Many miles, for a start. The whole trip was over 1300 miles, averaging around 53mpg. Considering there was a lot of single track, and a reasonable bit of ‘spirited’ driving, that’s pretty good.
We finally closed the loop we’d started back in 2008 by going round through Durness and Tongue to Bettyhill, meaning we’ve now done the NC500, even if it took us 18 years to do so.
We also visited the most northwest point, Cape Wrath, which took 2 attempts, a very small ferry, and 22 miles along a very bumpy track in a minibus.
We drove about, looked at scenery. We had a few meals out at some varying hotels, and mostly, we relaxed.
Scenery was stunning, roads were quiet (and the Leon proved to be great in sport mode for a bit of fun), and there was a very pleasant lack of crowds. The NC500 campervans were a slight pain some of the time, but not much (we were strategically based just off the route) and the high diesel cost and NC500 inflation meant this wasn’t a cheap holiday, but it was a nice one.
We’ve done a long way north before, of course, a good long time ago. Oddly enough, diesel had gone up in price a lot that time we drove hundreds of miles too, though 2008 prices would seem cheap now.
This time, we were heading west, eventually, but highland roads meant that Mr Google directed us up the A9 Road of Death just past Inverness, then west. But wait! I’m getting ahead of myself, we’ve got a long way to go yet!
We left at a sociable 09:30, and got on the M6T and M6. A quick stop at Tebay, and onwards on the M6, M74, M73, M80, M9 and A9. No serious traffic until we reach Perth, and even then, only a few minutes, and we reach Stanley and our overnight stop.
5:24 driving time, 335 miles, 52.8 mpg.
We went for a hobble down to Stanley Mills before tea, a place we’d been completely unaware of, had an evening meal and settled in to our room for the evening.
Stanley Mills
The next day: breakfast and back on the road. A brief stop for fuel, then onwards on the A9. The “Road of Death” is much tamed now: there’s much more dual carriageway, fewer hazardous junctions, and average speed cameras. We pass Inverness, and before too long turn off.
The roads get smaller, and at one point we have a over 40 mile stretch of thankfully quiet single-track road. We’re lucky though: there’s not much NC500 on our route.
We reach Kinlochbervie and our holiday let after another long drive: 4:20, 201 miles, 58.2 mpg, no hold-ups.
The place is beautiful and peaceful: just the sound of flowing water, sheep, and birdsong. There’s a big fishing harbour, but that’s out of sight.
The view from our cottage
Apart from said harbour, there’s a hotel, a hardware shop/filling station (with one petrol/diesel pump), 2 cafes, and a Spar shop. That’s about your lot, facitities-wise. As it was, the hotel was OK for a bar meal, the one cafe we tried was excellent, and the Spar was well-stocked, which is a good thing.
The cottage itself was warm (it might have been May, but it’s a good bit cooler up there), a decent size, comfortable, and unexpectedly had a decent Internet connection, and it proved to be a great base.
Well, we didn’t actually go to Cullercoats, but I’m not going to miss the chance of squeezing in a song lyric.
Back in May (I’m writing this in late August, but will fudge the timestamp) we went away, to Whitley Bay, staying almost opposite the famous Spanish City:
The Spanish City
We had a easy journey up (though the return one proved to be tedious), notwithstanding me gouging lumps out of the passenger mirror in our parking space, and found our way into the property. The property was a bit of a mixed bag: spacious, but a bit tatty in places, but with a stunning view (including the Spanish City).
We had sunshine a lot of the time, but it was cold for May for a good few days, a hazard of the North East, I suppose.
We wandered about a little, went into Newcastle and Gateshead to see the Baltic:
The Baltic Arts Centre, Gateshead, from over the river
The Metro was excellent: between that and the Ferry (and a short cab ride to the Baltic) we got around to Tynemouth, North Shields, South Shields, the city centre, Gateshead, and back quickly and efficiently.
[note: this is retrospective, posted after the event. It’s also had a title change, and some of the more ranty bits removed, for a possible future post]
We’ve been away. Lanzarote, more specifically, Costa Teguise. A resort we’ve been to before, and it largely caters for British tourists (Germans too, but there’s a strong bias to UK tourism).
