Scotland has really turned on the weather for us. Today was beautiful and sunny and 24 degrees!
And the drive today was incredible.

We started by driving down from the mountain where we’d camped for the night to the little seaside town of Applecross.

It was a quaint little fishing village, and there were guys selling what they claimed were the world’s best bacon rolls. Unfortunately, we’d just had breakfast. Bad timing.

From Applecross we continued north, following tiny single-lane roads that twisted their way around the coast. There were mountains on one side, the sea on the other, and every time we rounded another corner there seemed to be another enormous view.

There were loads of viewpoints along the way, so we stopped at one, toasted a cinnamon bagel and smothered it in butter. Diet starts now!

We also realised that, despite having absolutely no intention of doing it, we were now well and truly on the NC500.

The NC500 is a 500-mile circuit around the north coast of Scotland. I’d heard that it could get ridiculously busy, with motorhomes queuing up along the single-lane roads, so it sounded like exactly the sort of thing we’d hate.

But here we are, doing it. And it’s been incredible.

Even more surprisingly, it hasn’t been particularly busy for the end of August. For long stretches today we had the road almost to ourselves.

I reckon we might have hit a sweet spot where the kids have gone back to get ready for school in September, while the motorhome folk are waiting until September before heading away. Whatever the reason, right now it’s amazingly quiet.

We are absolutely loving the Highlands. It has that remote feeling we love, with huge empty landscapes, mountains, lochs and, of course, lots of winding narrow roads.

The only problem is finding somewhere to sleep for the night.

Most of the suitable places seem to have signs saying “No Overnight Parking”, which seems a bit rude. Plenty of Scottish people come to New Zealand and sleep for free in our country!

There are a few places where you can pay £10 for the night, but you don’t actually get anything for your £10. No toilet. No facilities. Just somewhere to park. Nope!

So today we really struggled to find somewhere to stay.

Eventually we pulled into a little layby where we could get right off the road. It had absolutely incredible views across to Quinag, one of the distinctive mountains of Assynt.

It was a beautiful spot, but we weren’t 100% sure about staying. The ground looked like it could get pretty boggy if it rained, and there was a rather ominous dark cloud looming in the distance.

We cooked up a burger (diet starts tomorrow), had some dinner and spent a while debating what to do.
Then we decided it probably wasn’t worth the risk and moved on.

Thankfully, in the next little town we found a rest area with no signs saying we couldn’t stay overnight. It had a beautiful view, plenty of room and just one other van parked there. Perfect.

We settled in for an early night after what had turned out to be one of our best driving days in Scotland so far.

Wow, the days just keep getting better!

We weren’t going to go to Skye, but as we were driving right past it, we decided we might as well drive over the bridge and onto the island.

As expected, it was super busy. There was plenty of traffic on the roads and apparently cruise ships come in with thousands of people who then swarm all the major scenic spots.
But we had a plan to avoid all that.

We turned left off the main road and onto a single-lane track which took us away from the madness.
And it was a beautiful drive, winding amongst towering hills and alongside a loch before eventually taking us down to the sea.

Unfortunately, there was nowhere decent to stay along this stretch, so we had to backtrack and we got off Skye as quickly as we could.

Then came the interesting part.

We turned onto a road that had warnings.

No motorhomes. Experienced drivers only. Dangerous road, etc!

The campervan behind us decided it wasn’t worth the risk and turned around. But we’ve been on some pretty gnarly roads over the years, so we decided to go for it.

And wow, was it worth it.

It was quite possibly the most interesting drive we’ve done yet. The road was ridiculously narrow and steep, and the views were amazing.

By this time it was around 7pm, and I’m so glad we’d left it this late because there was barely any traffic. There were plenty of passing places too, which thankfully were clearly marked.

The other problem was finding somewhere to sleep for the night. We’d seen nothing along the way and there was nothing showing on our apps either.

But when we got to the top of the pass, there was a nice car park with only a couple of people in it. Our app said no overnight parking, but there were no signs anywhere saying we couldn’t.
So that was good enough for us.

