roemin around

The motorhome holiday this year took us on a round trip of 2150 miles to the majestic scenery of the north of Scotland. We did most of the NC500 route around the north coast that is being heavily promoted as 'the best drive in the world' and Scotland's Route 66. But we added on the Trossocks, Speyside and the Isle of Skye, all places we have not been to before. We timed the trip very well enjoying almost 3 weeks of mostly unbroken sunshine at the start of the trip, although it was cold at night and windy at times. Then a few very wet days on the west coast, followed by two hot days, bought the midges out and we retreated south with some bites. We managed to fit in stops at the Tower ballroom in Blackpool on the way up and the Lake district on the way back. We stayed at a combination of 5 Caravan and Motor-home Club sites, 5 Camping and Caravan Club sites, 8 independent sites mostly on the NC500 , one wild night at Aviemore and 4 Britstops going to and from Scotland. We ...

Rosemary shopped in the farm shop and I picked some fresh strawberries from the PYO poly-tunnels. They have thousands of plants growing in waist high troughs so PYO is really easy as the fruits are just dangling ready to pick. Yields and harvesting time must be 10 times traditional method on the ground. We spent a few hours at Shugborough, the NT property that belonged to the Anson family, later Lord Lichfield. Interesting place thats worth another visit when the NT have done more work on presentation of the last Peter Lichfield photography stuff. We arrived home at 4:00pm after taking a rather slow A5 from Stafford back to Croft. The total round trip was 2150 miles.

I had another fruitless 2 hours of fly fishing  and Rosemary found some interesting plants in the onsite garden centre before​ we left the nice little site at Sizerg. We found a Britstop and  NT property near Stafford for a final stop on the grand tour. We stopped on the M6 at a service station with an M&S and found some bargains. We passed the 2000 mile marker on the way. The Br itstop is a farm shop and soft fruit farm by a canal. I had another hour fishing and caught a roach whilst Rosemary made a traditional Scottish delicacy, macaroni cheese. The Belgium Britstoppers were surprised I did not want to eat the roach.

A quiet midge free night developed into a warm sunny day. We had breakfast baps in the Two Sisters cafe and bought a few things from the artisan shops on the Britstop before leaving. I drove the 15 miles or so to Lake Windermere and parked near Nab Pier for a few hours while we walked into Bowness, which was heaving with tourists. We had a look round the shops, had a simple lunch and caught the little tourist train back to the car park. We are staying on a small site with a garden centre, tearoom and trout fishing lake. We called in to nearby Sizerg castle, a NT place, for an hour on the way and looked round the gardens. I spent 2 hours fishing until it was dark but without success.

After another midge disturbed night we awoke to a dank day by the Loch. So I sorted the van out ready to head back to England with an open destination. The A82 took us back over the Erskine bridge which completed the circuit of Scotland and there was 1770 miles on the clock. It was a change to drive on Motorways instead of winding A and B roads. It rained and the M8 through Glasgow was busy. We stopped at Moffat for a lunch break, checked the weather forecast, as it was still raining, then decided to go to the Lake District for a couple of nights. We are now at a farm shop Britstop near Kendal, the sun is out and hopefully we have left the midges behind.

It's been a typical British bank holiday Monday today. We have travelled about 90 miles and it's rained most of the time. We went down the Argyle coast to begin, almost to Oban, then cut inland through the Glens to the west shore of Loch Lomond near Luss. Before we left Rosemary raided the seafood deli at the Britstop and we have just eaten 8 Langustine and a dozen mussels with a bottle of Muscadet. En route we stopped at a Scottish Power pumped hydroelectric station blasted out of the rock in a mountain bordering Loch Awe in the 60's. Incredible to see the way it was constructed back then.  Health and safety was a woolly hat, a pair of wellies and a packet of Woodbines.  We took the tour 1km into the mountain to see the underground generator cavern. The station can go from 0 to 0.5gigaW in 2 minutes, to meet peak demands. We are spending tonight in Loch Lomond Holiday Park. This will probably be our last stop in Scotland and we should be back in England tomorrow, ju...

We are heading further south today in the direction of Fort William, the outdoor capital of the UK, on a murky morning after some overnight rain. It's certainly the largest town we have encountered in the last 3 weeks, with similarities to Buxton. It's close to Ben Nevis, highest peak in the UK, which we could almost see from the commando memorial on the A82 a few miles north at Spean Bridge. We stopped at a farm shop on the way to the outdoor centre by which time the clouds had lifted into sunny intervals and the north face of the mountain was clearly visible with patches of snow. We stopped again at a Costa coffee in Fort William and had a walk along the warm and sunny main street which was busy and very touristy. We are stopping at a Britstop by Loch Leven at a Seafood Restaurant tonight. Unfortunately we could not eat there cos they were booked solid, it being a holiday weekend. They do have a shop that opens tomorrow and will have some of our custom no doubt. The sc...