Chapter 2: What the hell!

Trees surrounded the tent. There was no path, no sign of any buildings, no sign of any caravans or campers, in fact no sign of anything manmade other than what I was sitting in. I pulled back into the tent stunned. How could this be? Where had everything gone? I was really struggling to come to terms with this, my mind awash with questions. Eventually I pulled myself together. There were unlikely to be any answers here inside the tent. I stuck my hand outside the tent and grabbed the plastic bag with my boots in it, pulling them on and tying the laces. I climbed out of the flap and stood to look around.

I was definitely in the middle of a wood. There were no monkey-puzzle trees and no sign of the campsite at all. The position of the sun gave me some clue as to directions (I hoped!) but I thought it would be a good idea to have something a bit more reliable. I pulled my rucksack out of the tent and rummaged through it looking for the Garmin satnav unit I had brought with me. It was a Garmin Etrex Vista, combining a European basemap with a barometric altimeter and electronic compass, allowing the most precise navigation. Turning it on I was surprised to see the screen power up but only to display a message telling me no signal was being received. I checked the battery and the power indicator light and both were fine. The set was on, had power, but no signal.

"Ok, plan B," I thought to myself.

A further rummage through my rucksack identified my 'survival' kit in a drawstring bag. I had made this up, half in fun, after reading a few websites when I was researching my trip. The survival kit included a range of things recommended by wilderness experts, including members of the UK's crack special forces regiment, the SAS. One of the items was a compass and magnifying glass, companions to the set of maps I had packed.

Standing in front of the tent I had a fair idea of where the path had been and therefore the direction the road should be. I took a bearing on the compass and headed off through the trees. After only a couple of hundred yards I could clearly see water up ahead. A few minutes later I emerged from the treeline and gazed over what seemed clearly to be Loch Fyne. The lofty peak of Strachur was where it was supposed to be, the loch looked as I remembered it but I had not crossed any roads to get to the loch. When I glanced to my right there was no sign of the town of Inveraray either. I slumped down by the loch-side, once more stunned by what was going on around me.

I was in danger of hyperventilating and focussed on trying to slow my breathing and calm down.

"Fuck!" I said out loud.

That about summed things up. I was trying to get my head round what seemed to be happening but was failing badly.

"Okay, think, work this out for god's sake," I told myself. "The campsite had gone, the road had gone, even Inveraray had gone. The satnav unit didn't work. But this definitely looks like Loch Fyne so I'm still where I was when I went to sleep last night. What does all that add up to?"

I like to think of myself as reasonably smart. I had done well academically through school and university so surely I should be able to come up with an answer to this puzzle? The only thing I cold come up with was that I was still in the same place but somehow I was in a different time.

"Too weird," I thought, "that's just too weird."

Nonetheless it was the only thing I could come up with. I stood and retraced my steps through the trees towards the tent. I took my time setting up my Snow Peak Titanium Stove. It was advertised as the world's lightest and most compact stove, guaranteed to perform day in day out, and was equipped with auto igniters. The best feature perhaps was that it weighed a mere 87g. I filled my billycan with water from a water bottle and put it on the stove to heat.

I sat on a nearby fallen tree and once again tried to figure things out. Each time I ran through all of the facts I arrived at the same conclusion. Somehow the tent and everything in it had been transported through time or perhaps into a different dimension. My eyes were drawn to a flash of colour moving between the trees and, focussing, I saw a pheasant walking along, its iridescent plumage flashing as it passed through patches of sunlight on the forest floor.

"Well it seems as if there is wildlife around. Does that mean that there are still people around too?" I wondered.

I noticed the water was boiling so I turned off the stove and added the water to one of the freeze-dried ready meals, glancing at my watch to make sure I would know when it was ready. Some minutes later I emptied the meal into the billycan and ate the steaming chicken casserole.

For some reason the hot food made me feel better, less panicky, and my head cleared a little. I realised that the remaining freeze-dried food was all I had to survive on until I made contact with whatever civilisation was out there.

"What if there is no civilisation anymore?"