Another girl was planning to sleep there in her car too, as apparently the town below was full of midges.

We parked up for the night and Mike went about cooking tea and getting grumpy with me for trying to help.
So I left him to it and went for a walk over the hill to see the amazing views and the colour in the sky as the sun was setting.

On my way back, two giant stags were blocking my path.

Their antlers were huge and they looked very scary, so there was no way I was walking past them. I took a rather large diversion back to the van instead.

By the time I got back, Mike had just finished cooking our Thai vegetable curry. We put it into our takeaway mugs and carried them back over the hill to watch the sunset.

It was perfect.

Then Mike noticed I was sitting on something.

Under the rock I was sitting on was a geocache!

So we had a look inside, added our names and I left one of my stickers.

Then it was back to Bertie for a very peaceful night on the mountain.

It was an awesome drive today.

First up, we caught a ferry to avoid driving anywhere near Glasgow. It was only a 20-minute crossing and it wasn’t even very busy. But when they charged us £52, we balked. That was ridiculously expensive.

I remember scoffing at paying €100 for a two-hour fjord cruise in Norway for us and Bertie, but this was next-level insane! And the fjord cruise in Norway turned out to be incredible — though we didn’t know that at the time we paid.

Anyway, that was my freakout for the day. Still better than driving the long way around via Glasgow.
Then came the really scenic part, driving alongside Loch Eck. What a beautiful loch. It looked more like a sound back home in New Zealand, but without anybody else there.

It was mostly a driving day today. We wanted to get up into the Highlands.

And then we hit them.

The hills grew around us.

And so did the traffic.

It seems like park-ups with free dump points are now a thing of the past. But with a full pee tank, we needed to get rid of it. Campgrounds up here range from £32–£45 a night, and it’s not really in our interests to stay in places like that when all we need to do is empty the tanks and find somewhere to sleep.

But we found the perfect spot at the Glencoe ski resort.

It cost £5 to dump our waste, £5 to park overnight — technically a donation, which obviously we paid — and £1 each for a nice hot shower.

And as well as all that, we had an absolutely beautiful view of the Highlands. There are even 24-hour toilets here!

So, for £12, we considered that a bargain in this touristy part of Scotland.

It was a super quiet night, and we slept well.

We had a lovely quiet night sleep at the disused nuclear power plant. This morning we met our neighbours and spent the morning chatting with them and looking for whales. Apparently someone had seen one the previous morning.

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning, so calm and the water still as. Because the weather was so nice, we decided to go for a bike ride to the next town of Fairlie. It was a lovely ride on a mixture of unused roads and a forest and along the coastal path.

When we reached Fairlie, we stopped at a seat and ate our lunch. Ham and cheese sandwich and two mini pork pies. Yum yum.

Fairlie was a gorgeous little town with nothing much there. A few houses lining the waterfront and a pub. There was a beautiful ride along the waterfront where there were just a few people walking their dogs.

Now, something I noticed yesterday were people walking their dogs in prams. I saw one woman doing it, and immediately later another one. So I asked if it was an Ayrshire thing as I’d never seen it before. She said, no, it was just because her dog was old.

But then when I saw someone else today walking dog in a pram I decided it wasn’t a coincidence, it was a thing. Probably a bit like eating a snickers bar with a knife and fork. You see one person doing it, suddenly everyone is doing it.

Then we headed back towards camp and I found another bridle path which would take us to another town. So we followed that for a while, until it hit the main road, then decided that was enough.

Still, it was so nice to be back on the bikes again, and hopefully we’ll get more chances up here as it’s much cooler.

That evening back at camp, the weather was so calm and the water like glass. We sat outside beside the water and watched the sun go down. It was perfect.

Today we moved on from our lovely beach camp. It was sad saying goodbye to our new friends. They even offered us some more mackerel to take with us. We gave them a rockmelon, then were on our way.

Our first stop was the quaint seaside town of Portpatrick. It was a really pretty place, with colourful houses around the harbour and lots of pubs and cafés.

