From Somerset to the Western Isles and back in 17 days (1 Viewer)

Dave K

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Well that's the plan anyway (y).
After setting off on Good Friday for a funster weekend at Chester the plan is to carry onwards and upwards to the Western Isles for a whistle stop tour and return home again on Sunday 30th April ready for work on Tuesday the 2nd of May, a lot of miles but hopefully worth the stress, arguments....you get the idea!
We left Chester at about 4 on Sunday afternoon and travelled to Biggar for an overnighter at a Britstop we've used a few times, not much there, it is basically a car park but they do have a shop and 'bistro' on site which does a good breakfast. We arrived around 8.30pm, the weather that was kind to us at Chester seemed to get its own back as we travelled North as we encountered rain and wind for most of the journey, nevertheless we arrived in time for us to do a quick walk with the 2 Labs and be back for Kathie to watch Line of Duty, the BBC 1 thriller that everyone is raving about, so all was good.
We woke this morning to a much brighter day, no chance of a lie in, the cockerel was shouting at dawn :confused: and the dogs were ready for action at 6.30 so up we get and off we go, it was worth it though.
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It's basically a working farm so around the area you park up there are some natives
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So dogs walked and then in for breakfast with all the produce from the estate or sourced locally, thought I'd include this for the Facebook crew, I know they like a food pic :D2
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So fully fed and watered we start to embark on our next leg to a site at Glen Nevis, we stayed there for Kath's 50th, a lovely site with a restaurant just off site for breakfasts or evening meals, I say start to embark because that's about as far as it goes...just about to start the van for the off, turn the ignition key, engine starts fine but loud beeping from the instrument panel in the back, after checking it's showing an issue with the vehicle battery, and whatever you press this beeping isn't going away, great, so it's Bank holiday Monday, only thing I could think of was to drive into the nearest town which was Lanark and hope and pray that something might be open, good news there was a tyre, exhaust and battery centre open, bad news, we're too big for him to get inside the workshop but he was able to test the battery and tell me that something is taking a large draw from it. After a bit of searching I find a Fiat Camper Assist workshop in Glasgow that was open and will happily look at it for me, off we go, we find said garage, had to ask for 'big Chris', they weren't wrong 6'6" with an accent that to match, got to say the language barrier became an issue, if he was on telly I'd have switched the subtitles on, ordinarily I'm pretty good with understanding various accents but really struggled with him, to be fair he probably struggled with mine as well :D2. Anyway he goes and gets a technician who at a guess was Eastern European and strangely I could understand his broken English :whistle:, he confirmed what the other fella had told me, then big Chris told me the Fiat expert wasn't in work until tomorrow so we had 2 choices, push on and hope for the best or bring it back tomorrow, bearing in mind we're hoping to go off grid whilst travelling the Western Isles we only had 1 choice. So tonight we find ourselves staying on a CC site in Strathclyde, not the worst, not the best but probably the most expensive at £28 per night :confused:, with the hope that the Fiat man can work his magic tomorrow, fingers crossed!
 
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ambulancekidd

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Fingers crossed that its nothing too serious, hope the rest of your journey goes well.
 

CWH

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I always said the East European workforce was essential to the UK economy..... (y)

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Hope you get sorted, we used to have an old tourer parked up in caravan park in Biggar and nephew's wife's family own a farm in Biggar. We are down your way in May to our favourite campsite in Langport.
All the best for rest of holiday, enjoy the islands.(y)
 

Rob and Val

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Just 'liked' your post. Then realised that you might think that I liked that you had a battery problem! Hope you get it sorted out soon. Looking forward to hearing more about your travels.
 
