Scotland – May Half Term 2016 Part 1

 

The last week has been ridiculously busy, we bought a house, moved in, had two big gigs, not to mention our normal teaching schedule. When we booked this jaunt to Scotland in January, we hadn’t in a million years thought that we would be house hunting, mortgage shopping, moving in the 4 months that would follow. There have been several times during the process that we nearly cancelled our Scottish trip, the house completion date was earmarked as Fri 27th May or Friday 3rd June for the  majority of the journey, but we never got round to it, then in a last minute supermove by Nationwide, our mortgage lenders, it became apparent it was moving quicker so we pushed for 20th and the rest as they is history. Or mayhem, as I’m going to rename it. 

 

Anyhow, in a swift move in/unpack manoeuvre, Thursday 7pm arrived in a blink, and we put down our teaching hats, got straight into a pre packed (as in pre packed at the start of May, just in case!) and hit the A11 from our school in Thetford. By 9pm we were in a lay by on the A1 near Newark picking up Jazz the pampered pooch, who had had a week with mum and stepdad whilst we moved, and by 01:10 we were sipping on a cold beer at Carter Bar Border Crossing, near Jedburgh! We had a good sleep and woke up feeling almost shell shocked that we had managed to get away, but very excited about the days to follow. Scotland is probably our favourite place to travel, and the weather looked promising. 

 

We had a leisurely start, and enjoyed listening to the piper who turned up minutes before a coach load of Americans! We had a nice chat with him before hitting the road towards Loch Lomond in time for lunch. The traffic wasn’t brill between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but we were in no rush, and the weather was drizzly, so we settled in for the journey eventually arriving at “our” layby for a late lunch (* our layby because we’ve stayed there then, then, then and then) 

 

We stocked up at the Farm shop on the A82 near Luss just before lunch, always risky when you’re hungry!  “Our” layby is the second one Loch side before the Inverbeg hotel, now named The Lochside Inn”, where we have enjoyed many a dram. Happily, the litter problem we encountered here last time has improved, however selfish (in our opinion) parking hasn’t. As soon as we arrived we noticed a Winnebago parked lengthways taking up 3 spaces and a motorhome parked with a marquee up and the chairs the other of the marquee leaving not much room for any other vehicles. We squeezed in next to her, she wasn’t amused and was obviously saving the place for someone else arriving later.  Selfish parking here is going to ruin it for everyone. Wild camping is allowed up here, but setting out your stall like this, in our opinion takes the Mick.

We had campfire quesadilla’s for lunch, not on a campfire I add, but still yum. Then sent the drone up for some pics before moving on up the road to the new viewIng platform beyond Tarbet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pyramid shape was an interesting design and it was nice to see a different view of Loch Lomond, this time from the head of the Loch. 

 

We carried on towards Glencoe, stopping at the Black Mountain view point and sending the drone up again. there were a few vans parked up for a night there and it bought back happy memories of our night there two years ago.

 

 

We carried on though, although I could have easily stayed there! We were booked onto Glencoe Mountain Resort campsite for two night. When we booked this trip, we decided to travel less and make more use of campsites in order to relax more. Ironic given that we had no idea what lay ahead of us! So around 6pm, we rolled onto the campsite, checked in with a grump receptionist and on to our pitch. First impressions were …. Meh. A gravel carpark, not in the most picturesque area of the valley. But, a fully serviced pitch. £15 pn. At least we are here. 

 

What followed over the next 10 hours was horrendous. What we didn’t know when we booked, or until we arrived, was that our visit coincided with a Scottish Downhill Association mountain bike event. This resulted in HUNDREDS of mountain bikers and their cars/vans/trucks/caravans/campervans turning up right through the night. I’m really not exaggerating here. From 9pm to 6am ALL we could hear was cars arriving, people directing each other into every last space there was, bike pumps pumping tyres, wow, that’s an annoying sound when it’s right on your pitch at 5am. At 07:00 the resort switched on their music and by 07:30 the decision had been made to abandon the campsite. I marched off to reception to explain we were leaving a night early and why, was met with a stubborn manager who insisted it was normal activity for cars to be arriving right through the night on a campsite, and I explained  it wasnt for us, way too noisy and we wouldn’t be back. 

 

 

 

We drove down to the main Glencoe viewpoint, where we’ve had to retreat to before(!) and had a leisurely breakfast of haggis sausages, bacon, beans, eggs and fried bread, which helped to restore sanity and we looked at new plans for the night ahead! The haggis sausages by the way were sensational! Our Britstops bible saved the day- we realised there was a Inn down the road that welcomes motorhome stopovers, so after a quick emergency phone call we booked ourselves in, and relaxed a little while more at Glencoe. The view here will never get old. We simply love it here. 

 

 

After a while, and a drone flight, we carried on down the A82 and crossed Loch Linnhe via the Corran Ferry. Despite driving this road many times, this was entirely new to us. The short ferry crossing took 5 mins, and cost £8.20 but saved nearly 40 miles of driving. The views across the Loch Linnhe towards the Great Glen were super. 

 

We soon found our Brit Stop, number 838 right upon the Lochside and said hello, had a couple of drinks each and pootled off for a leisurely bike ride. We have been Geocaching for a few weeks now and had a fun afternoon finding geocaches – a bit like a treasure hunt! The road was flat and on the banks of the loch. It was breathtaking. 

We had a picnic and a paddle, much to Jazz’s displeasure- and mooched back to Bluebell for a nap. We didn’t eat at the pub, but went in for several more drinks and whiskeys before a late walk (10pm – and still light!) along the loch. 

 

It’s simply beautiful and we are thankful to Britstops for guiding us here. We’ve lost count the number of times we travelled here and missed this spot. For us, this is the reason we love BritStops. Yes, wild camping is legal here and our back up would have been exactly that. But we feel happy that we spent a bit money locally, in return for a pitch with a view like this in an area we usually miss. Happy days.