Trip report: Scottish highlands
Friday Seemingly a rare thing, but I don’t have to be on a customer site this week. So I am working from home. In these situations I tend to start work at 05:00, effectively working middle-eastern ...
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Saturday
Up at 06:00 we headed North, skirting the Lake District, but avoiding the motorway until necessary. After a while we left the hills and crossed into the Scottish borders, crunching the miles up the M74 motorway.
We reached Glasgow and followed the Clyde – a major shipbuilding hub in its time, before turning North again into the start of the Highlands.
A quick stop at Loch Lomond:
There is some beautiful scenery which we flew straight past, but we have certain goals on this trip and don’t have time to stop everywhere on route. But, having briefly experienced this area we will definitely be back again for a longer stay.
Normally truck campers are extremely rare in the UK. So it was with great surprise that on the motorway we passed an identical truck (itself a rare site in this age, colour and cab combination) carrying a European built truck camper. I would have waved, but I was so stunned I just stared. They did the same! Later we passed another truck, this time a German-owned Nissan, again with a small European truck camper on the back. Normally we only see regular class B and C RVs, but as soon as we crossed the border we saw no end of non-standard RVs – converted buses, home-built class Bs, etc. Sort of like a giant Burning Man, but colder and with less sand. I think Scotland is a Mecca for such RVs. I like them, but am aware many campgrounds will look unkindly upon such vehicles – then again I suspect most owners of such vehicles are not wanting to pay for camping, plus the type of luxury campground that would exclude home-built vehicles is probably the type I would avoid too (like the one someone mentioned recently that was biased towards class As and excluded truck campers).
We arrived in Fort William early afternoon.
Since we intended to climb Ben Nevis the following day (Britain’s tallest mountain, though that really isn’t very tall by normal mountain standards), we needed to take into account the likely weather. And the likely weather for Ben Nevis is high winds, driving rain and, this being summer, temperatures only just above freezing point.
Hence we decided to pick up some waterproof over-pants. However, on visiting a local outdoor equipment shop we found they had a sale with 60% reductions. So we came out with the waterproof pants, and a couple of shirts for Sally, and some socks, and a new rucksack too. It is the end of summer of course so these retailers have their end of season sales on – I love a bargain :)
The campground I chose was just below Ben Nevis. We considered booking in advance, but their website said there was a £5 booking fee – what a wrip-off. Given it was the weekend before the kids return to school I decided that most people would have vacated the campground by Saturday to make the long journey south. So it turned out, with ample camping available, and the showers and bathrooms were almost empty.
The weather was beautiful for Ben Nevis this afternoon – sunny, perfect visibility all the way to the summit – in other words extremely rare weather.
Not to worry, it was too late to climb it today – we would be doing that tomorrow and the weather was forecast to revert to normal then – i.e. rain, cold, 30mph gusting 60mph winds.
Stay tuned for more…
Up at 06:00 we headed North, skirting the Lake District, but avoiding the motorway until necessary. After a while we left the hills and crossed into the Scottish borders, crunching the miles up the M74 motorway.
We reached Glasgow and followed the Clyde – a major shipbuilding hub in its time, before turning North again into the start of the Highlands.
A quick stop at Loch Lomond:
There is some beautiful scenery which we flew straight past, but we have certain goals on this trip and don’t have time to stop everywhere on route. But, having briefly experienced this area we will definitely be back again for a longer stay.
Normally truck campers are extremely rare in the UK. So it was with great surprise that on the motorway we passed an identical truck (itself a rare site in this age, colour and cab combination) carrying a European built truck camper. I would have waved, but I was so stunned I just stared. They did the same! Later we passed another truck, this time a German-owned Nissan, again with a small European truck camper on the back. Normally we only see regular class B and C RVs, but as soon as we crossed the border we saw no end of non-standard RVs – converted buses, home-built class Bs, etc. Sort of like a giant Burning Man, but colder and with less sand. I think Scotland is a Mecca for such RVs. I like them, but am aware many campgrounds will look unkindly upon such vehicles – then again I suspect most owners of such vehicles are not wanting to pay for camping, plus the type of luxury campground that would exclude home-built vehicles is probably the type I would avoid too (like the one someone mentioned recently that was biased towards class As and excluded truck campers).
We arrived in Fort William early afternoon.
Since we intended to climb Ben Nevis the following day (Britain’s tallest mountain, though that really isn’t very tall by normal mountain standards), we needed to take into account the likely weather. And the likely weather for Ben Nevis is high winds, driving rain and, this being summer, temperatures only just above freezing point.
Hence we decided to pick up some waterproof over-pants. However, on visiting a local outdoor equipment shop we found they had a sale with 60% reductions. So we came out with the waterproof pants, and a couple of shirts for Sally, and some socks, and a new rucksack too. It is the end of summer of course so these retailers have their end of season sales on – I love a bargain :)
The campground I chose was just below Ben Nevis. We considered booking in advance, but their website said there was a £5 booking fee – what a wrip-off. Given it was the weekend before the kids return to school I decided that most people would have vacated the campground by Saturday to make the long journey south. So it turned out, with ample camping available, and the showers and bathrooms were almost empty.
The weather was beautiful for Ben Nevis this afternoon – sunny, perfect visibility all the way to the summit – in other words extremely rare weather.
Not to worry, it was too late to climb it today – we would be doing that tomorrow and the weather was forecast to revert to normal then – i.e. rain, cold, 30mph gusting 60mph winds.
Stay tuned for more…
