What I did on my holidays
A Motoring Holiday Around the Highlands
When my girlfriend (hereafter referred to as 'F') and I realised that we'd have a week
to ourselves without her daughter, we tried to thing of something that we'd enjoy
as a 'holiday for grown-ups'. I suggested we visit Scotland, from which F claims some
cultural heritage, despite being born in the far east and talking with a cut
glass accent. It was 15 years since I'd been to the Highlands, and although I'd
be taking a car rather than a bike this time, I hoped it would still provide some
old-fashioned driving pleasure.
Day 1 - Gloucestershire to Glasgow
F's little girl went to the south-west with her Dad on a Friday morning, so we then
loaded up the car and headed in the opposite direction. The M6 between Birmingham
and Manchester was its normal Friday
self, but we got through it without too many delays, and were soon heading past the
Lake District, and I was looking forward to the open views. Unfortunately, we didn't
get any of these because the cloud base was a few hundred feet below us. Ho hum. And
then on the A74(M) to Glasgow, it absolutely belted down with rain. This is a theme I'll
return to.
We stayed in reasonable B&B in a Glasgow suburb, near to an obscure relative of F's,
(I think a 2nd cousin is obscure - I had to look up what it was) who cooked a
nice meal for us. So far, so undramatic, but the getting to Scotland was a
necessary evil in my mind.
Day 2 - Glasgow to Fort William
We awoke to pouring rain in Glasgow. I'd never stopped in the city, having just passed through a
couple of times, so we spent the morning having a quick look round the centre. The rain
stopped, but I didn't really see much to make me want to stay - my head was full of expectations
of Highland vistas. So around midday we headed north on the A82, and it wasn't long before the
traffic thinned out and the scenery improved.
A word about the driving...
Part of the motivation for this trip was the desire to drive my car on Scotland's open roads. I've
got a BMW 330, with a few small mods (just lowered and stiffened, really) and I like driving it quite a lot.
I've never really been into cars before, always preferring bikes, but I do love this car.
The chance to drive it for more than a couple of miles before having to slow for a town or
another driver was very appealing. F is not the most enthusiastic of passengers, but
she's getting better. Anyway, back to the story...
Loch Lomond was as beautiful as I remembered, and the road not as busy as I'd feared. But at Tarbet we turned off the A82 onto the much quieter A83, as I wanted to drive through somewhere called "Rest and Be Thankful".
How can you resist a name as romantic as that? And I'd seen Jackie Stewart describe it
as his favourite place on some TV programme. As it turned out, Rest and Be Thankful isn't really a place at
all, just a valley. A very spectacular valley, even through the swirling clouds.
A word about the weather...
Scottish weather is famously unreliable. Or, perhaps more accurately, reliably bad.
I'd already set my expectations for poor weather, and wasn't disappointed - it rained every day.
But it was dramatic with it, with shafts of sunlight breaking through swirling clouds (see photos),
and it didn't actually rain much of the time.
By this time we already falling in love with the drama of the Highland landscape -
each new turn or crest revealed a vista that generated 'oohs' and 'ahs' from both of us.
We stopped frequently and took lots of photos, knowing that most would not be worth much.
Which was as it turned out; but the good ones were (in my humble opinion) very good indeed.
At Inverary we turned onto the even quieter A819, and then the A85 to re-join the A82 just south of the
Bridge of Orchy. And now, into the Cairngorms proper, the scenery became truly majestic.
We stopped at Glen Coe, but the weather was swirling all over the place, so we didn't get the
full effect; the partial effect was almost enough, though. Then a few miles on (in Highland terms)
we arrived at our stop for the night, Fort William.
We stayed at Ashburn House, as recommended by a friend,
and it was every bit as good as he said - lovely room, very helpful staff, and a great breakfast.
That evening we ate at the Crannog, as
recommended by the same friend, and it was very good indeed.
Day 3 - Fort William to Skye, via Applecross
This was the best day...
The weather was doing the same thing of rain the sun then rain then...But I didn't care, I
was driving a great car, with lots of grip, on the best roads in Britain. The A82 past
Loch Lochy (correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that like calling a body of water
'Lakey Lake' in England?) and then the A87 past Loch Garry were just spectacular.
The valley past the Five Sisters to Loch Duich caused us to run out of superlatives in the car, and I've
run out of them here too - you'll just have to go yourselves. And then we got to Loch Alsh,
with perhaps the most photogenic castle in Scotland (Eilean Donan), and we just shut up and gawped.
And took lots and lots of photos.
Just along from Eilean Donan is a turning off the main road, into real backcountry. I'd watched
a TV show called "Monty Halls Great Escape", where the ex-marine and current marine biologist
tried to live as a crofter for six months. Of course, it was all done for TV, but the scene-setting shots
were just spectacular (I christened them 'Landscape porn'), and having briefly met Monty Halls, I wanted to
go to where he'd stayed, which was in a little village called Applecross. Which lay over the
highest pass in Britain (at 626 metres), the Bealach Na Ba, or, rather more prosaically in English, the
Pass of the Cattle. It was only one car wide, and in places barely that, and very steep - 20% in some places
(according to the Wikipedia article I've just checked my facts on). On the way over the cloud was
down, and we were soon in it, meaning no views. We arrived in Applecross in time for lunch
(despite a huge breakfast), and has some great seafood in the pub there. Then we drove along the coast
road to find Monty's bothy. It's empty now, but there's a visitors book inside; the TV
show must have fired a lot of imaginations, because the book had completely filled up in less than six months.
