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philmophlegmI'm on holiday at the moment - a solo driving holiday around the more distant bits of Scotland. Bunn isn't with me on account of her having considerably less holiday allowance than me this year and not fancying a week of pretty much nothing but driving.
I've wanted to do a proper driving holiday for a while now. By 'proper driving holiday', I mean a holiday where the main activity is fun driving. Scotland is great for that because of a lower density of traffic on the roads, good quality road surface (unlike say Iceland or Ireland), unstraightness of roads, sensible speed limits (mostly 60mph) and absence of hedges. Devon and Cornwall really fall down on the last two - most of Dartmoor for instance is now 40mph except for the main roads, and except on the moors, most roads are sunk between high hedges, so you can't see round corners. And if you can't see round corners, you can't use the full width of the road.
Now was also a good time to do it. I'll be changing the car next year probably, so this is a good swan song. The government's threat to lower the national speed limit to 40mph hasn't materialised yet. And 'enjoying driving fast' isn't yet a criminal activity.
I started from Watford rather than Cornwall, on account of presenting a course there on Thursday and Friday. Managed to scarper early too, so I left the office at 3.30pm rather than 5.30. A long, dull dash up pretty much the length of the M1, then the A1 / A1(M) to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the home of kargicq and neuromancer. Arrived at about 10.00pm, and before kargicq, who was out boozing. Met both kargmancerlings, both up past their bedtimes.
Saturday - me, kargicq, neuromancer and kargmancerlings visited two Roman sites at or near the wall - Corbridge and Housesteads Fort. Both pleasingly the right degree of ruinedness. Pleased that eldest kargmancerling was particularly impressed by the car, so as it was sunny when it was time for me to say goodbye, I let her press the Engine Start button and put the roof down and up and down again before I set off west and they headed back east.
Saturday route: A69 west to Brampton (fast, mostly straightish single carriageway), A6071 northwest before picking up the A7 at Longtown. Then A7 north through Langholm, Hawick, Selkirk (stopped for some 97 RON), Galashiels before turning west onto the A720 Edinburgh bypass. A7 - lovely road to ease my way into the harder stuff that was to come. Nice scenery, reasonably twisty with some traffic, but plenty of overtaking opportunities. Still light by the time I reached Edinburgh, but took easy option and stopped at a Travelodge / Little Chef combination. Classy...
Sunday - up early (well 9.00ish at any rate). Northwest and across the Forth Road Bridge. Got out to take photos of the more famous bridge next to it. Then north for about half a mile of the M90 before coming off into Dunfermline(last motorway for almost a week). Somehow took wrong turning in Dunfermline (no satnav in my car, so relying on dodgy sense of direction, poor knowledge of Scottish geography and a good road atlas), but realised it pretty quickly and found the right road - the A823 north past the Knockhill racetrack.
Entertaining drive up A823 through nice but not-yet-awesome scenery to Crieff, then north up the A822. Getting into proper Highlands now. Turn off the main road at Amulree onto the (unnumbered) Glen Quaich road. Fantastic single track road with great visibility, 1 in 10 climbs, 1 in 10 descents, hairpins and fantastic views. This is where the driving fun really started. Turned right at Loch Tay, onto the A827 before turning left in Aberfeldy onto the B846. Another good, challenging road - a lot less straight than it looks in the road atlas. Vaguely aware that the mountain Schiehallion was towering over me to the left, but clouds were low enough that all the mountains looked the same height. I had the roof down about 50% of the time this day. Turned right at Tummel Bridge (where I once went on holiday as a child) onto the B8019. Did the tourist thing and got out at Queen's View to have lunch and look at the view. Very good view. Then turned around and headed back west along Loch Tummel, then a dash along the B846 on the northern shore of Loch Rannoch to Rannoch Station. Saw a red squirrel on the way. I've been to Rannoch Station before (an unmanned railway station in the middle of Rannoch Moor), but it wasn't as desolate as I remembered it.
