📓 Journals Late Autumn Scottish Road Trip

[geoffbland]

We’re setting off on a week-long road trip around Scotland. I’ve been to Scotland many times before, but not for many years. Those trips were all in the Elise and covered only the south and central parts of the country. I’ve never been north of Inverness into the Northern Highlands, so there’s plenty of new territory to explore.

Doing the roadtrip in late Autumn is risking it a bit with the weather (actually risking it a lot as we are soon to find out) but at least there will be fewer tourists on the roads and no pesky midges.

I’m planning to do some sections of the NC500, but we’ll be picking and choosing our route rather than attempting the whole thing. We simply don’t have enough time to do it all. And, of course, as my long-suffering girlfriend is coming along, we’ll also be making plenty of stops at arts and crafts galleries!

We set off late on Friday afternoon, planning to split the journey into two parts, with an overnight stop in Barnard Castle.

Naturally, we timed our departure perfectly to coincide with Storm Austen hitting the south of England. High winds and plenty of rain made for an interesting start to the trip.

Things got off to a particularly slow start when we hit terrible traffic on the M11, taking two hours to cover just 20 miles. Much of this seemed to be down to the storm conditions. We managed to make up some time later in the journey, though, and decided to skip a proper dinner, making do with service-station sandwiches instead. This meant we arrived at our overnight stop only a little later than planned.

Photo: Packed and ready to load into the Emira. We’ve got the luggage down to a fine art now, and this time we’ve also squeezed in a cooler bag containing a few cooking essentials.

 

[Quasimoto]

Waiting patiently for Scotland pics…

 

[Jinba ittai]

Waiting patiently for Scotland pics…

Yup. This should be good.

 

[geoffbland]

Day 1 – Barnard Castle to Fort William​

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we set off. Barnard Castle is a lovely little town full of character and well worth a visit.

From there, we head through Alston and take Hartside Pass towards Penrith. There’s some enjoyable driving along the way, although the conditions are still very wet following the storm, and the roads are littered with debris blown off the trees. Not quite ideal conditions for enjoying the drive in the Emira.

In Penrith, we stop at the annual Potfest festival. Nothing to do with our recent trip to Amsterdam and all those “coffee” houses — this is a ceramics exhibition!

It’s a really good event, held in a cattle market, which makes for a rather unusual setting. Each of the cattle pens has been converted into a stall for an exhibitor, and there must be well over 100 of them. There’s a huge variety of ceramics on display, showcasing some excellent and very creative work. We come away with several pieces.

There’s also a public vote for Best in Show, featuring some particularly impressive pieces. Some of the work really stretches the boundaries of what you might think possible with clay.

After Penrith, we head towards Ullswater and take the beautiful Kirkstone Pass. You may have noticed that we’re not actually heading straight to Scotland at all, but taking a detour around the English Lake District first.

We then continue to Grasmere, where we stop for lunch and visit a few art galleries.

Photo: Kirkstone Pass

By now, we’re running late thanks to the weather, so we reluctantly abandon our planned visit to Keswick and head straight for the M6 and northwards.

As we join the motorway, we find it almost completely deserted. For the first ten minutes, I don’t see another car travelling in our direction. This is very unusual for an English motorway, which are normally packed with traffic, and the whole experience feels rather surreal. Of course, it doesn’t last, and the traffic soon picks up.

The weather is deteriorating again, too. Things had brightened up during the morning, but the rain returned while we were in Grasmere. Now Storm Boelo is moving in to spoil the fun.

Conditions become particularly unpleasant as we cross the Scottish border and continue north on the M87 motorway. One section is completely flooded, leaving only one of the three lanes passable. There’s plenty of tree debris scattered across the road, along with some seriously large puddles. The Emira’s traction control gets quite a workout as I encounter water deeper than expected, with the ESC intervening at least half a dozen times. Although I miss the planted feel of my Sport Cup 2s - it’s a very good job I swapped to my winter tyres for this trip to Scotland.

Unfortunately, one poor soul hasn’t been so lucky. We pass a Volkswagen Golf that has crashed backwards into a motorway barrier. Given the conditions, it’s a sobering reminder of just how treacherous the roads have become in this extreme weather.

After several more hours of driving, taking it slow and steady in the dark with the weather conditions, we finally arrive late at night at our cabin near Fort William. We get thoroughly soaked unloading the car, and while parking I discover a long, thin tree branch lodged in the Emira’s rear suspension that I have to yank out. Clearly, the car has also been collecting souvenirs along the way!

Thankfully, the cabin is warm and cosy, so we get settled in for the night. After a day of rain, flooded roads and battling the elements, we’re more than ready for a rest before the real Scottish adventure begins.