The views were as great as they'd seemed on TV, and I managed to capture a couple of images of my own.
While capturing them, some midges managed to capture some of me - Monty didn't mention them!
Then it was back across the Bealach - this time, the clouds just parted at the top to reveal and incredible
ethereal view across the sea loch - my favourite picture of the trip.
Once back on the 'main road', we arrived at the Kyle of Lochalsh, with the Skye Bridge
majestically arcing across to Skye. The last time I went to Skye I had to use the ferry, and I
think it does spoil the romance a little having a bridge. Still, I'm just a tourist. Skye was just as dramatic as
the mainland, and we gasped and gawped as we headed up to Portree. We stayed at the
Viewmount B&B, which was excellent, and that
evening we ate in the Bosville Hotel, which was excellent. And, amazingly, full of southern Europeans. Everywhere we went in the Highlands, and especially on Skye, was full of Italians and Spaniards! Someone at the Scottish Tourist Board is doing their job very well...
Day 4 - Skye to, er, Skye
We had two nights in Skye, which meant we wouldn't be covering as much ground today. In theory - Skye isn't exactly tiny. We drove across to Dunvegin Castle, which is quite interesting (the 900 year old seat of the MacCleod Clan), but not that picturesque. But the gardens were rather lovely. Then we drove round the Trotternish peninsula, with amazing rock formations, and tremendous views across to Lewis and Harris. We drove past the ruined Duntulm Castle, Flodigarry, the Quiraing and the Mealt waterfall, all as amazing as they sound. That evening we ate at the Bosville Hotel again, as it had been so good the night before.
Day 5 - Skye to Inverness
We didn't have too far to go today, so we spent a couple of hours in the morning having a tour of the Talisker Distillery on Skye. I'm not sure I've had a dram of whisky at 10am before, but it's a hell of a way to start the day. And after the tour, which was excellent, we found that our entrance tickets gave us money off in the distillery shop. So I bought a bottle of 10 year old Talisker, and a bottle of 15 year old Dalwhinnie.
After this we headed back south, through Kyleakin and over the Skye Bridge and back along the A87 through the Five Sisters. It was just as impressive in this direction. And the roads were quiet, and I was having a lot of fun. Thence onto the A887, joining the A82 at Loch Ness. I remembered the road past Loch Ness from my visit on a bike back in 1985, when I did the End to End run, and it is still a great bit of road. We stopped at Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness, and this certainly had changed - not the castle itself, but now there is a swanky visitors centre (good), and you have to pay to get in (not so good). And it was swarming with tourists, most of them from Europe. More kudos to the Scottish Tourist Board.
After the castle, we had to stop and Drumnadrochit and visit the Nessie Exhibition. Which was actually very good, and effectively dispelled all notions of their being some sort of monster in there. From Drumnadrochit it's just a few miles into Inverness, which surprised me by being a very attractive and interesting town. By now F and I had a yen for some spicy food, so we found a Thai restaurant - the benefits of city living are not to be disregarded lightly.
Day 6 - Inverness to Edinburgh
We probably hadn't done enough preparation for this leg, as we drove straight past the Culloden battlefield, just 10 miles or so outside Inverness, and then turned round and went back. Not much to see, but I'm glad I saw it anyway - the last battle fought on mainland Britain, in 1746. Then we went on to Cawdor Castle, said to be where Shakespeare got the idea for Macbeth from (he didn't), but was jolly picturesque anyway.
The obvious route from Inverness to Edinburgh is the A9, but I knew it was the main road, carried all the north Scotland traffic, and wouldn't be as much fun as I wanted. So we took and alternative route down the A939 and the A93, past the Glenshee ski area (where I used to snowboard, before Easyjet made it easier to go to the alps for a weekend), and eventually into Edinburgh.
The city was wet and busy, but our B&B was nice (if twice as expensive as the Highland ones - it was festival time, I guess), and was also within walking distance of the Pleasance, one of the main comedy venues of the Fringe. We walked up there, and immediately got tickets for Sarah Millican, who was bloody great. Then we went and grabbed something to eat (Indian food this time), and then went to see David O'Doherty, who was even better - a very talented man.
Day 7 - Edinburgh
Nothing to do today but be tourists. We went to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, which was really jolly good, and I surprised myself by liking a lot of the Damien Hurst work that was on display. Then we went joined the 10,000 other tourists at the castle. That evening we saw Stephen K Amos, who was good, but perhaps not as good as the size of venue (500+) and length of show might have led me to believe. And then we went into a tiny little auditorium and joined a one man improvisation show. Which was lots of fun, if a little odd.
Day 8 - Edinburgh to Gloucestershire
Time to go home. I wasn't really looking forward to the six hour drive home, but it started well with the A702 from Edinburgh to the A74M being much quieter, and much more fun, than I expected. But then it was the long slog down the M6, which by Manchester had become very busy. And traffic reports told us it was effectively closed further south, so we headed for Chester, Wrexham and Oswestry and came home through Wales. Oh for those deserted Highland roads...