Turned back east, but took the unnumbered road along the southern shore of the loch. Better road than the northern one - the sort of road where 60mph is often achievable, but you rarely get out of third gear. All the way east again to Pitlochry - an opportunity to get some more super unleaded. Avoid the obvious A9 route to Inverness and instead take the A924 to Bridge of Cally and then the A93 north.
The A93 is a phenomenal road. The best yet in fact. Wide, but twisty and with some steep bits - and steep, twisty bits. It climbs up into the Grampian Mountains past ski stations (currently snowless and deserted). I rarely had to slow down for anything other than a sharp bend. Past Spittal of Glenshee (great placename), Braemar and Balmoral. Then left onto the A939. Another classic driving road through the mountains. If anything more twisty than the A93 - certainly narrower (single track in places) and with more vertical variation. Plenty of opportunity for dropping into second for a sharp corner then coming out of the corner and accelerating steeply uphill in second and third.
By now, it's starting to get dark, and I don't have any accommodation sorted. I come down out of the mountains, turn left onto the A95 just before Grantown-on-Spey and then turn off onto the A938 headed for Inverness. I figure that there should be B&Bs in Inverness, but in fact I come across a few with vacancies in Carrbridge and stay in one of them overnight.
Monday - up early again. I even have a cooked breakfast. This is almost unheard of for me, but then I didn't have an evening meal on Sunday. For me, someone who always eats dinner and never normally eats breakfast, the B&B concept has a fundamental flaw - they never serve dinner, and charge you for breakfast whether you eat it or not. Get quickly onto the A9 and head north for Inverness. Weather is constant, heavy drizzle - going to be roof up all day I'm afraid.
Through Inverness, sticking for the moment to the dull A9. Across the Moray Firth, then the Cromarty Firth before coming off the main road to head for Invergordon and a better view of the oil rigs being serviced and sheltering in the Cromarty Firth. Half a tank of petrol left - will start to look out for petrol stations. Back onto A9 briefly before coming off onto the B9165 for Balintore and a good view of the Moray Firth. I had heard that there was a major international naval exercise taking place here this week, and I had hoped to spot the odd warship, but I guess they must all have been further out. Back onto the A9. I pass a petrol station, but it's sold out of super unleaded. Starting to get a little concerned - enough to come off the A9 and look for petrol in Tain. None of the stations there sell 97 RON. I decide against going to Dornoch and decide to stick to the main A9. Surely if there is a major petrol station selling proper petrol, it'll be on the main road...
The A9 north of Dornoch is a dull driving road, but as it sticks to the coast is quite scenic. It would be more scenic if the weather was bright and sunny rather than grey and drizzly. Oh well. Of course this is Caithness now. On the recommendation of bunn (plus lady_of_astolat, and kargicq is a fan too), I'm reading Dorothy Dunnett's 'King Hereafter', a novel about Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney and Caithness and the historical Macbeth. It's nice to recognise some of the placenames.
At Latheron I stop to make a decision. First of all I arrange accommodation for the night by ringing ahead to a hotel on the north coast. Kargicq had advised that there is precious little accommodation on the north coast, so I thought better of my previous approach of seeing what I pass when it starts to get dark. The decision I had to make was whether to go north on the A9 to Thurso or stick to the coast, and the A99 to Wick and then John O'Groats. Petrol is becoming a concern now. Wick looks bigger, so I decide my chances of super unleaded are better in Wick. Wick has two petrol stations (neither sells super unleaded). I drive around a bit and find a giant Tesco. It has a shiny petrol station with 12 pumps, payment at the pump, four attendants, shop, everything. Except for super unleaded. If there's no proper petrol here, there's not going to be anywhere in Caithness or Sutherland. This is it I think, and reluctantly fill up with 95 RON pigswill.
I've never put 95 RON (I refuse to call it 'premium' - surely 'premium' means at least 'better than average') in my car before. The sticker on the inside of the filler cap warns that only 98 RON should be used, but since Shell stopped selling Optimax (97.8 RON), 97 RON was the best I could do. But I've never had to resort to 95 RON before now. I apprehensively press the starter button and the engine starts (so far so good). The engine note sounds a little different, but I put that down to being oversensitive.
