Focus v's the Lochearnhead Landslides....!!!
 

Not long home from 3 1/2 hrs stuck in Lochearnhead after heading home from Arisaig this afternoon...

Glencoe was pishing it down constantly and over Rannoch Moor the road was total standing water, but we both thought it was pretty normal and it would soon clear .... :rolleyes:

......We were the last car to make it down to Lochearnhead , overtaken by a Fire Engine and followed by 2 buses, before the road closed itself :eek: At points we honestly reckon the water (river/road whatever) was around 2 to 2 1/2ft deep, with rocks and stones being battered of the underside of the car... trying to strike a balance revving the arse out of the Focus to keep it going but trying not to create even more of a tidal wave hence using the handbrake as much as poss....

Stopped at Lochearnhead as was getting seriously silly and then noticed the lack of traffic... followed by the arrival of Navy helicopters, Police, Fire and general disaster related people along with Radio 2 announcing just what was going on (only decent reception... not a full time TOG yet ;) ) The local shopkeeper opened his shop and in the time it took him to serve us he had 3 phone calls from the BBC, STV and Sky.... How quick do these guys get on to news stories ? :eek:

We were sitting watching people getting dropped off from the helicopters in the field to the right of us (instead of Killin Rescue Centre) and one woman in a Suzuki Swift (who didn't look the sharpest tool in the shed ..!) making 3 attempts to try and negociate the landslide on the hill up from South Lochearn along with witnessing various other failure attempts :p

Anyway... were were in no real rush and we had plenty food etc as were just heading home from camping... but thoughts must go to the girl from Livingston who we met, who had just picked up her 85 year old aunt from Fort William and had her for a travel pal :D

Police etc said that landmoving equipment couldn't get there from around Callander and it would likely be Thursday before we could get out as landslides had closed all routes and the bridge on the road to St Filins was knacked as well .. :(

.... so stuck for a while we went for a walk down the side of LochEarn to survey the sheer power of the water where we found 6 ft by 2 ft bits of road, 100s of metres from where they'd come from, with bridges and Iron Gates and post, and Rover 216gsi all succumbing :eek:

Finally a tractor had shovelled a path through on the exit from Lochearnhead to Callendar and we picked our way through.. From then on the rain had calmed and the rest of the drive was as per norm with little incident.

Anyway.. the point of this :rolleyes: (apart watching the coverage on the news just now, thinking 'holy sh1t' and therefore, probably not sleep for a while... and thinking I'd type it on here for something to do :rolleyes: .... is that for the whole time on the roads around Mallaig, Morar, Arisaig, I kept moaning about the fact that I no longer had the scoob (up to and jncluding the standing water through Glencoe ;) ) but as soon as the water was rising above the bonnet of the focus, I was glad that things fired up and down, rather than lying low & gravity defying and firing left and right )

Glad nobody got seriously hurt

BBC News

Cheers
Si

PS Comedy moment must go to an American woman (coachload of them dumped in the pub... you should of seen the locals' faces :) ) who insisted that the police get her to 'so and so' hotel as they were all booked in there ..

Glad to hear you are OK si,

It was scary looking at it on the tele,

Brian :D

Hey Si..

Sounds like you got lucky mate.

Glad to hear you got back ok though.
Looked mad on the telly !

:)

Pretty lucky....and looking at the pics in today's papers, just getting a real idea of how bad it was

Just feel gutted for the folk that live on the A84 around Glen Ogle, as the damage was pretty heavy to their houses and gardens :(