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Dave K

Dave K

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The day didn't end any better than it started!
We decided to take a stroll around Strathclyde Loch, I say stroll it's a 4 mile circuit o_O, however the dogs needed a walk and it was a lovely evening.
We got back to the van, had showers at the block, well for £28 you have to, just about to settle down for the night when Kath discovers she's lost her bank card while out walking, now it's not for me to judge....much, but she has a habit of keeping her bank card in her phone case to save carrying her purse, unfortunately it had slipped out somewhere along the walk so the next half hour was spent trying to get a decent internet connection to cancel the bank card, thankfully we were successful :).
Today started with a frost, usually a good sign, and we had an early start to get to the garage, we eventually got though the roadworks on the M74 and arrived at said workshop. Fortunately big Chris wasn't on reception so there were no language barriers, and fortunately for us the garage was right on the edge of Strathclyde country estate, so for the next 2 hours we took a lovely stroll with the hounds awaiting some news. The garage did phone to say there wasn't anything wrong with the vehicle battery, it had 84% charge and was 100% healthy, the draw on it was normal so from their point of view the Fiat side was working as it should, typically we didn't have any beeping from the panel this morning either, although I have turned off everything I can think of.
With that news we decided to head straight for Arisaig which is where we find ourselves now, in an attempt to try and claw back some time.
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A lovely spot and well worth a visit, the pics don't do the water or sand justice, very clear water with an almost white sand, stunning. Tomorrow we will be embarking on our ferry trip from Mallaig to Skye, hopefully the weather will be as kind to us as it has been today, and the van will behave!

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Dave K

Dave K

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Just as a side note, because of our detour to Cumbernauld to get the van sorted we took the route along the A84 to get to Arisaig it meant cutting out the sometimes treacherous stretch of the A82 alongside Loch Lomond which can be tight in places, instead we travelled alongside Loch Lubnaig, we then rejoined the A82 further up, worth considering if you want a less stressful journey :)

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ambulancekidd

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The dogs certainly don't look worried! Things must be about to look up & its so easy to chill out in the highlands, so you'll all enjoy getting back to the serious business of having that holiday.
 
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Now worried about the 'happens in 3's' saying ;)

technically No. 1 didn't really happen, so just the card so far and if you have our luck as soon as its cancelled the original will turn up not lost at all :)(y)

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Dave K

Dave K

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The dogs certainly don't look worried! Things must be about to look up & its so easy to chill out in the highlands, so you'll all enjoy getting back to the serious business of having that holiday.

You're absolutely right, a beautiful part of the world :).
Thanks for the positive thoughts!
 

CWH

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Just as a side note, because of our detour to Cumbernauld to get the van sorted we took the route along the A84 to get to Arisaig it meant cutting out the sometimes treacherous stretch of the A82 alongside Loch Lomond which can be tight in places, instead we travelled alongside Loch Lubnaig, we then rejoined the A82 further up, worth considering if you want a less stressful journey :)
One of my favourite stretches of road
 
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Dave K

Dave K

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One of my favourite stretches of road

Having driven the Loch Lomond route a couple of times I felt the Loch Lubnaig route was a lot easier to navigate, there were still coaches and lorries on the route but I didn't feel like I needed to breathe in quite so much.

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CWH

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Having driven the Loch Lomond route a couple of times I felt the Loch Lubnaig route was a lot easier to navigate, there were still coaches and lorries on the route but I didn't feel like I needed to breathe in quite so much.
And lots of beautiful stopping places if you want a cuppa
 
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Dave K

Dave K

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And lots of beautiful stopping places if you want a cuppa

Yes indeed, we stopped at a cafe that was a church back in 2000, now converted to an Artisan cafe, bone china plates and cups, wasted on me but decent sandwiches and cake....which wasn't wasted on me :)
 

CWH

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Yes indeed, we stopped at a cafe that was a church back in 2000, now converted to an Artisan cafe, bone china plates and cups, wasted on me but decent sandwiches and cake....which wasn't wasted on me :)
Sounds lovely...
... though I was thinking more about pulling over & making your own... :rolleyes: with the door open, sitting on the step and a cracking view ... :D

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Just as a side note, because of our detour to Cumbernauld to get the van sorted we took the route along the A84 to get to Arisaig it meant cutting out the sometimes treacherous stretch of the A82 alongside Loch Lomond which can be tight in places, instead we travelled alongside Loch Lubnaig, we then rejoined the A82 further up, worth considering if you want a less stressful journey :)

We had our honeymoon at forest cabins on Lubinaig and went back couple of times with kids, they called it Loch Lemonade. We were on that road last night on way to our cabin near Oban it was very quiet.
 

laird of Dunstan

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I went looking for a WW2 bomber in Loch lubnaig , we ended up finding one in Loch Ness ,the powers that be decided to finance the lifting of the bomber ,it was a Wellington and they lifted it for the RAF museum .