Nothing to see in Wick, so north again and John O'Groats. I pass a cyclist with a vest that says 'Land's End to John O'Groats'. To be honest, John O'Groats didn't have anything that made me think it was worth driving there from Wick, let alone cycling from the far end of Cornwall. It's full of souvenir shops (all but one closed, despite the car park being half full), you have to pay to use the toilet and there is an angrily-worded sign warning you not to take your own pictures of the famous signpost that shows the distance to Land's End and other places. You're supposed to pay the on-duty photographer to do it for a sky high fee (something like £16). I avoid the tourist tat and take a brief walk along the shore in the vague hope of seeing dolphins or similar. By now the weather has improved enormously. Visibility is easily good enough to see Stroma and the nearer Orkneys.
I get back in the car and head west along the A836, past the Castle of Mey, then a brief diversion up the B855 to the peninsula of Dunnet Head. Good cliffs, but by now it's got cold and wet again. I don't stay long, especially as the cliffs seem devoid of seabirds. Back to the A836, and suddenly it's sunny again and I'm overlooking the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. This is Dunnet Bay, a vast expanse of perfect white sand sheltered by Dunnet Head. I share the beach with some gulls, some oystercatchers and a single rider on a large piebald horse galloping along the water's edge. Brief extra-vehicular excursion over, I head west to Thurso. I notice with a little annoyance that Thurso has two petrol stations selling super unleaded, but the car seems to be coping well with its vulgar fuel. Then the final stretch of the day, right along the north coast into Sutherland, past the Dounreay nuclear power station to Bettyhill where my hotel (the 'Bettyhill Hotel') is.
Kargick warned me that this hotel was somewhat "faded". He's not wrong. It's cheap (and serves dinner!) but you have to question the design thinking that went "Our hotel directly faces the North Atlantic, so single-glazed sash windows will be more than adequate and we don't need to worry about heating the guest rooms". (To be fair, I do have a small portable electric heater in the room, but it doesn't seem to work very well.) Kargicq also muttered something about King Haakon VII of Norway staying here when in exile during WW2. I'll say this about it though - free wi-fi, and fast enough for me to watch Sunday night's hugely unexpected Raider victory over Philadelphia. And write this of course.
I've wanted to do a proper driving holiday for a while now. By 'proper driving holiday', I mean a holiday where the main activity is fun driving. Scotland is great for that because of a lower density of traffic on the roads, good quality road surface (unlike say Iceland or Ireland), unstraightness of roads, sensible speed limits (mostly 60mph) and absence of hedges. Devon and Cornwall really fall down on the last two - most of Dartmoor for instance is now 40mph except for the main roads, and except on the moors, most roads are sunk between high hedges, so you can't see round corners. And if you can't see round corners, you can't use the full width of the road.
Now was also a good time to do it. I'll be changing the car next year probably, so this is a good swan song. The government's threat to lower the national speed limit to 40mph hasn't materialised yet. And 'enjoying driving fast' isn't yet a criminal activity.
I started from Watford rather than Cornwall, on account of presenting a course there on Thursday and Friday. Managed to scarper early too, so I left the office at 3.30pm rather than 5.30. A long, dull dash up pretty much the length of the M1, then the A1 / A1(M) to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the home of kargicq and neuromancer. Arrived at about 10.00pm, and before kargicq, who was out boozing. Met both kargmancerlings, both up past their bedtimes.
Saturday - me, kargicq, neuromancer and kargmancerlings visited two Roman sites at or near the wall - Corbridge and Housesteads Fort. Both pleasingly the right degree of ruinedness. Pleased that eldest kargmancerling was particularly impressed by the car, so as it was sunny when it was time for me to say goodbye, I let her press the Engine Start button and put the roof down and up and down again before I set off west and they headed back east.
Saturday route: A69 west to Brampton (fast, mostly straightish single carriageway), A6071 northwest before picking up the A7 at Longtown. Then A7 north through Langholm, Hawick, Selkirk (stopped for some 97 RON), Galashiels before turning west onto the A720 Edinburgh bypass. A7 - lovely road to ease my way into the harder stuff that was to come. Nice scenery, reasonably twisty with some traffic, but plenty of overtaking opportunities. Still light by the time I reached Edinburgh, but took easy option and stopped at a Travelodge / Little Chef combination. Classy...
