On the Road Again!

The championships started tonight in Munich with the host nation, Germany, playing Scotland. There's always the question on whether England fans (therefore English) would support Scotland tonight. One of the online betting companies found in a poll that 61% of English would support Scotland, where only 35% of Scots would support England. That level of parochialism is pretty pathetic. So to reciprocate I am hoping Germany batter the Sweaties. Update Germany 5-1 Scotland  Even the Scotland goal was scored by the Germans!!! Shame eh? 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪

Our last full day in the Highlands started off pretty much like many of the other days. Breakfast and then we set off for a day of sightseeing, with no great plans. Just after leaving the glamping we took the left turn on to the A833 heading towards Beauly. Beauly is a small town to the north of Inverness. I found a parking place in the centre and we took Reggie across to a small cafe - The Corner on the Square. Most of our tourist trips involve starting with a coffee whilst we think of where we are going next. Of course we sat outside in what was a rarity on this trip - the sun. In Beauly just along the high street is the ruins of an old Priory . We had a walk over there and then down to the river, or as close as we could get to it. It was mostly fenced, so once again no paddling for Reggie. Once we had exhausted the high spots of the town we set off towards Inverness.  Whilst we were here I thought it a good idea to visit my Mum rather than leave it to the n...

It's two years since my brother Neill and I had the whistle stop trip to Scotland to take our Mum's ashes to their final resting place near Aviemore. It's even longer since the bike club's "indoor camping weekends" came to a halt. Every year for four or five I organised a trip up to Scotland for the SOC and we stayed in youth hostels and student rooms where colleges were closed for the summer. So this year we are going back, but in the car. Claire will be the co-pilot and front seat the back seat driver will be Reggie. The plan is to get away after work and get part way on the road, at least get around London so we can have a clearer run on the Friday morning.  I have planned a second stop near Carlisle. Hopefully the route will take us near some part of Hadrian's Wall as we cut across from the east coast and the A1 to the M6/A6.  And then into Scotland near Gretna. We have two overnights in Glencoe and three near L...

Finally I have worked out the stops on the return journey from Scotland. The route looks like this: The southernmost stop overnight is near where one of Claire's cousins lives and we can meet her and see her new puppy. It's a Labrador and Reggie will no doubt bond with it. I changed the stop on the first night to a B&B from the Day's Inn. The Day's Inn is dog friendly but a little blander than a more traditional stop. Tyre calculates the round trip to home to be about 1370 miles.  On top of that there's the trips out each day. With the Insignia doing about 600 miles to a tank of diesel there's about £140 of fuel to consider. 

When the Norway trip was eventually put to bed for this year I started to look for an alternative where we could go in the car, and take Reggie with us. We saw a TV programme where glamping was featured and this led to our first attempt a couple of weeks ago in Essex. The tester overnight at Lee Wick Farm. So, I set about looking for a glamping site and chose the Loch Ness Glamping site near Drumnadrochit in Scotland.  I chose Scotland as it is still UK and Reggie doesn't need to have a pet passport.   Armadillo Although from where we live, France would be much nearer (about 30 miles and a ferry) but with rabies and other things like tapeworms that we don't get in the UK but the passport is a bit of a pain in the arse. Not so much before we go, but before we come back. Maybe another time. The round trip to Loch Ness is somewhere in the range of 1400 miles round trip before any excursions. So we'll need to plan stops for Reggie as well as some overnight...

.... another one opens. It is disappointing to have to shelve the plans for a trip to Norway in the summer, but it is not worth going if Claire is going to be in pain for the entire time we are away, and subsequently not enjoying the trip.  So I started to look for an alternative.  If we are to stay at home we might as well look for somewhere for Reggie to come too.  With our first glamping coming up this Friday to test the water, we looked at maybe doing the same but further afield.   We saw Loch Ness Glamping on the TV some weeks ago and it looks nice, plus it's dog friendly and we can go in the car! They are pretty booked up for August, the dates we have booked off already, but there is a three night slot that will allow us to drive up there, about 636 miles door to door. However, there are a few days to look at before then. Even in the car it is a long way to drive. So I need to factor in at least one stop on...

