Scotland

We’ve now been in Scotland for two full days. We arrived in Gretna on Wednesday evening after an uneventful four and a half hour drive. I have to say, the nearer to Scotland you get the more pleasurable the driving. Obviously the further north you drive the sparser the traffic becomes with the exception of Glasgow. It rained on and off for the whole journey and was still pretty damp when we got to Gretna. Having checked in at the reception at the Braids caravan park I proceeded to ignore their directions to our pitch and got hopelessly lost within the confines of the aforementioned caravan park. You wouldn’t have thought that possible would you? Well, this is me we’re talking about so anything might happen! Once we were settled in our spot, which incidentally, I’d driven straight past within 20 seconds of leaving the reception, we went for a walk down to the local outlet village. I haven’t checked, but this might sound very much like something  I wrote last year as we did exactly the same thing back then! So a little bit of Deja Vu, but in our defence there’s very little else to do in Gretna which is why we always choose it as a simple stopover on the way north. 

Next morning we took it easy, making full use of the electrical hook up and the camp sites’s excellent wifi before leaving at 11.30 am to make our way to Glencoe. Back on the motorway it felt at times as if we were the only ones on the road but needless to say that as we passed Glasgow this feeling soon disappeared. We drove without incident all the way to Glencoe and headed straight for the Glencoe Mountain resort. I’d heard about this place in a Thomas Heaton YouTube video and thought it would be a good place to base ourselves for one night so that we could do some walking in the Glencoe mountains the next day. We checked in and it cost us £15 for the night. We decided not to make use of the cafe as one glance at the menu on the wall was enough to convince us both that we didn’t want to pay £5.80 for a baked potato and beans amongst other things. Before darkness fell I took the following photograph of a nearby mountain the name of which escapes me but I liked the fact that there was snow on the peak so much that I promised myself I would get out of bed early in the morning to see if I could catch some sunlight on that peak with the sunrise.

The following image is the result of my early rise the next day and as luck would have it we had quite a bright sunrise.

I love the way the sun is just kissing the tip of the mountain but unfortunately the boring blue sky adds no interest to the scene at all. It had been quite a night on the campsite at the mountain resort in Glencoe. We had no internet as the reception on my mobile broadband was down to 2G and completely unresponsive, also the area we were in was very remote with hardly any signs of life anywhere. Thankfully the satellite TV was working so we did manage to watch Young Sheldon! We certainly do live life on the edge don’t we.

Later in the morning we moved on but only a short way down the magnificent valley where we managed to park the motorhome before setting off in search of the days photographic subject. Lynne and I picked our way up the hillside in search of The Ralston Cairn. The story goes that Ralston Claud Muir was a train driver who loved to hike the glens. It seems Glencoe was his favourite. He fell ill on Christmas Day 1999 and died 16 days later of multiple organ failure caused by a rare form of leukaemia which he was unaware he had. He was 32! The cairn was placed in his memory by his friends and family in a spot overlooking one of his favourite views of the glen. We hadn’t walked far when I realised we were on the wrong track and we doubled back almost to where we had joined the path and once again started walking uphill to where I imagined the cairn must be. There were two Scottish guys up there flying a drone and I asked them if they knew where The Ralston cairn might be. They had no idea but as they packed up and left they hadn’t gone more than 30 or 40 yards downhill before they called out to me and pointed the cairn out! The following is the resulting image with the cairn playing a very minor role in the overall composition. It does however show clearly the sheer majesty of this wonderful Scottish glen.

Having ticked off this bucket list item we made our way back to the van and set off for Fort William although we had no set plan to stay there. A few miles up the road we saw what looked like a nice campsite and decided to stop by and see if we fancied staying the night. As I pulled up outside the reception a man drew alongside me on a bicycle and asked if he could help. They had vacancies but the price for one night was £27 which Lynne and I both thought was too much so we declined and carried on with our journey. Before long we were in Fort William and decided to stop for some shopping. We wondered around a Lidl and couldn’t help being impressed with how nice it was compared to our local one at home. The main reason for the shopping trip was to get a plug to charge the toothbrush so that we could both keep our pearly whites in pristine condition! Cutting a long boring story short we had to go to Morrison’s for the plug and then we set off for another photo opportunity. This time it was an old boat stranded on the shore called the Old Boat of Caol. This is another iconic photo spot and when we got there, there were three other photographers already in place including one with a massive old fashioned large format camera, you know, the type where just before they take the photo they though a large sheet over their head to cut out the light in the back of the camera. (I think).  This is my attempt at capturing the atmosphere around this grand old boat falling into ruin.

Two bucket list items in one day, woohoo! By now time was getting on and we thought it was time to look for somewhere to wild camp. More or less this time last year we had taken a break in the middle of the day outside an old ruined castle called Old Inverlochy Castle. This seemed like as good a place as any to spend the night so we headed there and parked up. As we sat there long after dark, a car pulled up and stayed alongside us for a few minutes which had us both wondering what the hell they were doing, given that it was a dead end road and there was no apparent reason for anyone else to be there. Not long after they left another car pulled up alongside us and did the same thing. Had we stumbled upon some kind of drug dealers rendezvous? Or worse still, a dogging spot!? Strangely it wasn’t long after I offered up this second alternative that Lynne decided we should move on! So, at 9.00 pm we packed up and headed for a place called Loch Lochy where, on Google maps it looked like there were a few decent lay-bys where we could stay. We soon found a suitable place which we had all to ourselves tucked well away from the road. This was the first night where we used the generator. Previously we hadn’t had much luck with it but as we were using the heater in the van, and I was aware that this quickly runs down the leisure battery I thought I’d give it a go. To my surprise it started quite quickly and ran faultlessly so that we could use the electrics without worrying about the battery. Unfortunately the Satellite dish couldn’t find a signal so we settled for watching a couple of Netflix and Amazon Prime comedies via the internet which was now functioning perfectly.
Next morning I was up with the lark and ventured out to see exactly how close we were to the Loch as, during the night we had been able to hear waves lapping the shore. I’m including a picture just to illustrate the kinds of places we sometimes find ourselves waking up to after arriving in complete darkness the previous night.

Next destination is the Isle of Skye but I’ll be covering that in my next blog. Thanks for reading, always assuming anyone is!