April 2018 – Scottish Adventure

The end of April saw us head to the north west of Scotland for a week based at Lochcarron.

We took three days to travel up including a stop to see Martin, Louise and Archie, who has of course changed a lot since we saw him in January. 

We also visited a very fine Tudor house, Little Moreton Hall and Brougham Castle sitting beside the River Eamont in the Eden Valley (Cumbria).

The final part of our journey north included driving down the length of Loch Ness (we didn’t see any monsters) as well as stopping at the Eilean Donnan castle near Kyle of Localsh.

During the drive we were treated to some amazing views of snow covered mountains

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The weather was glorious as we arrived at our apartment and we quickly settled in and relished sitting on our patio with great views of Loch Carron.

The weather for the first few days was lovely and we enjoyed some wonderful views on the 60 mile drive to Inverewe Gardens (National Trust). 

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We had a very pleasant time walking around the gardens before heading back ‘home’ via the coast.

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The following day saw us drive to The Isle of Skye. However, we didn’t spend a great deal of time there as we preferred the scenery on the main land!

In fact we ended up finding Plockton a gem of a town on the edge of Loch Carron. We spent quite some time strolling along the edge of the loch and walked to an island as the tide was out.  We so enjoyed Plockton that we revisited it twice during our stay.

We then spent a day saw travelling by train on the “Kyle Line” from Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness. The scenery was magnificent and every bit as good as the guide books said.  In Inverness we visited both the Cathedral and Old Town before taking a stroll beside the River Ness. Our return rail journey rounded off a long but wonderful day.

On another day we spent the morning at Attadale Gardens about 1.2 miles as the crow flies from our apartment but a six mile drive.  The Gardens were quite something and certainly worth a visit. After visiting the gardens, which were at the loch end of a glen, we walked a mile up the glen marvelling at the sheer rock faces and steep mountain sides on one side and the green of the valley on the other. We picnicked in the grounds before driving on the 28 mile nail biting single track but direct route over the mountains to the coastal village of Applecross. It was worth the journey but we did decide to take the much longer coastal route back. During our drive back we came across deer beside the road and later some fairly young highland cattle.

 

Our final full day was spent driving the 70 miles to Ullapool thoroughly enjoying the scenery en route and town itself.

The port was quite quiet as a ferry for Stornoway had just left. We had a picnic overlooking the sea before heading back to Lochcarron.

Our journey back to Fairford was over the early May bank holiday weekend and we were so pleased we were heading south as there seemed a continuous stream of cars and motor cycles heading north! We made an overnight stop in Cumbria at the Nent Hall Hotel near Alston.  The hotel provided a lovely final night of our holiday – the room was spacious, the food very good and the service was outstanding.

We arrived home having driven a total of 1760 miles with many great memories of a brilliant holiday.