North Highland Roadtrip: 28th-30th May 2016

My southern sister came to visit as part of her own scottish roadtrip on the 27th, and I accompanied her and her boyfriend for the first leg of their journey, to Loch Lomond. We travelled in convoy, and unfortunately got separated just outside of Dumbarton, so I had a few miles of nerve-racking, blood-pressure-raising driving in and out of mobile homes and lazy holiday drivers to catch up with them, and guide them to our designated picnic spot on the shore.

It was a beautiful spot, and as we left our cars, the relentless grey overhead broke and patches of sunshine appeared on the rippling water. We enjoyed a casual walk around some of the Loch (it's enormous, but more on that at the end of this post!) and after a while we returned to our cars for lunch, ate up, and said goodbye. Their target destination for the day was Oban, 57 miles away. My target was Ullapool, 178 miles away. Then again, I am more experienced at roadtrips than they are...

My sister actually took this photo, but it was on my camera, and I liked it more than any of mine.

I drove through the majestic Glencoe, and less enjoyably Fort William (I have visited Fort William before, and I really don't like it as a town), again using a road atlas in preference of a GPS. This freed my phone to become a dashboard cam. Unfortunately you need panoramic vision to fully appreciate the beauty, but it was worth a try. I made brief stops en route for epic scenery, including Eilen Donan Castle. A colleague had reccomended Plockton, so that would be my second "official" stop, and potentially somewhere to stay the night if Ullapool seemed too distant.

Plockton was at first unimpressive, I drove there via a network of single track roads so small I thought i must be lost. However as I came over the crest of the hill towards the village, I was greeted by a spectacular sight, so I parked there and then, put on my hiking boots, and went for a walk.

I began to follow the road down toward the village (Plockton village has its own tiny peninsula) but saw a footpath leading toward the cove, so I took that instead. The trail took me over a boardwalk throguh a marshy area at the bottom of the cove, then along a narrow ascending trail into the bay. As I got closer, I got to see that amazing Mount Rushmore-like cliff face up close, so I stopped to take some photos. Then as I came round the corner I saw some boats harboured serenely in (what I slowly realised was) the north sea.  So I stopped to take some photos. Then further along the trail I spied some picturesque cottages on the waterfront across the cove... you get the idea. It was all beautiful and very serene, at what was evidently beoming my favourite time of day to take photos - late afternoon. As the trail plunged into a sun dappled mossy woodland, the sound of bagpipes floated up from the village. I have recently finished an excellent book about travelling - a memoir about a girl with an obsession for "doint the thing you're supposed to do in the place you're supposed to do it". Hiking in the highlands to the tune of bagpipes felt like I was thoroughly ticking that box.

I loved this sign and how it looked like it was buried in moss!

The cute village of Plockton across the bay. See how clear the water is!

An afternoon of serenity after a lot of driving.

 I did enquire at the B&B in Plockton, but it was fully booked, and so was the bunkhouse, due to this being bank holiday weekend. I didn't know how long it would take me to get to Ullapool as I couldn't get GPS signal, and I was afraid that I would end up driving along these tiny country roads in the dark. I decided to stay at the next place with a vacancy.

Winding my way out of Plockton, I soon found myself driving along bigger roads. Rain began to fall, and as we sped through a dark foresty bit of trail, I saw a sign for a hostel. I turned the car around and approached the hostel, but it looked so creepy hidden amongst the dark pines in the rain that I almost passed it by. As I parked Astrid I couldn't help but think of horror movies. I was a lone woman, with no phone signal, in this creepy forest, taking shelter from the inclement weather just as night was falling... The man who greeted me at the door was swiss. He was very friendly, and told me apologetically that he only had two beds left. "how many of you are there?" he asked. This made me feel better. "Just one." I told him.

Gerry's Hostel - Craig

I paid in euros that night because that was all I had in my purse. The hostel was, as it turned out, listed in the Scottish Independent Hostels guide, perfectly legitimate despite its foreboding location. Technically it is in the conurbation of "Craig" although it could hardly be called a village, as there was no pubwithin walking distance for me to have dinner. Furthermore breakfast was not provided (although, tellingly, a drying room was!) I changed rooms twice - first because I had placed myself in the main dorm, which was actually being taken over by a party of ten - second because after spending some time reading by the window in my smaller dowm, I noticed an enormous house spider that was moving about on the ceiling, and the fear of that dropping on me while I was asleep (or indeed awake) was too terrifying a prospect to cope with. At last I settled for the one remaining down which had a couple and their third wheel (as far as I could make out) staying in there. They were from Leeds. The husband was a bit strange, he stared a lot. When I eventually moved into the room he was asleep in his single bed, topless with a fantastic tanline/sunburn line on display, his book still in his hand and his mouth wide open.