And there were shops here. I went a little mad buying stuff.

But I really did need jandals, a raincoat and a puffin.

My justification: no more flip-flopping around in my clown jandals, I can now go out for walks when it’s raining (it does that a lot up here) and, most importantly, I have a puffin to join my ever-increasing stuffed toy collection on the dash.

We thought about having a pub lunch, but I really just fancied a Tesco sandwich meal deal. And there was one in the next town.

But when we got to the next town, we couldn’t find the Tesco and ended up in Lidl instead, where we bought some bread and cheese. That would do for lunch.

Then it was a bit of dual-carriageway driving on our way to our next stop. We didn’t exactly know where this was, but I found a spot for the night and we were heading there.

But when we arrived, we drove through a nuclear power plant, which seemed really creepy. There were nuclear signs all over the place and a big barbed-wire fence and security, and I pretty much decided we wouldn’t be staying there before we even arrived.

But when we got to the carpark at the end, it was a beautiful spot overlooking the loch, which is basically a fjord. Then we decided we would be staying there!

It turns out the power station is actually disused and in the process of being decommissioned. Now it just has to sit there for 50 years until it’s safe to dismantle the reactor.

We saw a castle way off in the distance and a coastal path leading to it. So we followed it. There were towering cliffs on our left that reminded me of Kairakau Beach in Hawke’s Bay.

Turns out this is part of the Ayrshire Coastal Path, and it was an absolutely gorgeous walk. Along the way we saw people stopping and looking out over the loch. So, as you do, we did the same.

Then we saw what they were looking at. Dolphins! And apparently they saw a whale out there too. So we’ll be keeping an eye out for those.

After about 30 minutes we arrived at the castle we’d seen, and there was a little township there, with houses. And then we wandered back.

For dinner we had marinated pork, rice and salad. It was really nice.

Today I got up before the sunrise again. I was awake so why not. But this time I tried not to wake Mike and took a walk along the beach.

It was another beautiful sunrise and I felt lucky to be here.

We decided to stay put for another day, as Mike feels like he’s come down with something.

Our neighbours went kayak fishing and brought back a load of mackerel, and were handing them out to people at the camp.

We fried some up straight away and it was delicious and tasted a bit like salmon.

I spent most of the day editing another video, then that evening our neighbours bought us some smoked mackerel to try. It was next level delicious!

Then we joined them with our other neighbour from Wiltshire and sat around their campfire for the evening. It was really nice.

This morning I awoke at 6am, looked out the window and wow! The sunrise was spectacular! And suddenly Mike was woken up too. (Serves him right for waking me up snoring.) But even he realised that the sunrise was incredible.

Then it got cold and we actually turned our heater on!

We took a walk to Port Logan, on the other side of the isle. It was a long straight road and pleasant enough, taking just over 30 minutes. On the other side was a beautiful bay, and a stone lighthouse at the end. It was gorgeous.

On the beach a load of giant jelly fish had washed up and I decided I wouldn’t be swimming. The cold weather had nothing to do with it.

On the walk back I saw a hare, which made my day. We stopped and stood perfectly still as it ran towards us. I got some good photos on my camera.

That afternoon a lot more people started arriving, and I realised it was the weekend. A couple of guys parked next to us with their kayaks, and they’re planning on going kayak fishing for mackerel.

A lady on our right has come all the way from Wiltshire with her dog. It’s a really friendly place and we’re enjoying it here. Maybe we’ll stay a few more days.

We took our time this morning, just enjoying the nice spot we’d camped at, and got away just after lunch.
It was a gorgeous drive today, most of it along the south coast.

Our plan was to head to the lighthouse at the southern tip of Scotland. As we got closer, the road narrowed to a single lane.

We could tell it was a tourist area as there were signposts marking where the passing spots were! And even then, people couldn’t figure it out!

But there wasn’t too much traffic and only a handful of people at the top. We found a park overlooking the Irish Sea, with Northern Ireland across the water.

