Travel Musings

Two nights at Garlieston Camp Site is an excellent way to finish off our holiday. The site is quiet and welcoming, and apparently very popular. It is situated in Garlieston Bay, on the north shore of the Solway Firth. Garlieston itself is a small and tidy fishing village, now with only one (good) pub and a garage/shop. Like in most of small British harbours the fishing activity is now very low, and a lot of the old cottages have been turned into holiday lets. In this case it has at least saved the village from decay. The main claim to fame for Garlieston is the part it played in the Normany Landings seventy five years ago. The beach and harbour here were apparently very similar to the Normandy beaches, so it was here that Operation Mulberry was launched. This was to devise and test methods of getting tanks and equipment off the ships onto land. They developed three methods, but only one was worthy and became known as Mulberry Harbours. Needless...

On Friday, summer decided to make a tentative appearance. It stopped raining around Loch Lomond and we had a spectacular sunset. There was still a cool breeze, but this kept the emerging midges at bay, so they weren't a great problem. Everybody seemed more cheerful. The next day we carried on south towards Largs, on the North Ayrshire coast. The drive through Dumbarton and north Glasgow was nowhere near as grim as I expected, and most places looked tidy, but the accents were seemingly getting harsher. The Erskine bridge over the Clyde was impressive, and the towns on the North Ayrshire coast all looked prosperous. The Largs Marina, or Yacht Haven to give it its proper name, simply oozed money. Quite apart from the yachts and cruisers, the car park was full of Ferraris, F Types, a DB10, assorted Porches and Mercs, and some downmarket Range Rovers. The sun shone all day on Saturday, so Ann and I just got the chairs out and watched all the boating activity, and got ...

The drive from Oban to Loch Lomond was pleasant at the beginning, but became much better as we neared Loch Lomond. Once again, though, it was misty with occasional showers. Our campsite is right on the edge of the lesser used east side of Loch Lomond, and it is very good indeed . Because the video is much shorter I have been able to raise the quality and still stay within the blog limit of 100mb. I've looked at the videos I took on the journey, but to be honest they are not really worth putting up. The rain is just too obtrusive. Instead he is a short video about a Highland rush hour traffic jam we found ourselves in. We are here for two nights as we needed another day to do some admin and housekeeping. Tomorrow we begin the journey south, and eventually home. First stop on the way though is on the Ayrshire coast at Largs Marina.

Scotland is quite tall, but it isn't very broad, The journey from Inverness to Fort William takes only two hours in a slow motorhome. Loch Ness was....somewhat disappointing. It could be much more interesting for the tourist if they got rid of the very narrow band of trees between the road and the Loch. We only saw a fraction of it because all the lay byes were full of Japanese carrying buses. Not Japanese carrying buses, but buses carrying Japanese. And, when you got to the heart of Nessie country your heart sank, and you put the pedal to the metal. Further on the Great Glen was impressive, but with nowhere to stop and admire. There was a highlight, however. On the way we came across a memorial to the Commandos. It was raised here as they originally trained in the wild mountains surrounding us. Latterly it has also become a small memorial site for Commandos killed in Afghanistan. It was incredibly moving, and I'm sure the water in my eyes was from the strong wind blow...

Monday night - three o'clock in the morning...." David!!  David!! The roof is leaking!!. Jeez, above Ann's head water was dripping from the roof light fitting. It wasn't raining, but we did have the roof light open during a rain storm a few hours previously. Could that be the reason? Anyway, in a state of undress, and with Ann stating the bleeding obvious, I tried to mop up the interior of the roof light. It seemed OK, so back to bed. However, at half past four (it is light then in Scotland) I could hear the drips again. So, roof light fully open (luckily it wasn't raining), and standing on a stepladder with my head out the roof light I could see that due to the particular angle the van was at, water had pooled at one corner of the roof light  - and sure enough there was a crack in the mastic. Luckily, having been a boy cub, I carry a roll of gaffer tape (don't ask!), and after mopping up a quarter bucketful of water got to work with the tape. What the inhabi...

We left Skye on Sunday, with a three hour drive to the next stop at a pub/hotel near Inverness, called The Grouse and Trout. We didn't take the obvious route along the north shore of Loch Ness, as we wanted to do that on the way back towards Oban. So we took a more northerly route, which although was pretty at times didn't have much in the way of drama. Some of the roads had suffered badly over the winter. Here's another road trip video, but I've now learned about transitions between the clips, and how to stabilise and clean them up a bit. Our route into Inverness was therefore from the north, over the Moray Firth Bridge, and passed the football stadium of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, known locally as Caley. They had a few overachieving seasons in the early Naughties, including a famous cup match where they destroyed the mighty Celtic. The newspaper headline the next day read: "Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious" The Grouse and Trout h...