Loch lubnaig is reconned to have been the site of a large Pictish fort and the graveyard of the 9th legion ,its another of those Scottish myths .
 
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Dave K

Dave K

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We had our honeymoon at forest cabins on Lubinaig and went back couple of times with kids, they called it Loch Lemonade. We were on that road last night on way to our cabin near Oban it was very quiet.

We were admiring the log cabins on the shores of the Loch, they looked lovely

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Hi Dave,

Thanks for the updates, following your thread with interest. We were planning similar for the last 2 weeks in May and first week in June. We've now bought a new van which we pick up mid May. I decided I didn't want to chance all those miles with an untested van so we've put our Scotland trip until September.

Cheers
Alan

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Dave K

Dave K

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An early start this morning, the ferry was booked for 9.40. The weather was a bit miserable, drizzly rain with a bit of wind, but not cold at least. We arrived at the ferry terminal early but worth mentioning, if you need supplies there's a Co-Op about 100 yards away from the roundabout at the terminal, instead of going straight on turn right and it's just on the left hand side with a big parking bay outside. The ferry crossing was fine, cold and windy, but we were one of the few that withstood the weather on the outside deck for the duration, there were times when inside was more appealing but we're on holiday!
Arrived at Skye and the weather was lovely, bit of cloud but mainly sunny, far nicer than the mainland.
We decided as the weather was decent we would try and find fairy pools, we failed miserably last year when we visited Skye but Kath has always wanted to see it so I wasn't going to get away with it again. I don't know where we went wrong last time but I was getting deja vu driving along the same roads that we had the previous year, thinking we would get the same result, when lo and behold we came across a sign pointing us in the direction of the pools. The roads on Skye are great, better than the mainland really, they do have the same single track roads when you venture off the A roads but very easy to navigate because of the amount of passing places, strategically placed pull ins which allow vehicles to pass, placed about every 100 yards this is a system that Cornwall should look at, add into that fellow drivers are actually courteous, there's a novel idea!
The second leg of the journey to fairy pools is a narrow road but as mentioned plenty of passing places, but the difficulty comes in finding a place to park, it's all about timing, there is a top car park, which was full, and there are places to pull in and park, which were full, so I blindly continued down the single track road and about 1/2 mile further down there is a turning with an entrance to a gate, the turning is plenty big enough to house 3 or 4 motor homes and there was only 1 other there, I imagine this is a wild camping spot as well. The only downside of parking there is you have a 1/2 mile hike to catch up with the lucky buggers that parked in the golden spots, but think of the exercise! There is a stony path that goes up to fairy pools, worth the walk to see water that clear and the waterfalls etc and the surrounding scenery is stunning. We had one comedy moment, as the Alpha male I was expected to clamber down rocks to get the best possible pictures of the pools, this meant Kath being in control our 2 labs, after a successful mission i clambered back up to the path to see Kath sat down in a large pile of wet peat, Rosie our feral gun dog variety Labrador had decided she'd like to find out what I was up to and without giving any indication she decided to shoot off to find me, of course her owner was on the end of the lead, the result was the image that faced me when I got back to path level. It probably didn't help when I asked 'what are you sat there for', she had a slight Margot (The Good Life) moment and there were plenty of expletives describing our much loved Labrador, mainly because Kath now had a very wet backside! The weather then too a turn for the worse as we were battered by wind and horizontal rain as we made our way back to our van which was firmly in the distance, an unforgettable day for many reasons.
We stayed the night at Tourvaig campsite in Portree, a basic site but reasonably priced and a shower room that will take you back to the days before central heating, on the plus side the van is behaving and giving me confidence we can survive without a lead for a night or two, it seems that by turning off the aerial booster and the heater control panel it has made a huge difference.
We are now booked on the 18.20 ferry to Tarbert, pics to follow when I have decent internet!
 

CWH

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Will you go the long way round to Uig? (ie head north then follow the coast anti-clockwise) - it's a fantastic road.
Or across the Hill Road to Struan and via Dunvegan & Edinbane?
 
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Dave K

Dave K

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Will you go the long way round to Uig? (ie head north then follow the coast anti-clockwise) - it's a fantastic road.
Or across the Hill Road to Struan and via Dunvegan & Edinbane?

We did the anti clockwise route, stunning scenery, also stopped off at the croft museum which was very interesting

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