I woke early the next morning, and was back on the road by 7am in search of breakfast/dinner. Surprisingly I wasn't too hungry, so I was able to enjoy the winding empty mountain roads, weaving around monroes, lochs and glens as I made my way north east. Those of you with access to a map will notice that Ullapool is actually pretty much directly north of Craig, but the nature of highland roads is that I had to travel east 45 miles and then west 32 miles. Luckily the scenery more than made up for it, and for the first thirty minutes I didn't see another car on the road, and very few signs of civilisation besides the road I was driving on. This made this arbitrary traffic light all the more frustrating. It took so long to change I began to wonder if it was broken, and I should ignore it...

It changed eventually, but I had enough time to get my camera out,
take this photo, and put it away again.

A typical example of the beautiful views from the road to Ullapool

Finally I arrived in Ullapool, a place so stunningly beautiful, I was taking photos before I was even fully out of the car - before I even got my hands on some breakfast!

Ullapool harbour

I love the low cloud. The night before it felt
spooky, now it feels mystical, like I'm
discovering somewhere secret (haha)

Ullapool town in the early morning

After a delicious, still warm fruit scone with real butter and Essex Jam, I navigated the bathroom (Stays or Braces - which is the ladies?) and carried on, now not knowing where I was going, only "North." GPS had worked for just long enough last night to tell me that the coastal route was only thirty minutes longer than the more direct road, and the Wife of the Leeds couple in the hostel had highly recommended it (besides the Orkney Islands, a beach ten miles hike from the road, and many other places which required a week to explore sadly, not three days) so I took the coastal route.

I drove over so many cattle grids, I never knew if I was in a sheep field or outside of one, or maybe a field full of different sheep to the last one? Who knows. At one point we experienced a more exotic livestock-based holdup:

Highland Cattle causing a traffic jam.

It was fantastic. The weather was perfect, and the scenery was spectacular, especially as I arrived into Durness, where I saw flashes of white sandy beaches ensconsed in dramatic cliff-lined coves. In one such cove I discovered the mysterious Smoo Caves, where I arrived minutes too late to join a tour (the only way to see the whole of the caves, as you get across into the second cavern by boat), but I still enjoyed poncdering the immense size of the cave, created by the sea, and the hole in the ceiling. It was fun to read the many local legends surrounding the grotto, including the true story of Macleod, a serial killer who had hid the bosdies of his victims in there, safe in the knowledge that the superstitious townsfolk would never enter it for fear the devil himself lurked within.

Smoo - where the devil lives apparently

I stopped briefly in the tiny hamlet of Reay (they are all tiny hamlets in the Highlands, but this one had the bonus of a petrol station) and got fuel for both of us - unleaded for Astrid, icecream for me! On the subject of petrol stations, I did notice that every single village had an electric car charging point, but only about one in three had petrol!  paid £1.25 a litre (18p more than it cost in Glasgow or Inverness!) It was only a short drive then to Thurso, a port town from where people get ferries to Shetland and the Orkney Islands. Thurso had been described as "quite nice", but apart from a very friendly lady at the tourist information desk, who had a similar love of roadtrips, I found Thurso to be a little uninspiring apart from the ruins of its once magnificent castle. It was one of those towns where I kept worrying if Astrid was safe and double-locked.

From Thurso it was not far to John O'Groats, the tiny settlement which marks the furthest extent of the mainland United Kingdom. As I approached, and a particularly moody track began to play on my Gaelic singing CD (don't judge me), I watched the cloud roll in off the sea. Because of the height of the land, it was not rolling across the sky, but across the fields and roads towards us. Soon we were engulfed in this eerie grey mist, and I had to put the fog lights on as we wound our way down this well travelled road.

John O Groats was hence a grey and windy experience. I took some photos of the sign, of the octagonal house (so that John O Groats and his seven sons could all enter at the same time, saving any arguments), and of the misty sea, left a voicemail for my parents "I'm only 2,200 miles from the North Pole!", thanked Astrid for her heroic dependability in getting me here, and began the long drive south. There was nowhere else to go!

Shetland isn't looking very appetising!

I stopped off onlyt once on my route back. Sadly the cloud cloaked us for most of the route down, so I could only guess at the rugged clifftops and elusive bays hidden in the foggy greyness. The cloud did clear just enough however for me to see the magnificent turrets of Dunrobin castle. There were signposts for it as I entered Golspie (indeed it featured on their village sign) so I spent an excitable fifteen minutes touring the castle grounds snapping photos of the romantic castle facade and its elabourate formal gardens.

