On the Road Again!

From Glencoe, our next stop was going to be three nights at Loch Ness Glamping . The journey between the two sites was about seventy miles. But with an arrival time of 4pm, we had about 7 hours to do it. Even in Scotland in the pissing rain, we'd be hard pressed to find something to do. The first stop was in Glencoe Village to take some photos of the River Coe bubbling long, and then for breakfast at a small shop cum coffee house cum cafe - Crafts & Things. Not dog friendly inside and too wet to sit outside, so Reggie stayed in the car.  😔 We liked the look of some decorated mirrors in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh style and Claire bought a couple. Photo to follow, but mirrors are difficult to photograph without acting like a mirror! So maybe not. Once away we passed the Corran Ferry, and into Fort William on the A82, right through and on towards Spean Bridge.   Neill and I stopped here on the Ashes Tour in 2013, and it was raining. At lea...

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...