The lighthouse was a short walk away and we did a loop walk. We had planned to stay in the car park overnight, and it would have been stunning with 360-degree views, but it didn’t have the vibe. And it felt quite exposed.

I’d seen a free spot on the way up that had toilets and a dump station, so we headed back there.

When we arrived, there were already a few campervans parked up. It’s weird, as it’s right next to a camping ground that charges £45 a night with no view, but in the free spot it’s, well, free, and you are parked right overlooking the sea. £45 for a shower seems excessive! We’ll just find a local swimming pool or recreation centre. Or just continue to smell.

It was a gorgeous spot to stop and we took a walk along the beach. It’s a mix of stones and sand, and it’s a really neat spot with that rugged vibe we like. Reminds me a bit of the Thames coast.

We settled down for an early night.

Not much knitting done today.

Today we were on the road by 9am. What were we thinking?

We stopped in Dumfries and did a Lidl shop, then stopped again in another town to upload a video at the library.

With all our chores done, we hit the road again. And we now have a new hobby.

Knitting!

Mike bought some wool in Norway last year and had been giving it a go. Then, when I saw some wool and needles in a garden centre, of all places, I decided I wanted to do it too.
No idea what I’m knitting, but it’s something to do on the drives when the road
s are too winding to read. As it’s so cold up here, I’m visualising jumpers, socks, and maybe a blankie for Bertie. We’ll see how long it lasts.

We didn’t drive far today. I saw a place called Isle of Whithorn on the map and decided I wanted to go there. Research and navigation all rolled into one.

It’s a quaint fishing village in the south of Scotland, and they have free overnight parking overlooking the sea and the Isle of Man. Just across the water is Northern Ireland. It’s rugged and rocky and feels remote. It’s perfect.

And there’s also a toilet, dump station and fresh water, all free. This is how it should be done. England, you should be ashamed! We actually couldn’t find anywhere to dump our waste in all of England.

On our walk, we discovered an old church dating back to the 1300s. Just ruins now, but it’s on a pilgrim route (or tourist route, as Mike calls them). There’s a pile of rocks there that apparently pilgrims bring with them to dump. Not sure of the purpose of it, but I prefer the “leave no trace” rule and leave rocks and stones where they are. You never know who might have had a home under one.

The village itself is small. Just a pub and an actual church, which had an exhibition inside. There’s a lot of history here. This is one of the first places in Scotland where Christianity was introduced, with pilgrims coming across from Ireland around 300 AD.

And there were many shipwrecks along this coast, and I’m not surprised.

It’s such a nice spot to just sit and stare out to sea, with the faint click-clacking of the needles in the background.

Our first night in Scotland went well and this morning we ventured out on foot to try and find the castles.

It was a nice walk through ancient woods, with some trees as old as 200 years old. Lots of gnarly branches and stuff, it was pretty cool.

Along the way we came across a little shelter overlooking the wetlands, where apparently you could sit quietly and watch the birds.

So we did.

There weren’t any.

There was, however, a board behind us showing all the birds we could have seen. Ducks. Seagulls. And various other birds that looked suspiciously like the sort of thing we see every day anyway.

We decided we weren’t missing much and carried on to the castle.

Or what was left of it.

The first one was known as the Old Castle, although calling it a castle was being fairly generous. It didn’t have any walls. Just a few rocks in the ground showing where the walls had once been.

Apparently they’d chosen a terrible place to build it. The ground was too damp and unstable, which seems like something you might want to check before building a castle.

But, they built another one a little further along.

And this one was much more castle-like.

It had walls! And a moat! And towers! The whole thing was seriously impressive.

You could pay to go inside, but from experience, castles nearly always look better from the outside. That’s our way if justifying it anyway.

So we circled the outside instead, took far too many photos, and wandered back through the woods to the van.
By now it was lunchtime, so we made egg and salad sandwiches and decided we quite liked it here.
So we stayed another night.

We spent the afternoon editing, playing chess and sleeping.

Well, why not.