Final Farewell to a Favourite
At the end of October 2019, Luss Camping and Caravanning Club site closed its gate for the final time. It is still there, it is just no longer under our Clubs branch.
For me personally this is a devastating loss, it is also a massive loss to my D.A, Glasgow and West of Scotland District Association.
As a D.A we have helped build the Luss site and turned it from an overgrown field with a very pretty view, to a high standard campsite with marked out pitches, award winning toilet blocks, children’s play area which became popular and well attended the whole camping season. We spent many a working party raking up the leaves and sticks, clearing and draining ponds, cutting back trees and uprooting others to create pitches.
We have huddled together with cups of homemade soup under an awning while the heavens have poured and pulled our wellies up to get stuck in, even if it didn't clear up. That campsite has a piece of everyone who joined us trodden into it’s grass.
Luss has always been my favourite site, even though it is right on my doorstep I always felt like I was miles away from anywhere and able to just take a breathe and relax. To enjoy nature, forget about the rat race for a day or so. Oh the sunsets and sunrises were always spectacular! Many a morning I crawled out my tent at dawn to watch the light creep over the water and hills and wake up the creatures before drifting back to sleep.
My family has many memories on this site, being bogged down and everyone pulling together to get each other off our pitches, a violent storm that caused our party tent to be blown onto the roof of the site manager’s building and my widowed Gran Alice running around shouting she ‘needed men’ meaning for them to come help get it down, my parents Carol and Frank canoeing and being able to launch the boats right beside their unit, my older brother Andrew passing his youth test, for his son Ryan to then pass his junior youth test on that site also.
Luss has seen it all and could tell some great stories! And we are heartbroken to lose it. So as a D.A we decided to have one last meet there to celebrate and say our Farewells. On September 27th 2019 we held our Feast of Lanterns weekend at Luss and had a right good knees up! We had cracking weather and it was as if the site was thanking us for all our hard work and dedication to the site.
Party tent was up (thankfully no storm this time), glorious sunshine, glass painting for during the day to be lit at night, a wander into the village for ice cream and treats, units all decorated in lights for the evenings, children running around with light up balloons and glow sticks and a lovely single malt whisky to toast our favourite and much loved site.
Slanj Luss Club Site, we will miss you.
Lisa Etherson
Glasgow, Scotland
