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Ricko

Member

From: SW Lancs

Registered: 2017-01-18

Posts: 334

The Highlands - a quick visit

Fancied a few days away.
Shot up the M6, A74(M) etc to Gourock and crossed The Clyde (£20, like everything else it's gone up in price) to Dunoon, spent the night at Jubilee Point on Loch Eck.
Next day drove to Inveraray, on through Glen Orchy, over Rannoch Moor, Glencoe, Ft William, north and north again. Over the Mam Ratagan to Glenelg, spent the evening on the beach at Sandaig before back tracking to spend the night on the Mam Ratagan.
Next day hit the road to Kyle of Lochalsh, Plockton, Stromeferry etc, turned left on to the NC500 went over the Applecross Pass to Torridon, had a sleep in the woods before heading towards Inverness and south to Ft William, stayed outside of Glencoe with a few other camper vans.
Weather was crap so headed home.
The fuel injector return pipe was leaking and only getting worse, need to buy a quality replacement and not another cheap one.
Good trip, weather crap.
The van is a legend 211,000 miles on it.

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2004 Citroen Dispatch 2.0 Hdi

kenbw2

Administrator

From: Preston

Registered: 2017-11-26

Posts: 1,612

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Damn now you're making me want to go. There's nowhere in the UK like the highlands. So remote and isolated, I love it. How is it for finding places to park up? Are they all full of campers now?

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2000 Citroen Dispatch 1.9TD XUD9 Camper Conversion
1999 Citroen Dispatch 1.9D DW8 Disassembled Camper Conversion
1996 Peugeot 806 1.9TD XUD9 Spare vehicle
1998 Citroen Synergie 1.9TD XUD9 Snapped timing belt

Casper

Member

From: East Lothian

Registered: 2015-12-20

Posts: 2,180

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Ah this pass

Try lugging that fat gits ass up there   But harder to hide in the woods but being a Jock we are renowned for not being tight like Yorkshiremen so just booked into the campsite.

Nice wee boozer though

Ricko

Member

From: SW Lancs

Registered: 2017-01-18

Posts: 334

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Damn now you're making me want to go. There's nowhere in the UK like the highlands. So remote and isolated, I love it. How is it for finding places to park up? Are they all full of campers now?

I'd wait for better weather tbh.
There's loads of places to lie up, I tend to stick to places that I know. I might head over to the Ardnamurchan peninsula next time for some variation.
There's quite a few camper vans about already but most head for proper sites, Scotland is big enough for everyone though!

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2004 Citroen Dispatch 2.0 Hdi

vaz2121

Member

From: Glasgow Living:~ SW. Scotland

Registered: 2015-08-31

Posts: 1,311

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Love it and great to hear of these trips .................
I have done several trips up there Applecross and the campsite there was a great favorite with the bike for a while...................
Also when time permited the campsite at Durness and a visit to Smoo's cave as well as the not as good John Lennon Garden memorial.....................
Did a version of the north coast 500 before it was called that and famous in and on bike, car and Van several times ..............
Did the tour and the whiskey tasting near the newish built Tain bridge in the Glen morangie Distilary  and others up north obviously ................
My latest desire is for Mainland Orkney ... Sailing not from Scrabster but From Gills bay with Pentland ferries, The history there along with the ease of finding a decent park up in Okney and also going to Dunnet head the Uk's most northerly point on way there or back ..................................
Acctually one of the jobs on occasion was to go to the Norfrost Factory with the artic in Castletown for freezers usually very near Dunnet head on the john o groats to thurso, dounreay etc road ........................
I love heading up that way but my partner is no longer really fit enough to head up there to do battle now with the hoards in the summer months and although we've done it before age, infirmity and along with hospital appointments has scuppered the better winter months for us both .........................
Like Kenbw2 I'm now wanting to throw caution to the wind and go ..............
Oh BTW you can't expect to do a week up North of Scotland and expect to stay dry every day...............................
Although a couple years ago now and one of last real outings for the Van bar other than obviously going to skye right before lockdown...................
We wondered why everything was closing ..............
Naively we then thought to check out and plan as it would be nice to try an island hopper and see the outer hebredies as we have still to go there .........................
But anyway I really quite enjoyed our Campbeltown and Dunoon trip ...........................

Casper

Member

From: East Lothian

Registered: 2015-12-20

Posts: 2,180

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Love it and great to hear of these trips .................

Also when time permited the campsite at Durness and a visit to Smoo's cave as well as the not as good John Lennon Garden memorial.

Keep meaning to go visit Smoo Cave. Just had a wee look and that camp site looks OK and walking distance to the cave what is handy as the wife would not make the stairs so she can stay on the camperbus or visit John's garden. Google do that garden no justice BTW 

vaz2121

Member

From: Glasgow Living:~ SW. Scotland

Registered: 2015-08-31

Posts: 1,311

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

We stopped a few times at Sango Sands campsite..............
We = the boys escaping and out to play ......................
I can remember a few times there, One where we had pitched on to much of a slope near the road and I slide off the sleeping mat through the night ..................

I think it was that time we met a guy who had just retuned from a trip to Spain on his pizza bike and now taking his dog on a sponsored tour of uk he was 71 ...He'd put 38,000miles on that in 4Years .................
We have one bike each as she wanted her own when I was thinking on trading mine in for a 1050 tiger
I've got a little 650 a 2005 the same age as Van  with barely 22,000 miles and hers just over 7,500 miles with hers out of MOT  longer than mine as she's unable to go any real distance on it now ............
Mine has been out of MOT for 18 months nearly 2years because of lockdown like Van usage..............

Another time when a tent collapsed with the wind coming off the sea .......................
Also the time my bike trousers fell down when I was on my way to their very basic camp kitchen ................
They  do have there on the beach section a wooden walk way on a sort of ridge out to a viewing area ...............

I'm not so sure I can manage going down to Smoo cave now......................
If you go over the road from the toilets/ car park area to the corner there are holes in the ground going into the cave ...................
you get a much better view in the cave especially if you take a boat tour .........................

With the Van we normally stop before or after Durness althou I have stopped in a sort of lay- by near that corner at smoo cave ...................

If on heading east out of Durness you take the loop rather than the short cut up the hill ..................
you'll come to/pass John Lennon aunty's cottage that he spent his summer holidays in hence the conection there ...................
Apparently he tried to buy the area and crashed a hire car with yoko and his son julian in it when up that way ..................................
I'll dig out and upload a buch of photos.....................

vaz2121

Member

From: Glasgow Living:~ SW. Scotland

Registered: 2015-08-31

Posts: 1,311

Re: The Highlands - a quick visit

Apologies to Ricko for thread hijack effectively ...........................

The Glenmorangiie Distillery is near Tain, The Head office is in Leith .................................

Inveraray ... The home of the Author of the tales of Parra Handy and of course The Vital Spark ..................................

Plockton ... The town where they filmed Hamish Macbeth played by Robert Carlyle....................

Dounreay ... The worlds first nuclear power station of it's type ...................................

Ulapool ......................................

Somewhere South of Duness near a Peaty river where we have paked up and been eaten by midges .............................