Sunday - up early (well 9.00ish at any rate). Northwest and across the Forth Road Bridge. Got out to take photos of the more famous bridge next to it. Then north for about half a mile of the M90 before coming off into Dunfermline(last motorway for almost a week). Somehow took wrong turning in Dunfermline (no satnav in my car, so relying on dodgy sense of direction, poor knowledge of Scottish geography and a good road atlas), but realised it pretty quickly and found the right road - the A823 north past the Knockhill racetrack.
Entertaining drive up A823 through nice but not-yet-awesome scenery to Crieff, then north up the A822. Getting into proper Highlands now. Turn off the main road at Amulree onto the (unnumbered) Glen Quaich road. Fantastic single track road with great visibility, 1 in 10 climbs, 1 in 10 descents, hairpins and fantastic views. This is where the driving fun really started. Turned right at Loch Tay, onto the A827 before turning left in Aberfeldy onto the B846. Another good, challenging road - a lot less straight than it looks in the road atlas. Vaguely aware that the mountain Schiehallion was towering over me to the left, but clouds were low enough that all the mountains looked the same height. I had the roof down about 50% of the time this day. Turned right at Tummel Bridge (where I once went on holiday as a child) onto the B8019. Did the tourist thing and got out at Queen's View to have lunch and look at the view. Very good view. Then turned around and headed back west along Loch Tummel, then a dash along the B846 on the northern shore of Loch Rannoch to Rannoch Station. Saw a red squirrel on the way. I've been to Rannoch Station before (an unmanned railway station in the middle of Rannoch Moor), but it wasn't as desolate as I remembered it.
Turned back east, but took the unnumbered road along the southern shore of the loch. Better road than the northern one - the sort of road where 60mph is often achievable, but you rarely get out of third gear. All the way east again to Pitlochry - an opportunity to get some more super unleaded. Avoid the obvious A9 route to Inverness and instead take the A924 to Bridge of Cally and then the A93 north.
The A93 is a phenomenal road. The best yet in fact. Wide, but twisty and with some steep bits - and steep, twisty bits. It climbs up into the Grampian Mountains past ski stations (currently snowless and deserted). I rarely had to slow down for anything other than a sharp bend. Past Spittal of Glenshee (great placename), Braemar and Balmoral. Then left onto the A939. Another classic driving road through the mountains. If anything more twisty than the A93 - certainly narrower (single track in places) and with more vertical variation. Plenty of opportunity for dropping into second for a sharp corner then coming out of the corner and accelerating steeply uphill in second and third.
By now, it's starting to get dark, and I don't have any accommodation sorted. I come down out of the mountains, turn left onto the A95 just before Grantown-on-Spey and then turn off onto the A938 headed for Inverness. I figure that there should be B&Bs in Inverness, but in fact I come across a few with vacancies in Carrbridge and stay in one of them overnight.
Monday - up early again. I even have a cooked breakfast. This is almost unheard of for me, but then I didn't have an evening meal on Sunday. For me, someone who always eats dinner and never normally eats breakfast, the B&B concept has a fundamental flaw - they never serve dinner, and charge you for breakfast whether you eat it or not. Get quickly onto the A9 and head north for Inverness. Weather is constant, heavy drizzle - going to be roof up all day I'm afraid.
Through Inverness, sticking for the moment to the dull A9. Across the Moray Firth, then the Cromarty Firth before coming off the main road to head for Invergordon and a better view of the oil rigs being serviced and sheltering in the Cromarty Firth. Half a tank of petrol left - will start to look out for petrol stations. Back onto A9 briefly before coming off onto the B9165 for Balintore and a good view of the Moray Firth. I had heard that there was a major international naval exercise taking place here this week, and I had hoped to spot the odd warship, but I guess they must all have been further out. Back onto the A9. I pass a petrol station, but it's sold out of super unleaded. Starting to get a little concerned - enough to come off the A9 and look for petrol in Tain. None of the stations there sell 97 RON. I decide against going to Dornoch and decide to stick to the main A9. Surely if there is a major petrol station selling proper petrol, it'll be on the main road...