Very nice it was too, but I have to say the sheer amount of loud televised football and the near-total ubiquity of lager became a bit frustrating after a while; the upside being that you can get a full English and a pint for very little money, and enjoy it in the sunshine. The majority of the bars are run by English ex-pats using that handy freedom of movement thing.
What’s more, for perhaps the last time, we got to do this via a totally frictionless (and by frictionless, I totally mean that- step off plane, wave passport in general direction of border control, collect luggage, step into sunshine) border (crossed with our newly renewed not-fucking-blue passports), enjoying cheap, easy travel to the sun with no queuing. We paid for things with cards like we were at home. For the first, and maybe the last time, we used our mobile phones just like at home, roaming charge-free onto the local telco’s network and not giving a single fuck about charges per megabyte, so we didn’t even have to search out bars with wifi (though they were plentiful). Of course, we got a shit rate for our Euro currency, but low prices over there helped reduce the impact of that: Euro/Sterling rates were as close as makes no odds to 1:1 (actually 1.1 Euro to 1 GBP), so at least the exchange rate was easier than when we first visited when it was around 1.4-1, and a (400ml, typically) beer varied from 1 Euro to about 3, depending on location and time of day. Eurofizz lager, of course, but in the sun…
Compared to our last visit I’m a little less mobile (especially as I twisted my knee the night before we went), so there was less walking up and down the prom, though we did manage a few shorter strolls, only resorting to a taxi once (which was also amazingly cheap).
Not the most adventurous or exciting of holidays, I’ll grant you, but low stress, warmth, sunshine, and (relatively) low cost.
Again, I’m posting after the event, but I’ve fudged the post date to suit. We went to Broughty Ferry, effectively a suburb of Dundee. N,ot a bad journey, considering: the furthest I’ve driven in one stretch for a good while, and not too tricky either; M6, M74, M73, M80, A9, A90.
The A9 had gained average speed cameras since our last trip on the “road of death”. I don’t know if it’s lowered the casualty rate, but reportedly speeding has reduced; thankfully they’ve had the good sense to raise the 40 mph limit for HGVs on the single carriageway bits to 50. Fortunately, we only had DC bits to deal with.
A little bit of getting lost in Dundee itself saw us at our cottage by around 4:30pm, so after a short rest we went out to the first pub, then find out what Broughty Ferry is like on a Saturday night (the answer is: busy). It’s a suburb that likes to pretend it isn’t, and it’s a little bit affluent: not as many Range Rovers as Sutton, perhaps, but plenty. It feels smaller though, and public transport to central Dundee was good.
We went to have a look at the new V&A, which had opened the day we arrived: a magnificent building, for one so modern. It’s a shame that one view of it will be blocked by what seemed to be another office or hotel being built near it. Near the V&A was the rebuilt station- Dundee has excellent rail connections, at least until Storm Ali came along when we’d gone to Perth (but then we found the bus service is good too).
Dundee is a fine city: the city centre is quite compact and easy to navigate, there’s good pubs and restaurants. It’s also home to D C Thomson, home of the Beano, and the school that inspired The Bash St kids is still there, right in the middle, near the McManus Gallery, which had a Beano-themed exhibition on, which was a nice surprise.
We wandered about, visited some fine pubs, and had some good food. Even our return journey was decent, at less than 6 hours of driving time.
I’m just catching up. Typing this a clear month late, we went to Largs. just over 30 miles west of Glasgow; so it’s where lots of Glaswegians head on a sunny day, as we found when we arrived after a gratifyingly easy journey north, through the city, and back out the other side. The seafront and the pubs were packed with people.
It was quieter later in the week, though still busyish; with Glasgow so close (under an hour on the train) there’s lots of day trippers.
So then, Largs: so many churches. A couple of impresssive churches, but so many. I’m a great fan of churches, less so of what goes on in them, but here they spent a metric fuckload of cash on them, with two Church of Scotland chruches with impressive towers looming over the town.
Besides that, the town is largely traditional seaside; a big, wide prom, a small seafront collection of funfair rides, a kiddie’s play area at one end, a park and boating lake at another.
There’s plenty of pubs too, which you’ll find over at PubBlog, though real ale, and especially good real ale, was a bit scarce, though we fared better for that on a trip into Glasgow.