Finally I arrived at Tain, where I had booked a £50 B&B for the night - Shandwick House. Although I was trying my best to be a budget traveller, and definitely broke the budget here, it was absolutely worth it, I knew as soon as I walked in through the door. I had found the house without GPS by a lucky drive by and some good signage. The entrance hall smelt beautiful (a reed diffuser was sat on a chest of drawers by the door, and I was lead up to the third floor, where I had a sea view room, my own en suite, fresh, clean white sheets on an incredibly suishy bed with the softest pillows I have ever slept on and even my own TV! I was very happy and the host kindly directed me to somewhere where I could make up for missing last night's dinner (I had only had The Scone and a cheese toastie since). The Old Railway Station was a new, quite hipster place, which I could see from my bedroom window. The food was excellent, but the prices were rather painful. Altogether it was an expensive, luxurious night!


The next morning I enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the Shandwick House B&B, before heading out into the still lingering gloom, following the A9 south. As I passed through the evocatively named Black Isle, I turned off the main road to visit Chanonry Point - famous for dolphin sightings. The time of year was perfect, but unfortunately the tide was on the way out, so I saw no Dolphins. I returned to the A9, and compliantly followed it until I saw a turning for Fort Augustus. I didn't hesitate to think how close Fort Augustus may be, and followed a long, tiny B road for the entire length of Loch Ness without once seeing the Loch itself. Eventually, determined to make the best of a bad decision, I took another impulsive turning, for Foyers Falls (2 miles). After a little bit of caravan-based grievance, I arrived at the falls, where I was rewarded with a beautiful green woodland, and a vista worthy of past hour's brain-numbing drive. There was a very tall waterfall, which had inspired Robert Burns. His quotes were scattered around the wood on blocks of slate. The waterfall had once been very powerful, but thanks to a hydro-electric power plant further upstream, it now poured, rather than gushed, over the cliff face.

The drop is 62 metres (165) in Gaelic it is called the smoking falls.

Calmed by the immense natural beauty (and what was becoming a trend for me to see Sunday morning waterfalls) I joined General Wade's Military Way, a slightly larger and more scenic road, which took me directly to Fort Augustus. On the way, the sun finally returned.

I nearly didn't stop in Fort Augustus due to the fact it was heaving with tourists, but having clipped a bend badly as I entered the town, I thought I had better check the car. Astrid was absolutely fine, so I grabbed an ice lolly (fending off a frenchman who didn't know how to queue) and sat in the sun by the canal scorning the tourists, whilst also hating myself for being one of them. Presently I cbecame aware of some comotion higher up the canal, and was excited to see three tourist boats making their way through the many loch gates higher up. I took lots of photos and enjoyed the sunshine and the beautiful scenery before returning to Astrid, to drive home.

This was surprisingly entertaining to watch

I was now faced with a choice: I could go out of my way to return to the A9, or I could take the shorter route back through Glencoe, Fort William and Loch Lomand. I made another bad choice.

For hours and hours I sweltered in the car, chasing idle motorhomes, winding around aggravating cyclists (there was some kind of cycle race in Glencoe, on May Bank Holiday Monday, probably one of the most traffic-intense days of the year) By the time I got to Loch Lomond it was stop-start nose to nose traffic. during a brief period in fourth gear, I passed some hitch hikers for Glasgow, and I guess I hadn't learned my lesson yet regarding impulse decisions, because I stopped, and for the first time ever I picked them up.

The boys had just finished studying at Edinburgh uni and were due to graduate this summer. They had been on a group hike of the length of Loch Lomond, which had taken them longer than my entire trip. As we drove along in the nightmarish traffic, and the rain finally caught up with me, doing nothing to alleviate the stifling heat, I was extremely grateful for the company. We discussed everything from the geography of Loch Lomand to the philosophical implications of translating a language, from social welfare projects in Massacheusets to employment opportunities for humanities graduates (as all three of us were or would soon become). I dropped them at a train station in Glasgow an hour and a half after I had planned to be home, and whilst they were very grateful, I was moreso, because I think I would have had some sort of mental breakdown being trapped in that awful queue on my own. Just thinking about it still fills me with anxiety.

When I got back, my sister and her boyfriend suggested a takeaway, so we tucked into pizza watching disney films until it was time to sleep. Over the course of the weekend I drove over 750 miles,  and decided that next weekend, I would take it easy!