The trip to Scotland has been the subject of a couple of other blogs. The one I shared with my brother, " The Ashes Tour ", and of course my own " On the Road Again ". Dora  covered 1370 miles over the five days. I know this as I set "Trip 2" to zero before I set off from home and had a flick through the onboard computer when I got home. Fuel consumption was always over 50mpg and hit an amazing high of

The first part of this route (as taken off the TomTom and viewed in Tyre) is the A86. Superbly surfaced with grippy overlay on the bend. In the dry it must be superb. In the on-off wet it was still pretty good. It is clear from this view that the loop top the east to get to Balmaha was a lot longer than the west back of Loch Lomond route.

Once again we were up early and down for breakfast for 8am when the restaurant opened. This time it was a serve yourself buffet and I guess had we wanted to, we could have gone mad. In the end a couple of pieces of toast and some bacon and eggs sufficed. Did I mention the third and final haggis of the trip? The odometer showed 1800 miles before the start and so I took Dora's pic! As we had a relatively short run down to Manchester again and so we thought about a side trip to see a little of the country.  After the planned fuel stop near Lockerbie, we set Gretna Green as the next port of call. I thought it would be about the right time for a coffee break and something of a tourist trap.   And we were right.  I had imagined it to be a town, but it seemed more like a complex built around the Blacksmith's Forge where people eloped to get married. There was a wedding party there, but we didn't stop to look. As was par for the course t...

Part Three. The hotel for the night was at Balmaha on the south-eastern shore of Loch Lomond. The journey from Spean Bridge took us a lot longer than expected as we caught on the back of a tin box queue stacked up behind a red van that was unable to exceed 30mph. The 8 miles seemed interminable! We broke cover and went into the petrol station as we entered Fort William.  The rain that started at at Spean continued to lash down ad we set off southwards through the city heading for Glencoe. The first part of the trip is alongside Loch Linnhe. A pretty nice 8 miles! Then across the bridge across the neck of Loch Leven and into Glencoe. This is one of the most scenic places in the UK. In the dry and sunny it would be perfect, but even in the wet it is still fantastic. At least the rain managed to fuel the waterfalls. We had intended to stop for a coffee at the tea bar at the southern end but it was closed. In the end we ...

And so day 3 began. When we got up for breakfast the weather looked bright and the sky was blue. By the time breakfast was finished it looked dodgy but dry and we knew rain was going to feature somehow. It did. The Perth petrol stop showed Döra was keeping above 50mpg despite the higher speeds although these were tempered with some country lanes across the country. The figure was 53.78 mpg. As we slogged up the A9 towards Aviemore it looked darker and then sunny but in the roadworks before Dalwhinnie we were in waterproofs and that was pretty much it for the day. We arrived at Loch an Eilean slightly differently by TomTom to the mapped idea! We told the steward what we had come to do and he was most helpful. But first a chance to spot one of the rare red squirrels. Until relatively recently our only squirrel until some fool brought grey squirrels from Canada and let them loose. Now the red is found in a few pockets in England and of course in Scotland. A...

Day 1 of the Ashes Tour was the run from Kent to Manchester. Not too bad but in places pretty unexplainable traffic stops whist still on a three lane motorway. Pressure of traffic? Day 2 saw us set off for real visiting places from Mum's past, where she lived as a child and where we lived as a small family, and the football club that dad and me used to go to most weeks. Oldham Athletic Oldham Athletic The route north took us by Hollingworth Lake where we used to go on the bus to have a day out. Things were more simple in those days!! Then to places I've never been, like the Ribblehead Viaduct. A piece if Victorian engineering to cross a long wide valley. Ribblehead Viaduct Ribblehead Viaduct Then across some lovely roads through  the north of England stopping at piece of Hadrian's Wall and then the border at Carter Bar. Dora at Carter Bar Carter Bar The Beig Inn hotel in Glenfarg is really nic...

Only 2 days until we sleep for the last night and then set off on The Ashes Tour . The blog covers a one off trip to Bonnie Scotland to sprinkle our Mum's ashes near the place she thought was her family (Clan Shaw) ancestral home at Loch an Eilean near Aviemore in the Highlands. Come and have a look every so often and see our progress.