On Friday we got up early as we had a booking for a ferry across to Skye. The morning was warm, but misty, and we had our first encounter with midges. They are persistent little buggers, aren't they? The drive to Mallaig Ferry terminal was excellent, spoiled (as it was the whole journey) only by intermittent rain and mist obscuring the mountain tops. On the way was the Glenfinnan monument, built to commemorate the Jocobite Rebellion, and the rail viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter movies. However, as it was early and the site hadn't yet opened, I wasn't able to get up to the viewpoint for better pictures. The people at the ferry were so very helpful and pleasant. They knew Ann wasn't very mobile so we were specifically parked right next to the lift. The journey was only 20 minutes long, but there was no sensation of movement - very smooth indeed. The rain managed to hold off for the crossing, so I could get a few pictures. The site at G...

The journey west towards Fort William was quite pleasant, meandering on a good road beside loch after loch. Some, like Loch Laggan had old Victorian dams at the end, not for hydro electricity here but to take water by pipeline to other dams for hydro electricity. It was here that we got our first view of Ben Nevis. Our next site is a two nighter on the shore of Loch Linnhe (not Loch Leven as I said in the last post), and very pretty it is too. The weather was not particularly pleasant, and during the first night the wind blew a real hooley - really rocking the van. Thursday saw us take a circular drive, initially south through fantastic vistas to Oban, then east along the north shore of Loch Ewe, and finally north again to Glencoe. The weather was much better, still a bit windy and cool, but nowhere near as bad as before and at least we had some sunshine. Glencoe is incredibly dramatic, and it is difficult to grasp the scale of the mountains and valley on camera. The se...

As expected, The overnight rain in Forfar meant we wouldn't be able to use Ann's scooter at the Highland Games at Glamis Castle. A pity, but we put the day to good use by catching up with laundry and admin. The Loch of Forfar is quite a pretty loch, and is kept immaculately tidy. A hard path runs around it, and is hence popular with keep fitters and dog walkers. Alongside the loch are all the sports clubs (all with good sized club houses), and the indoor sports centre. We walked (well, Ann scootered) along the path for a couple of miles when the rain stopped in the afternoon. On Wednesday we set off for Loch Tummel (you cannot get away from lochs in Scotland!), and got the first real sense we were geting towards the Highlands.We called in at a Scottish Wildlife Trust centre on Loch of the Lowes. The scopes in the viewing hide gave an excellent view of an Osprey nest, where a pair of Ospreys were raising three chicks. Just above the Loch Tummel Campsite, was a popular...

Day three saw us drive across the Lowlands to the East Coast, to a site (Belhaven Bay) south of Edinburgh at Dunbar. Along the way we passed through some lovely countryside, not yet mountainous but certainly hilly. The route took us by the River Tweed and Heriot Water valleys, both very picturesque. Friday was spent sorting the laptop problem, but we did call in at the National Museum of Flight. This is a much bigger setup than the one at Dumfries, and many more aircraft. Their pride of place goes to a Concorde that you can go into. It was not the one I flew in all those years ago (G-BOAC which is at Manchester Airport), but the very first registered one G-BOAA. As with Dumfries, the volunteers are incredibly helpful and nice. Saturday saw us on the road again towards Forfar, via the Edinburgh bypass and the Forth Road Bridge (not the iconic rail bridge or the original road bridge which now only caters for buses and taxis), but the new one. I took a vi...

Actually, the title isn't strictly accurate - our first night was spent in England, near Carlisle, at the Metal Bridge Inn. This is an old Coaching Inn, tucked up almost underneath the M6 as it crosses the River Esk. They are taking full advantage of their position to offer a motorhome park up for those travelling to or from Scotland. Someone with vision levelled an area to the back of the pub and marked out about 20 decently spaced pitches. No charge is made, but it is the unwritten understanding that you visit the pub for a meal and a few drinks - and the food was excellent! Of course, there are no facilities such as toilets, electric hookup etc, but there is a waste dump station and if you wished to pay there was a shower in the B&B part of the Inn. However, all modern motor homes are perfectly capable of surviving a night on battery power alone, We have an on board toilet, hot water system, shower, fridge, solar power (which happily recharges the leisure battery...