Hi, we made it! All the way to Inverness, within spitting distance of the famous Loch Ness.
Yeah verily, it rocked!
The journey wasn’t too much fun, the poor little Micra being thrashed mercilessly for seven or so hours each way. Two hundred and forty miles of toe-down motorway, then another one hundred and thirty three miles of (actually very good, fast, and challenging) ‘A’ roads. Poor little Micra. Some of those hills go on forever.
We had been warned previously, so I was able to…, make sure I was maintaining my usual law abiding progress, but there were two cops on the motorway bridges, and a third in one of those ambush vans when we hit Scotland. The roads get empty, there is nothing and no-one for you to hit, and coppers everywhere. Go figure, as the colonials would have it.
That aside, the drive into Scotland was grand in every sense of the word. It’s so BIG!
Massive countryside and it just keeps on coming. The roads are a bikers dream. Even in the mighty Micra they were superb. Get around there on a Japanese pocket rocket…wow!
You wouldn’t even have to kill yourself, the roads are so good.
Enough rhapsodising about the application of Mr Mc Adams finest.
We arrived more or less on time, having barely got lost, but couldn’t at first find the caravan. We rang Bonnie (the owner, nice person) up and found we had gone past it. We were relieved and gutted in equal measure. We had just (after driving for three hundred and seventy seven miles) realised I hadn’t checked to see if was just an internet scam. That would have been irksome. It looked to be genuine so we were relieved, but we had just passed a shabby, ill used caravan so we were at best apprehensive.
When we retraced our route Bonnie was stood outside and directed us in. The caravan was hidden around the back, completely screened by trees on all sides, and in a large field on its own. Joy!
The caravan was lovely, the setting idyllic, the vista picturesque.
Splendid.
We just chilled that evening, knackered as we were from the travelling. Later on I was waiting for it to get properly dark so we could see the stars. There were no street lights and no urban pollution so I thought I would get an unparalled view. Half ten and it was dusk, eleven, still dusk, twenty to twelve and you could still read a book in the light that was left! I gave up and went to bed. Land of the midnight sun!
We decided to go out to see Loch Ness and Urqhart castle the next day. I went searching high and low and couldn’t find my camera. I found the spare batteries, the battery charger, but no bloody camera, and I’d just bought a memory card specifically for this holiday. Bastard.
Not to let it mar the holiday we went and did the tourist things; saw the castle, made Nessie jokes, got fleeced for a cup of tea, etc. On the way back we went to Mc Tescos and I considered buying a new camera. I had put it in the basket, but then thought about another memory card, rechargeable batteries (it took AAA, I had AA’s) et al, and realised it would be over £50 for something I had at home. I put it back.
I think it was two days later I went to put on my shoes for some outdoors type walking, and found I’d packed the camera in my shoe for safe keeping. D’oh!
How we laughed.
We got to play spot-the-wildlife at the caravan. We had an owl kept hunting in the field we occupied, a kestrel once, rabbits, and even a deer. Bonnie said the locals shoot them as vermin. (Rabbits and deer.) We enjoyed seeing them though.
I’ve posted a bunch of photo’s we took. David Bailey is probably crapping himself right now. It’s hard to capture the blueness of the light, and the subjective stunned-ness of being in such a huge and beautiful landscape. So we just took snaps instead.
It has been really grand, and I’d like to thank everyone for the money they gave us for our wedding, which paid for it. Wendy was never so relaxed (except, perchance when in the car) and I have really enjoyed it.
Got to be said that I was glad to get back to my own bed, garden, and internet at the end of it though! How sad am I?
Toodles,
Buck.