THE JOURNEY NORTH
We were going north again, this time to the outer Hebrides! Storm Ciaran had passed through east of Scotland and we felt that we could chance the weather so off we went.
On the 2nd of November we aimed the Mac shack towards Great Eversden church where there is a small car park that we have used before. Andy's daughters had booked a balloon flight from Little Gransden airfield, just up the road from the church so we thought that this would be a good place to stay and travel from, to the airfield the next morning.
2nd Nov
The storm caught us but the van weathered the storm but as it was forecast to be high winds and rain all day we opted to stay another night at the church.
The wind was gusting at 40mph last night and through the early hours. dying down by 6am. The balloon ride was postponed due to the bad weather so we decided to get straight on the road. Andy sent the drone up to capture the birds eye view of our park up and then filled the tank with water and emptied toilet at the church. Then we set off for Harston post office to return our Trackimo which we bought from Amazon but no longer needed as Trackimo offered us a replacement unit at such a good deal that we couldn't turn it down. Sue was in the driving seat for this leg and off we went.
We picked up the M-11 and hit traffic on the A-14 for one junction so we stopped at a services. Back onto A-14 to Thrapston services and a Gregg’s lunch. Carrying on with Andy at the wheel now we took the A-14 west to join the M-1 North and stopped at Nottingham Aldi to get food for tonight. Andy checked the premium bonds and we had won £100!
Whilst Sue was in Aldi Andy checked for places to stay for the night and found Beauvale lodge CS just up the road about 25 minutes away. ///momentous.daydream.swipes £15 without EHU. Clean water and waste emptying was available.
We pulled in and chocked up and then Andy put the drone up and we went for a walk. There was absolutely no signal in the van so Andy walked across the road 10 metres and got a good enough signal to download media from radio 4. We went to bed early and listened to downloaded stories.
4th Nov
We left Beauvale lodge and headed north stopping at a small service station car park with an adult toy shop! We had a quick snack and carried on our way!
Back on the road to Scotch corner services and Andy found 'The old armoury' CS site so we headed there for £18 a night. ///stitching.golden.draw. What a lovely site. It is ‘Ants' (Anthonys) obsession and as he was a grounds keeper he was very precious about his grassed areas! We had a very relaxing night.
5th Nov
It was a cold but sunny morning but we wrapped up and had a walk into the village where we found the Old Unicorn pub, it was too early for a drink, even for us, so back to the van and Andy got some drone video.
Then off we set and we stopped at Lidl in Carlisle to restock and then drove to the ‘top deck’ car park at the Falkirk wheel. ///encloses.trouser.relished. A quick walk to explore and then back for a beer and watch the fireworks. The wheel was beautifully lit up.
In the morning we went for a walk to the site of Antonine Roman fort.
Time to get on the road, we are going to see The Kelpies. read more here. The Kelpies - Wikipedia
We were allowed to park up over night at The Kelpies for £10.
///actors.month.sport
There are toilets and a cafe and specific parking places for motorhomes.
We went to have a look at these magnificent structures and then went into the cafe for some refreshments. Andy worked on the web site for a couple of hours as there was free wifi and power.
As darkness came we went to see the Kelpies again as they were lit up. Amazingly there was a piper playing too and that made our day, perfect!
Andy flew the drone to get some aerial video too.
7th Nov
From the Kelpies we set off towards Glencoe. We stopped at a viewpoint at a Loch for photos, and met some Americans from Maine and then carried on through the mountains up and down some very steep and bendy roads to the Glencoe ski centre car park, ///darling.radiates.walking £5 per night and £1 for 5 minutes in a hot shower. We had £2 worth each! We had a mocha in the cafe and walked up the hill a bit to get some better views.
8th Nov
A windy night and heavy rain and the stream beside us had turned into a fast flowing river overnight! Andy emptied the toilet cassette and got some clean, slightly brown peaty water which came from the hills and was filtered before being piped down to the tap.
Van was ready to go so we headed for Fort William to see Neptunes staircase, a series of locks in the canal.
We found a motorhome friendly car park next to Lidl's for £5 a night and we parked up and secured the van before setting off to explore the high street where Andy bought some new boots £70 down from £120 in Go Outdoors as his old ones now had leaky souls. Then we went to try out the Weatherspoons before heading back for dinner and sleep.
9th Nov
Rain and wind again last night. We got on the bikes and went to find Neptunes staircase. Andy sent the drone up and we had a picnic which Sue had thoughtfully packed.
Back on the bikes and back to the van. Great views of the snow covered Ben Nevis and neighbouring hills. We went for a walk to explore the site of the old fort (William) and then back to Weatherspoons for a lovely warm afternoon with a couple of beers and a pizza.
10th Nov
A very cold night, frost on the Lidls roof. Andy walked to Morrisons with the empty 13Kg propane bottle and exchanged it for a full one for £45. We drove to a motorhome service point at Corpach ///flamed.target.sunflower where we were able to empty and fill for a £5 donation.
