A small penance

 Having discovered that a 50kg dog can pretty much sleep where he likes in a small tent while his human companion has to make do with the cramped conditions or get closer to nature day four of THA dawned after a (all things considered) a great nights sleep. The sun shone while yours truly and other happy campers (most of which shuffled around like zombies) legged it back to base for a standard full cooked with all the trimmings.

 Rocky was full of beans (and sausage, bacon, eggs, fried slice and black pudding after raiding the slops bucket) and supervised things closely when we got round to breaking camp later in the morning.

 Most of which was spent doing camp admin (involves setting fire to stuff) and a treasure hunt for goodies like chocolate bars and torches, all handy things to have for later in the week. Preparations were also made for a small hike in the afternoon.

 In actual fact the little hike was really a short walk down the jetty to the Gypsy Rover for a blast across the loch to the remote village of Invarie where victims volunteers could make use of the UK's most remote cafe, shop and those old enough might make it into the UK's most remote bar. Unfortunately this did not go as planned, firstly GR would not start, flat battery from constantly pumping water out due to bad weather and then once a new battery had been rowed out and fitted the fan belt started to melt. This happened mid point so a decision had to be made to press on to Invarie and risk breakdown and not getting back, or turn back to Ardentigh and risk breakdown and not get back. Thankfully the victims volunteers were oblivious to this as they were either playing captain and steering, sheltering under a big tarpaulin from the now torrential rain or not bothered and eating the chocolate ration. Eventually GR limped back to the jetty where we first set out and the only sensible thing to do in a force 3 torrential rain driven north wind was to get the rubber dinghy out and play silly buggers with super soakers.

 As a penance for getting everyone stupid enough to get in the boat thoroughly wet I then took a few brave souls up to the cross on the hill, again in the pouring rain. This cross is very big, very heavy and was pit here by an ex drug smuggler who decided that for his small penance the only way to save his soul, after corrupting many other's souls through the illegal use of heavily cut class A's was to drag this wooden burden to this soon to be Holy place.

 It was quite job just walking to it without carrying a huge cross of wood, he set out 10 am and got back to camp 2 am the following morning. We got back after a quick detour to the dam built by Tom that holds back several million gallons of water to power his self installed hydro electricity plant thing.

During our absence it was found that the GR had expired properly, the fuel pump packed in just as we hit the beach. Lucky us. As there was now no boat for the morrows expedition a new plan had to be thought up fast so while everyone climbed the wooden hill to see the sandman or dried their gear out I set to work with map and compass to find a new place to spend the next 24 hours. Rocky was a great help making sure the cereal did  not go off.