Something happens when your travelling you start to get excited, well we do. We set off at 10 am heading along the windy Scottish border roads towards Edinburgh. We picked up the Edinburgh ring road then the M8 to Glasgow, an urban motorway through Glasgow over the river Clyde on the Erskine Bridge. Then we dropped down into Dumbarton for fuel and groceries at Asda. We’ve got 25 miles to go to our overnight parking along Loch Lomond. What a great place to park for the night. Parking for motorhomes and cars, were we can dump wastewater and fill-up with fresh water, a lovely picnic area on a grassy slope down to the banks of Loch Lomond. Lock Lomond and TheTrossachs form a National park establishedh in 2002. The loch is 23 miles long and 502 feet deep it’s one of the largest lakes in the UK, surrounded by Mountains and gigantic trees a beautiful place. It’s free to park here, a great facility for motorhomes, a donation is asked for, we left one willingly, thanks to the local community. From here we leave mid-Scotland and head up into the Highlands

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Next morning up early off we go heading north on the A82, we’re heading to Glen Coe. it took us two hours to get there. On entering the glen we were stunned by it’s natural wild beauty Mountains on one side and wild moorland on the other backed up with more Mountains. It’s impossible to describe in words how beautiful it is. Just up the road we came to the Glencoe mountain rescue and Ski Centre so we pulled in for a coffee. No skiing this time of the year but the ski lifts were open for mountain biking, hiking and sightseeing. The ski lift took us half way up Glencoe the rest you had to walk. Pats just getting over a fractured leg so she didn’t fancy it, so I went on my own I made it half way up the scenery was well worth the effort.

We moved up the Glen to our overnight parking spot, a wild parking place just off the A82. We we’re allowed to park by the Glencoe forestry commission, for one night only, no facilities but that was ok, thanks Glencoe.

What a beautiful place to wake up to in the morning, the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. We’re off to Fort William today on the banks of Loch Linnhe nestled in the foothills of Ben Nevis. Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK 1345 m high. It’s a popular destination attracting 100,000 climbers a year, we weren’t one of them lol. We had a look around Fort William high street it’s just like any other high street in the UK. But Fort William is beautifully situated on Loch Linnhe.

We’re off to the Island o’ Skye, you can go by ferry but we decided to go over the bridge. But first we’re going to park on Loch Garry in the forest. The forestry commission allow us to park one night what a wonderful place to park for the night.

Over the bridge to Skye, we did a tour of the island about 80 miles then to the capital Portree. The Isle of Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides Islands. Skye has a population of 9000 and its main industries are tourism, farming, fishing and forestry. Portree as a lovely harbour, the whole Island is wild and beautiful well worth a visit. Not many places to park for motorhomes on Skye so we went just off the Island over the bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh, did bit of food shopping then parked on a farm for the night.

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Next we’ll be following the north coast 500, it’s a route that runs around the west, north and east coast of the highlands from Inverness to Inverness 516 miles. We’ll be picking it up at Applecross on the west coast a small remote village reached by a very narrow road with passing places. I believe 40 to 50 miles of the route are narrow passing place roads, on the west coast and some of the North coast quite a challenge. So off we went passing through beautiful villages, lovely white sandy bays hundreds of locks, did you know there are 2000 Lochs in Scotland. Driving up very steep hills hoping no one is coming down making you stop, and going down windy narrow steep hills with passing places it’s all good fun. But after 10 miles you start to think will this ever end. And the traffic is quite busy I was having to pull into passing places every 2 or 3 minutes. We have done 80 miles today not all passing place roads but all very narrow, it’s been a hard drive but what a great experience and fantastic scenery. Time to park up for the night we’ve picked a small but lovely campsite right next to a beach and booked in for 3 nights. In a village call Laide on the west coast looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.

We had a lovely 3 days at Laide campsite. relaxing after all the driving and doing only one night stops. Off we go again on the NC500 route we stopped at Ullapool for a meal.

Ullapool is a fishing port and a ferry terminal for the many Island out in the Atlantic Ocean. On we go again on the windy passing place roads.

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We’re moving on now to our overnight stop Kinlochbervie, passing through some lovely villages Lochinver, Unapool, Scourie and Laxford Bridge so many beautfull places. We had a change in the weather it started to rain so we parked up in Kinlochbervie for 2 days while the rain stopped. We parked on the harbor, with all facilities including electric hook up £10 a night excellent. Thats all for now we’ll be moving on to the north coast and John o’ Groats next time. Hope you enjoyed our blog please leave us a comment. 🙂 derekandpat.com xx

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