Next stop was the Glenfinnan viaduct made famous in many films including the Harry Potter series when the Hogwarts express travelled across it. Glenfinnan Viaduct - Wikipedia
We parked in the car park ///daytime.rise.skylights. which cost us £6 as the free car park was too small. There was a gift shop full of all the usual stuff but we decided to get going and walk to the viaduct and beyond to see the views from the top of the hill. It was a hard walk, no real proper pathways but worth it for the views. We got down the other side where the station was and walked back to the start along the road, much quicker!
Before getting back in the van we checked the Glenfinnan monument.
Glenfinnan Monument - Fort William
We opted to drive back to Fort William and stay at the Lidls car park again as it was getting late so we parked up and....went to Weatherspoons...!
11th Nov
We left Fort William as we wanted to get to Skye. We stopped at Loch Lochy ///lakeside.journals.squeaks for brunch, a truly beautiful spot, we got our wellies on and paddled! There was a small waterfall on the other side of the road.
We continued on our journey and stopped again at Eilean Donan castle, ///limo.surpasses.mugs which was beautiful from the outside as it was shut!
History - Eilean Donan (eileandonancastle.com)
Then on to Skye with Sue at the wheel as we crossed the Skye bridge and headed for our overnight park up at ///dripped.delight.lakeside a car park at the side of the Loch Slapin. Nice and quiet and a clear sky with no light pollution.
12th
A very cold night and Andy got up and turned the heating on at 5:30am and sat up reading with beanie on. Once Sue was up a couple of hours later we watched the sun slip over the Loch together and had a coffee on the picnic benches, scraping the frost off first.
After a short walk we drove around to the other side of the Loch and parked up for a bacon roll with sausage and egg in our chairs next to the Loch. A beautiful day.
Then off to Portree where we parked up and had a pint in an old fisherman's pub, The pier hotel. ///remaking.comply.lines
The fish and chip shop was shut as were the take aways so it's lucky we had breakfast at Loch Slapin!
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Then back on the road again with Sue at the wheel and we headed for our park up for the night, Auchtertyre farm, ///tenants.pheasants.successor for £10 a night with services but no EHU. We had still not needed to use EHU to charge our batteries so the Voltage Sensitive split charge Relay (VSR) which Andy had installed was working well. (Check the installation pages here)
We emptied the grey waste and then got on the bikes to the nearest shop, Spar, to stock up then back to the van to chill and upload the media from the last few days as we now have a decent 4G signal !!! Another good nights sleep. Two other vans turned up but they were quiet and both left the next morning.
16th
It had rained during the night but the sun came out for breakfast. Andy finished the blue jobs, toilet cassette and clean water top up and then he got on with repairing the lighting on the nearside and the sticking step. The nearside orange side marker light at the back was out aswell as the tail lights on the same side. This was due to a broken wire in the orange side marker light which feeds the 12 volt supply to the tail lights. Andy rewired the lights and all was well, until he checked the off side lights and discovered that THEY were now off. He checked the 5amp fuse on the passenger side of dashboard and found it had blown so replaced it and all was well, again.
The step just needed cleaning and a new application of silicon spray. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and catching up on the website etc. Then we heard a beep, beep, beep from the leisure battery and after a while the diesel heater just died. The leisure battery had reached its low voltage cut off and isolated itself from the van! We had our dinner in torchlight, (Very romantic) and then Andy started the van and ran the engine for 10 minutes and monitored the leisure battery via the app, it soon came back to life, but we decided to give it a rest for the evening and have an early night. The reason for the problem was lack of solar today and being parked up for two days. We will learn from this. We will be back on the road tomorrow.
17th
We left the farm Aire after paying £10 for last night and headed north for Ullapool stopping in a layby next to a river for brunch. Sue turned the diesel heater on but it gave an ‘E-03' error code. Glow plug fault? We think that it must be due to the improper shut down when battery switched off in low voltage mode. Andy removed fuse to reset it but that failed so decided to leave it until we were parked somewhere safer to check glow plug.
Back on the road and eventually pulled into car park at Ullapool. £10 for 24 hours. Overnight parking allowed. ///suits.bottom.midfield.
We went to the terminal building and booked tomorrow’s ferry 09:30 crossing. £160 single to Stornoway on Lewis and then popped into The Seaforth hotel and bar for a couple of beers. £13.90 a round! Andy noticed that the tickets for the ferry were actually for today, 17th at 16:30!!! The terminal was shut by now and we couldn’t do anything about it until the morning so we took battered Haggis and chips back to the van and listened to the Eagles then had an early night.
18th
Wind and rain throughout the night rocked the van a bit. We got up and made the van ready to board the ferry and Andy went to the terminal to get the tickets reprinted. That done we drove around to the check in area and waited for 10 minutes before driving onto the ferry.
See page 2 for the outer Hebrides blog