I decided I needed a plan. My best guess was that if I had been transported through time, then I had gone back in time. I based this on the fact that the road wasn't there and neither was the town. My research had identified that Inveraray was built on its current site around 1750 AD, when the Duke moved the whole town from the opposite side of Loch Fyne. So if my theory about going back in time was right I must be pre-1750 as there was no town in evidence. Neither was there any sign of the Duke's castle, finding room to build it had been the reason for moving the town.

My knowledge of Scottish history was pretty good and I knew that Argyll had originally been settled by the Scots centuries ago. Confusingly, the Scots actually came from Ireland and were not native here in this part of the country. Argyll was actually known as Dalriada back then. If I remembered correctly it was only when King Kenneth Mac Alpin had united the indigenous Picts and the Scots that the whole of the land had been re-named Scotland. I paused in my thinking as the realisation of just how brutal life in those times would have been occurred to me.

I was suddenly very scared. These guys ran around with huge swords, armies of them, oppressing peasants, raping, murdering and taking everything they wanted by sheer force. I offered up a prayer that I hadn't landed in the middle of those violent times.

I knew that the centre of the Kingdom of Dalriada had been at a place called Dunadd, a hill-fort not far from Oban. Despite my fear, humans have an essentially pack mentality and I had an overwhelming need to search for other humans. I finally decided that I should try and find Dunadd as that would be the most likely place to find other people. But, I would travel with extreme caution! Pulling out my maps I saw that the length of Loch Awe was between me and where I wanted to get to. I would need to walk down to the foot of the loch and then back up to where Dunadd should be. In the absence of roads, or even paths, I estimated it would take me perhaps a week at a conservative ten miles per day.

As well as potentially having to avoid hordes of savage highlanders, food was going to be an issue I realised. The next priority therefore was to take stock of what I had with me and try to figure out how I was going to feed myself. There were eleven freeze-dried meals and two nearly full bottles of water.

I emptied my survival kit out and sorted through it. I had packed a wire saw, Swiss knife, flint and striker, whistle, water purification tablets, candles, safety pins, brass wire, a NATO emergency fishing kit (issued and recommended by both special forces and RAF survival instructors), three disposable cigarette lighters, light anywhere matches, six yards of quality climbing rope and some Tindercard (specially prepared wax card from Scandinavia designed to light BBQ's and campfires).

I picked up the Victorinox Swiss Champ knife. It incorporated:

Large Blade, small blade, corkscrew, can opener/screw driver, reamer and punch, bottle opener/screwdriver/wire stripper, key ring, tweezers, toothpick, scissors, hook, woodsaw, fish de-scaler/hook/disgorger/ruler, nail file/cleaner/metal file/saw, magnifying glass, chisel, straight pin, and pliers/wire cutters/crimping tool.

Quite a toolkit I thought. There were plenty of features on the knife that would be invaluable and some that looked completely redundant.

I scratched my head as I looked through this stuff. Some of it I had never used and had no idea how to start - the flint and striker for instance.

"I suppose I need to get some tinder and then try and make a spark by striking the flint with the steel," I thought to myself.

I picked up the water purification tablets. I wasn't even sure how many to use to make water safe. Turning one over I smiled when I saw the instructions on the wrapping.

Next I picked up three small coils of brass wire. These were snares and I had added them to my kit only because they had been on the list given on the website. At the time I had absolutely no thought that I might not only have to use them, but also that using them successfully might mean the difference between surviving and starving. Each wire was looped through an eyelet to almost form a noose and it was obvious how they worked. Once staked out, if an animal ran into it and continued running the noose would tighten and basically garrotte the thing. I shivered a little at the thought.

I put everything back into the drawstring bag apart from the knife. I decided that I should keep that handy and attached it to one of my belt loops.

My binoculars were the next thing to catch my eye. I picked them up. This was a set of R/E COMPACT ZOOM 8-20 binos. Zoom binoculars were described as being very versatile, allowing long and short distance viewing. The red anti-UV coating was supposed to ensure sharpness, even in hazy conditions. I put them back down, staring sadly at the contents of my rucksack. It seemed pitifully inadequate to survive on.