Artemis - the Highland 100 adventure...

I have pulled myself through a mammoth weekend, and am about to die on my feet. Which is why I am mustering the last of my strength to blog about my most recent venture, and to watch Casualty later on.

First off, Artemis Highland 100 is a huge bike race, spanning some 130 km (Gold route length, which the majority of competitors completed) across the beautiful and somewhat treacherous landscape of Loch Tay and the surrounding area.
Starting in Kenmore, the journey took the nutters *ahem, competitors* through some of the most breath-taking scenery, passing the tip of Loch Tay, travelling up towards and then around Loch Rannoch, down to Innerwick in Lyon Glen, then around Loch Lyon, weaving down through the "Switchbacks" - very windy roads which literally double back on each other - and finally finishing at Killin, back beside the waters of Loch Tay.
I know, it was pretty epic stuff.

However, the epic Red Cross adventure began when we - the Elgin crew - left the office and began our three hour journey down to Perth & Kinross country.
We picked up the vital quad bike at our depot, taking advantage of this moment to grab a cup of tea while we still could. Steve once again contributed to his Burger Tour by breakfasting on said snack (previous blog post if you don't get it) and we admired the skill of lorry drivers, before tackling the quad's trailer and working out how to attach it to the rear of RE2. We also bumped into a couple of fellow colleagues, who suggested we steal 3 crates of pot noodles, which were doing nothing in the depot apart from taking up valuable kit space, and running out their use-by dates. There also occurred an amusing incident with the SARCOM vehicle, where we - or rather, I - had to extract 3 aerials from its far side, behind the legs of the table; easier said than done. I also had to climb up the vehicle to actually get inside the bloomin' thing without the aid of a ladder (it's a very high vehicle with massive wheels) which tested the flexibility of my legs. Caitlind got a lovely picture of me, but not of my better side...

Anyway, apart from this pit stop and stopping for lunch at Ballinluig, we were confined to our vehicles - RE2 and 8 - for what felt like an awfy long time. Road works didn't help in passing the time, however gossiping and singing did. I know there was plenty of dancing going on in RE2, having been the front-seat passenger and a main participant, but reliable sources have told me that the boss had a good (and rather impressive) sing-song in RE8, much to his passenger's amusement.

Our home for the night was a campsite (Carachan Farm, or something like that) on the road leading to Killin, which was a long way away from our Northerly territory, so you can imagine how glad we were to finally get there and choose a nice grassy spot to pitch our tents on.
Except that after ditching the quad trailer at the Comms HQ/finish line in Killin, stress levels were higher than normal for pitching one large 2-man and one even bigger 10-man tent. Think how stressful it is pitching tents in a relatively good humor anyway, and then double it.

But anyway, once the tents were up it was proper fun and games from there onwards - literally.
We played badminton, Frisbee, had a kick about with a football; as you can tell we came prepared. Oh, and of course we chilled for a while with a cup of tea fresh from the kettle.
A first aider is always kitted out for every need and eventuality...

Later on that night the briefing meeting was held for the managerial people from each organisation involved in Artemis '09. While Steve went to play boss with the big guys and gals, the rest of us charmed chippie places to stay open long enough so we could all get our supper.
Killin has a distinct lack of late-night take aways, and the only decent place we found, which wasn't a pub, was a chippie bar in the town's larger car park. Despite closing at 10pm, the two lovely ladies running the joint were nice enough to stay open until far beyond their original hours, with not a complaint between them (possibly because of the business they received due to our delaying skills).
Finally, we were fed, watered, clued up on the event, and we even had a cheap home to stay in that night. The rest of the crew had arrived for the next day, and the night was clear, starry and rather beautiful. Things were calm and collected and good.
Until we all tried to get to sleep, and the night grew older, and the temperature just kept dropping.

By 5 o'clock Saturday morning - our wonderful wake up & get up time - we were all frozen like individual ice-lollies fresh from the freezer in chilly canvas packaging.
Thank God the campsite had a shower block with amazingly warm showers, so we could all defrost.

Anyhoo, we quickly prepped ourselves for the day ahead, and suddenly Artemis 100 had begun.
My colleague and I headed out in RE2 for Loch Rannoch - a good hour or so drive from our campsite - tailing three more colleagues in RE8. Together we worked out which roads led to our stations, and while RE8 and its occupants had managed to locate their pit stop successfully, we had a bit more trouble. Actually, it was just plain stupidity - and possibly the great lack of sleep - that had caused us to locate ourselves at the wrong water stop, although to be fair at least we were beside the right Loch...
Long story short (and sticky) we eventually were told in fair and frank terms that we were in the wrong spot, and we were relocated to the correct post, a few 2 or so hours later. Although I had swallowed our mistake, knowing full well that we should have re-read the obs orders (after all, that is what they are there for) to prevent such a mistake from happening, my colleague was slightly less... accepting of the incident. The less said about that the better.