Talking of trips, the proximity to Glasgow ensured good public transport: a station in the town on one railway line, another line (with the wonderful Wemyss Bay station) just a short bus ride away, ferries to Bute and Great Cumbrae. We even managed to get Dunoon (lovely, but in need of more TLC) and Rothesay (underwhelming) piers in, and all of this without using the car apart from actually getting there. We also managed a trip on PS Waverley on a gloriously sunny day, in a week of sunny days and returned suntanned 🙂 .
I’m not a good traveler these days. Sitting in a plane seat for hours isn’t comfortable and “spending hours in a flying matal tube with bastards” as I refer to flying didn’t seem like a good thing. Thankfully, my better half took this in to account. Flying other than economy was sadly out of the question, but we did at least fly with a good airline (who give enough space for my tall, fat body, decent entertainment and even tolerable food, and we were mostly in A380 aircraft, which is a seriously large, and surprisingly quiet plane. Knowing me well, she also took out the other stress points: we were met at the airports, and driven to our hotels, so while the traveling was tiring, it was as low-stress as possible, given our budget constraints.
So then. Bangkok. Hot, humid, hectic, so not unlike KL all those years ago. We wandered about, though less and slower than in KL due to being older and at least as fat. We went up the Baiyoke Sky Tower, and to the Grand Palace, we had street food, had a river cruise, and took in the madness of it all, then off to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai is heavy on temples. Beautiful, grand temples everywhere. It’s cool compared to Bangkok, but of course, this is only relative. It’s still hot. We stayed pretty much in the middle of the night market.
Next was Hua Hin: Thai seaside, and popular with the royal family (to the degree that the railway station has a royal waiting room.
Sadly, holiday stomach bugs had got a hold of me at this point, so one night here was spent in a Thai hospital, with a suitably large bill for antibiotics and fluids, but recovery was fast. We got to see tigers close up, and spent a day at the excellent Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand.
Returning to the UK was a bit the worse: Bangkok airport, going outwards, places the gates miles from anywhwere you can get food. Dubai was a bit hectic, and Birmingham was just cold 🙂
We’ve been away, and as I still didn’t fancy the long drive required for Scotland that we often take at this time of year, we went a bit closer- Morecambe. Morecambe has something in common with Walsall: Public ridicule by up-themselves arseholes.
All too soon it was time to start our journey back home. Unlike our welsh excursion, where we were glad to leave, we’d have liked a bit longer, but with around 12 hours drive, the journey has to be split. We took a different route south, which is quicker, as it happens, and less single-track- across to Inverness, a short burst on the A9, blowing past the dawdlers in a plume of particulates, and a detour to see some friends just off a the wonderful A939 to hear the tales of not being able to go out for 4 months and having the washing line as your only visible garden feature (putting the snow here in perspective somewhat), then continuing down the back way of the A93 rather than the A9 “Road of Death”, and finding that either a) Citroen C4 VTRs don’t handle, or the guy driving one was a wuss: The Leon goes *very* well over the twisties- far too quick for an ‘automatic’ diesel hatch, even if you get shaken about a bit as the suspension isn’t exactly soft.
We’d stayed a bit too long at the friend’s place, and got stuck in traffic around Perth. That and one wrong turn (signage in Perth is shite) meant we reached our (very nice) overnight stop after 5pm, though we still made the pub before 6pm…
A nice meal and a few drinks folowed by a good night’s sleep & breakfast saw us back on the road at 9:20am. From there it’s mostly motorway until sunny Brownhills. We’ve covered around 1400 miles, averaging in the region of 48mpg, and the cat was pleased to see us.
Aultbea proved to be a good base: there’s two hotels nearby, a very well stocked shop, and views across Loch Ewe from our very comfortable cottage. There were a few walks from the door (Laide Woods, Mellon Charles, some small Lochs), and a few nice bits of driving: The Applecross Pass was entertaining, as was the drive towards Ullapool on the A832. Any road in this corner of the country provides a bit of fun, and usually several fantastic views.
Other nearby attractions included Inverewe Garden, and the country’s smallest distillery at the Drumchork Lodge Hotel just up the road- you can witness whiskey-making on a very small scale.
