at Moorcroft would be my last for at least two weeks with access to a washing machine. Despite the gloomy wet weather being anything but 'drying weather', it was time to bite the bullet, hang the expense, and get everything clean and dry using the machine and drier. That night was an expensive one.

Clothes admin, and my inability to get up in the morning, meant leaving the Airstream at Moorcroft while I went to met Mat's ferry at Lochboisdale:

He'd had a super-long drive up from Dorset so was happy to chill for the rest of the day. Off we went to my favourite wild camping spot for the night.

Well, MY 'fair weather blessing' may have worn off when visiting the islands, but I now believe that I simply loaned it to Mat this year. After he arrived, the mist lifted and the sun came out. 'My' spot at my favourite place was free, and life was good once again.

Washed up on the beach where we were was an old wooden pallet, ideal for a bit of fire pit action that evening. However, the blade in my bowsaw was becoming less than sharp. Time to head to the DIY shop on South Uist, just over the causeway from Benbecula.

In the shop they had blades for larger bowsaws, and only the complete saw unit, handle and all, in the size I wanted. The kind owner therefore removed the blade from the complete saw to sell to me for £3, and ordered himself a new blade to replace the one he'd borrowed from the complete saw on sale.

Now, can you see them doing that in B&Q?

With the sun shining, the Hebridean folks being their usual friendly, helpful, down-to-earth selves, and with a friend in tow to show off 'my' special place, my spirits lifted immeasurably. Maybe the fact I'd slept loads and had adjusted my adrenaline levels from 'London' to 'Hebrides' also helped.

That evening, Mat and I enjoyed an al-fresco meal cooked on the Dometic Origo stove, followed by an evening just chilling out around a roaring fire, in awe of the amazing sunset on one side followed by an equally spectacular moon rising on the other side.

 That was finally it. This was the Hebrides that I know and love. The light is something else. My severed roots were once again back in Hebridean soil and growing again. I knew that evening that my earlier apathy about coming here was misplaced. If only for this one evening, the whole journey from Kent was more than worth it. Nowhere else in the world makes me feel as happy and as grounded as I do here. Nowhere else comes close. The Outer Hebrides is the most amazing place in the world. You either get it, or you don't.

Dometic Origo HeatPal, Gaslow Refillable cylinders, and off-grid caravanning

I make no secret of the fact that to me, caravanning is all about travel and adventure. It's the perfect way to live simply and reconnect with nature. As such, in the summer months I prefer not to be tied to an orange mains lead, but to go where I want to go regardless of what facilities are laid on. Or not.

With this freedom comes flexibility, as there is less need to book mains-free pitches in advance.

A solar panel keeps the batteries topped up, but a consequence of unplugging from the mains is a greater reliance and higher consumption of LPG (bottled gas).

For this reason, I have used the Gaslow refillable system for almost seven years now. For two years it was in use on my Sterling Eccles, where I had an 11kg refillable cylinder alongside a 13kg exchangeable Calor. This arrangement offered the best of both worlds, and my Renault Trafic tow vehicle could handle the noseweight. Whenever I was out and about, I'd simply pull into a service station and top up the LPG at a pump. Yet if I was stationary for a while and the refillable ran out, I could switch to Calor which, while more expensive, offered the convenience of not having to take the caravan off pitch to be filled up.

When I bought my Airstream in 2008, the Gaslow refillable system was not at the time available from Airstream Europe. The new company was still in its early days, and nothing was put on the options list until it was proven. Fortunately my nagging brought the two companies together and I took delivery of the first European Airstream to be fitted with the Gaslow system. Back in the day, having 2 x 6kg cylinders was the only realistic option given the restrictive size of the gas locker, although I understand that now the gas locker may be modified to take larger cylinders. If that were the case back then I would have replicated the set-up I had in the Sterling with just one 11kg cylinder.

However, you CAN disconnect one of the Gaslow cylinders and simply attach a propane cylinder instead. This may be an option for long-term stationary winter use.

Me, I like to travel as unencumbered as possible. Carting a 13kg LPG cylinder about safely and constantly upright is something I could do without. Therefore, at times I may run low on gas...

...which is exactly what happened this week. I couldn't understand why my consumption had been so high when the weather had been so hot. I consulted my technical guru, Pete Bull of Little Tin Hut Airstream Servicing, who pointed the finger at the fridge quoting some very precise consumption figures. In hot weather, the fridge can burn an alarming amount of gas in order to keep cool. I guess that makes sense. But it didn't help me in my critically low gas situation. I needed to preserve as much LPG as possible in order to keep the fridge running until I got to a filling station.

From the back of a cupboard I wheeled out my Dometic Origo 5100 Heat Pal. I acquired this to try out in my January off-grid trip to the Outer Hebrides, and it was an absolute lifesaver. Here it was coming to the rescue again.

The Heat Pal burns 'Denatured alcohol', which in the UK is most easily available as methylated spirit.  It produces about 1500w of heat, so in addition to being used as a cooker, you can use it as a space heater too.

In July 2013 the law regarding the production and use of methylated spirit changed, to introduce conformity in the composition and the amount of 'denaturing' carried out in its production. As such, Dometic now recommends users to burn Bio Ethanol. I will be procuring some and giving it a go in the future.

When burning any open flame in an enclosed space like a caravan or tent you MUST have sufficient ventilation. Open flames and smouldering coals produce carbon monoxide, which can (and does) kill in a confined area.

When using the Origo as a space heater in the Outer Hebrides, it kept my 17ft long trailer comfortably warm during the day even with two windows cranked open for ventilation. For cooking, it is quite a 'slow' heat which takes about 15 minutes to boil a litre of water. A woodgas stove such as the BioLite will cook much quicker, but these can ONLY be used outside, and you have the faff of trying to get the thing lit and, in my case, chopping up the kindling to use as fuel. The Dometic Origo wins hands down on sheer convenience. Simply fill up with fuel, light with a single match, and off you go. And, with adequate ventilation, you can use it inside.

It's an expensive piece of kit retailing at about £150. Bio Ethanol can be bought fairly cheaply online at about £6 per litre. Compare that to the £3.60 I paid for 250ml of meths from Wickes.

Either way, having lived with the Origo for over six months in the snow of winter and the heatwave of summer, I now consider this to be an essential piece of kit to any off-grid caravanner.


Yesterday, we packed up and moved on and finally filled up with LPG.

The cost of filling both 6kg bottles? £13.57.

The cost of 2 x 6kg Calor Gas refills? £42-44.00

The cost of installing a 2 x 6kg Gaslow system stands at between £400 and £500.

I reckon on getting through 20 single cylinders a year at an average saving of £15 per refill. That's £300 per year. So far, that's about £1200 for the four years I have had this system, not to mention the money saved by being able to use £4 per night CLs instead of £20 per night EHU pitches on sites.

In other words, even if you only do 10 cylinder refills a year, the system will pay for itself in about three years, and thereafter you'll save about £150 per year. Not to mention the freedom to go caravanning where you like, when you like. THAT is priceless.