The A9 north of Dornoch is a dull driving road, but as it sticks to the coast is quite scenic. It would be more scenic if the weather was bright and sunny rather than grey and drizzly. Oh well. Of course this is Caithness now. On the recommendation of bunn (plus lady_of_astolat, and kargicq is a fan too), I'm reading Dorothy Dunnett's 'King Hereafter', a novel about Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney and Caithness and the historical Macbeth. It's nice to recognise some of the placenames.
At Latheron I stop to make a decision. First of all I arrange accommodation for the night by ringing ahead to a hotel on the north coast. Kargicq had advised that there is precious little accommodation on the north coast, so I thought better of my previous approach of seeing what I pass when it starts to get dark. The decision I had to make was whether to go north on the A9 to Thurso or stick to the coast, and the A99 to Wick and then John O'Groats. Petrol is becoming a concern now. Wick looks bigger, so I decide my chances of super unleaded are better in Wick. Wick has two petrol stations (neither sells super unleaded). I drive around a bit and find a giant Tesco. It has a shiny petrol station with 12 pumps, payment at the pump, four attendants, shop, everything. Except for super unleaded. If there's no proper petrol here, there's not going to be anywhere in Caithness or Sutherland. This is it I think, and reluctantly fill up with 95 RON pigswill.
I've never put 95 RON (I refuse to call it 'premium' - surely 'premium' means at least 'better than average') in my car before. The sticker on the inside of the filler cap warns that only 98 RON should be used, but since Shell stopped selling Optimax (97.8 RON), 97 RON was the best I could do. But I've never had to resort to 95 RON before now. I apprehensively press the starter button and the engine starts (so far so good). The engine note sounds a little different, but I put that down to being oversensitive.
Nothing to see in Wick, so north again and John O'Groats. I pass a cyclist with a vest that says 'Land's End to John O'Groats'. To be honest, John O'Groats didn't have anything that made me think it was worth driving there from Wick, let alone cycling from the far end of Cornwall. It's full of souvenir shops (all but one closed, despite the car park being half full), you have to pay to use the toilet and there is an angrily-worded sign warning you not to take your own pictures of the famous signpost that shows the distance to Land's End and other places. You're supposed to pay the on-duty photographer to do it for a sky high fee (something like £16). I avoid the tourist tat and take a brief walk along the shore in the vague hope of seeing dolphins or similar. By now the weather has improved enormously. Visibility is easily good enough to see Stroma and the nearer Orkneys.
I get back in the car and head west along the A836, past the Castle of Mey, then a brief diversion up the B855 to the peninsula of Dunnet Head. Good cliffs, but by now it's got cold and wet again. I don't stay long, especially as the cliffs seem devoid of seabirds. Back to the A836, and suddenly it's sunny again and I'm overlooking the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. This is Dunnet Bay, a vast expanse of perfect white sand sheltered by Dunnet Head. I share the beach with some gulls, some oystercatchers and a single rider on a large piebald horse galloping along the water's edge. Brief extra-vehicular excursion over, I head west to Thurso. I notice with a little annoyance that Thurso has two petrol stations selling super unleaded, but the car seems to be coping well with its vulgar fuel. Then the final stretch of the day, right along the north coast into Sutherland, past the Dounreay nuclear power station to Bettyhill where my hotel (the 'Bettyhill Hotel') is.
Kargick warned me that this hotel was somewhat "faded". He's not wrong. It's cheap (and serves dinner!) but you have to question the design thinking that went "Our hotel directly faces the North Atlantic, so single-glazed sash windows will be more than adequate and we don't need to worry about heating the guest rooms". (To be fair, I do have a small portable electric heater in the room, but it doesn't seem to work very well.) Kargicq also muttered something about King Haakon VII of Norway staying here when in exile during WW2. I'll say this about it though - free wi-fi, and fast enough for me to watch Sunday night's hugely unexpected Raider victory over Philadelphia. And write this of course.
