Kinlochewe - beer and camping

There will be lots of midges.

If inside you will enjoy the beer. If outside the midges will enjoy the beer.

The campsite is popular with midges.

If it's raining heavily there will be fewer midges. When it stops raining there will be lots of midges.

If it's blowing a gale there will be fewer midges. When the wind is calm there will be lots of midges.

And in case you haven't got the message, there will be lots of midges.

You have been warned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seemed a decent enough bar last time I was there but the cafe across the road does pretty good scran too.

If it's the one I'm thinking of (opposite the Visitor's Centre) it's very very basic. Cold standpipe only IIRC. The CCC site at Kinlochewe will let you camp if you ask them nicely and if they have room.

Chris

John Abramson wrote

I stayed in Kinlochewe last March and drank at the hotel, once. The beer was passable but no better. Sadly but understandably, it being the off season, it was only open on the Saturday night so I can't tell you whether my sample was representative.

It might be worth taking a bottle of malt just in case.

T.

Was there last week... Windy enough to camp

Ground is damp, but its free and the bogs are clean.. Other than midges its a good doss!

Got the treatment when trying to order foof at 8pm a couple of years ago at the pub, maybe they have improved since.

Watch out for the foul mouthed git at the gear shop. Went in to buy some gas and was subjected to some of the most vile drivel, quite unprovoked... Not a topic for conversation with customers nor the the sort of language I want to hear when shopping!

Kinlochewe always disappoints.

BTW there is a great chippy in Gairloch - by the post office. They even have a midgeeater in the garden! The old Inn is still good!

Richard Webb

Richard Webb

There are lots of midges! Have the blotches to prove it

But Beinn Dearg is such an utterly wonderful hill, that the troubles on the journey too it were worth it!

Lovely pints obtained in The Beinn Damph Bar, The Old Inn and the Fish Box, Gairloch. I do not miss the days of Tartan!

Richard Webb

RJ Webb writes

God you have jogged my brain cells; I used to enthuse over Tartan

What's a midgeeater?

Gas powered device that chucks out carbon dioxide to attract the midges and then sucks them in.

Serious exterminators of The Evil, but at a price

Richard Webb

There's a walkers' market here somewhere, for a small handheld dual function vacuum cleaner type thing. A sort of pushmepullyou device wherein CO is harvested from exhaled air, dispensed to the midges, midges then vacuumed... Hmm. I wonder if the shed have any ideas on this? Where is that nice Mr Heath Robertson when he's wanted?

Probably not enough CO2 in the air to harvest usefully (unless you breathe into a mask .. not very comfortable).

But the midge-magnet things are actually quite cunning - they catalyse propanol, making warmth, CO2 and water. A pretty good substitute for cow's breath, which is what the midges really want. They also use some of the heat to generate electricity, which drives a small fan for the trap part.

There's probably scope there to home-build an equivalent for campsite use. It's probably much the same mechanism as a gas-powered heated roller. It might run off a small portable gas canister for just a couple of days. It's possible that the trap bait could be made all the more attractive by adding essence of sweat (or the residue from sock-washing water).

-adrian

"Fran" wrote

I still reckon strapping one of those mini hand held fans to your head ought to do the job.

AndyP21/8/04 9:06 PM

I used to catch flies in my house with the vacuum cleaner nozzle (nothing sucks like an Electrolux ;-) and occasionally used one of those rechargeable B&D car jobbies too. Then sometimes let them out again outside.

A Black & Decker battery one would get rid of wasps in the pub garden too. Midges are a different story, but I've seen a blowtorch used to incinerate thick swarms of them outdoors. Shame because they're useful; bats can apparently eat 10 times their body weight in midges and mozzies in a day.

CR