But negatives aside, we had soon found ourselves on the right tracks again, and our side of the event coverage began to pick up. The weather was bright and sunny, warm with only a slight chill breeze, and the scenery was postcard-perfect. Casualties were few, with only advice on cramp queries being given out. Plus, the post had amazing carrot cake and hot tea, and real working toilets near by - none of the usual portaloo shizzle - so we didn't have much to complain about!
Apart from our radios not working because of the mountain ranges blocking transmissions (those bloody SARCOM aerials were pretty useless in this cicumstance), and there being no or limited phone signal, meaning communicating between teams was difficult... thank heavens the Raynet teams - thee radio people - were gracious enough to back up our comms kit with their own.

Once the cyclists had checked through our post, we were sent on to the base at Innerwick, in Glen Lyon. Although this journey would have been shorter, we were told by our lovely comms guys at Raynet that the normal road taken to Innerwick was held up with roadworks, and we would be faster travelling back down through Kenmore, along Loch Tay, through Lawers and taking a "shortcut" along a side road which would eventually lead us to Innerwick.
Sounds good, we thought.
And it was; the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, particularly on the random route between the main road past Lawers and Innerwick. That road was half the size of our vehicle, and trailed its way through Ben Lawers National Park, where some of the most stunning scenery I have ever witnessed was nestled within the depths of the mountains, including a small dammed loch which was very pretty. There were also several very steep drops which RE2 had great potential for falling down (especially with my colleague's driving!) so I'll admit I was near shitting myself on every bend.
But we made it to Innerwick alive, in time to see it shut up shop as the last cyclist went through.

After a quick break there, and a reunion with the quad team and RE4's crew, we were sent on to the finishing line in Killin to help out our own comms crew there.
Of course, this meant winding our way back across the stunning valley we had just managed to crawl through... so we did, again... and I now affectionately refer to it as "Death Valley", which I feel is rather fitting for a place with so many potential nose-dive points.

Anyway, back in Killin, safe and sound, we set up our temporary first aid post alongside our colleagues, and whiled away the rest of the day, with only a few casualties between us. Nothing too exciting, only a small cut on one lady's foot, caused by tripping over a bike chain; a larger cut on a man's leg made by whizzing past bushes and trees on his bike; and one rather nasty one where a man had come of his bike and caught his elbow against a wall, taking out a huge chunk of flesh, which was thankfully still attached, right on the joint, which bled a lot and needed steri strips to hold it together - something which we lacked at that point in time, but had later on once the ambos had arrived back at base, so he returned to have his treatment completed properly. He was also nagged at on both occassions to go and get it stitched properly. Hopefully he has done, because although width wise the wound was small, its depth and its nature certainly required a further professional hand.

Once all the teams had returned, not too long before night fall, it was time for food and socialising, and organising who was staying on to cover the ceilidh later on that night, and who was lucky enough to travel home again.
Of course, the trusty trio of Steve, Caitlind and me stayed on to watch over the nutters who still had strength in their legs to dance the night away (I swear half of it was beer fuelled). Well, when I say trio - the boss slept in the back of RE8 (he was driving us home so fair dos) while we pair covered the event. This did mean we were treated to a fantastic end-of-Artemis-Highland-100 fireworks display, and even a dance or two... or three...

By midnight, we were absolutely shattered. The rest of our gang had rightly buggered off home long before we had finished, and were most probably tucked up tight in bed, warm and happily sleeping.
Steve still had a 3 hour drive to get us through, which he bravely did. While Caitlind kept him going, I took the opportunity to occupy the trolley bed, and slept for near enough the full length of the journey. It is the weirdest feeling to be strapped to a bed which you hope is fully tied down, for fear of rolling out the back doors of an ambo, with everything rattling around you, and the mechanical sound of a growling engine singing you sweetly to sleep. Still, I was right where I wanted to be - on a comfy surface in a warm ambo with my two friends in the front, safe and finally contented enough to sleep for the first time this weekend. It was great, apart from learning to control my stomach everytime the ambo flew over a bump in the road or breaked to turn a sharp corner in the road. There were a few occassions where I thought my supper was about to return......

But finally - finally -after a long, stressful day, we got home, and all in one piece. Absolutely shattered, feeling minging, looking minging, and with the knowledge that we had a moto X duty to attend in roughly 6 hours time.
But we were home.

Thanks to all the crews who helped out on that long yet funny, stressful, awe-inspiring, breath-taking, occasionaly boring and incredibly beautiful Saturday, and to the boss, who got us home safe and sound despite being sore and tired.

Now, I'm going to bed.