We awoke on Sunday morning to a wonderful view across the beach but sadly we needed to be on our way. So, after a lazy start, our first port of call was Gruinard Beach which was nice enough but not as spectacular as our overnight stop at Mellon Udrigle.
Then onto the Falls of Measach at Corrieshalloch Gorge, which was a lovely woodland walk to a suspension bridge over the gorge highlighting the falls.
Continue readingWe had a lazy morning yesterday as we wanted to visit the Talisker Distillery shop but that didn’t open until 10.00 so we were there as they opened the doors! On our way off the island, we stopped at Sligachan Old Bridge and picked up some scrummy seafood for lunch from a shack by the road.
We couldn’t quite understand why everyone was leaving our lovely stopover at Neist Point until two things happened. One, the sea fog rolled in so you couldn’t see in front of you and two, they closed the road down to the village!
Calmac Ferries had very kindly told us on Tuesday that they had cancelled our booking from Mallaig on the Scottish mainland to Armadale on Skye. When we looked to rebook, we found that there wasn’t a ferry running that actually took campervans! Very helpful. So, our plans needed to change as we would now be going over the road bridge to Skye. We still wanted to do the ‘Harry Potter’ things so we needed to go to the Glenfinnan Viaduct (steam train) and Loch Eilt (Dumbledore’s Grave). This meant we would now be doubling back on ourselves but we thought it was worth the effort and in some ways gave us more flexibility than adhering to ferry sailing times.
We knew we needed to get to the Glenfinnan Viaduct at least an hour before the train was due to cross over at 10.45 to get a parking spot such is the popularity of the Harry Potter franchise. However, there were several places we wanted to stop off at on the way from Loch Lomond so we were up and away by 06.45 on Wednesday morning. We had a glorious scenic drive along Loch Lomond and through Glencoe, scene of the famous MacLeod massacre by the Campbells.
We finally set off on our Scotland adventure on Monday, April 7th just after lunch some 5 days later than originally planned due to Jo’s pre-op hospital appointments in preparation for her knee replacement surgery at the end of April. We got as far as Lancaster and stopped at a pub, the Greyhound at Halton, for a delicious dinner and overnight stop in their car park (S4S-S476745).
When we got back from our recent travels, we found that our engine battery was very low but to be fair our tracker company had been letting us know it was low. Anyway, we plugged it in (not easy given where it’s parked) for 24 hours to charge up but thought a run would be beneficial.
Friends of ours, Maria and Jane, wanted to visit the WW2 code breaking centre at Bletchley Park, which is less than an hour from us so we decided to join them. We got the campsite, Old Dairy Farm Camping at Stoke Hammond, around 13.30 on Wednesday afternoon. It was a pretty cold and miserable February day but we were cosy in their Adria van catching up over a cup of tea whilst Liz was on an environmental training course. We cooked in both vans that evening but ate together. As it was so cold, we made sure the heating was on low overnight, especially as Liz was coming down with a cold.
Dora The Explorer 