It feels good to be back on our travels and I’ve been so excited about this Scotland trip that I’ve produced a Powerpoint presentation with our outline itinerary on it.
We are on the road again with Joyce and Enid planning to spend 5 nights in Oban and 5 nights in Dornie up near Skye. There’s loads to do and it feels like another geography field trip! My favourite holidays obviously.
However, first we had to get here and it’s not been straight-forward. Jane and I set off on Friday afternoon, aiming to be at our stop-over accommodation in Carlise by 6-30 for a lovely meal and rest.
We were driving happily along the M6Toll road when there was a huge clunk under my car. It felt like I’d run a small pig over but I’d not seen anything in the road and Jane couldn’t see anything now behind me. The car felt ok and we carried on. However, when we joined the queue for the toll booths suddenly there was a very load grating noise and clearly it was coming from my car. I pulled my way over to a small grass verge with Jane’s help waving through the window. I got out to inspect the damage and found that the front of the car had fallen down.
I then spotted that the safest place for us was down the HGV lane of the toll plaza and up a sort of slip road with a barrier on it. We were out of the way of the main traffic whilst we waited for the AA but boy those HGVs still hurtle down there. The AA kindly prioritised our call but the message came back saying they’d be an hour and a half! Eventually Steve (barely any teeth and a slight cough) from E and S Rescue came with his trailer. He said he’d get us onto the back of his truck, take us somewhere safer and look at the damage. He asked us to get out of the car and proceeded to start to try and reverse my car so he could get it up the trailer.
At this point the lovely Karen from Highways entered the scene. Dressed all in hi-viz yellow she was having none of Steve’s shenanigans, pointing out the speed of the HGVs. She said that instead they’d (Highways) have to cone off the lane and then he could move us. OMG ….She disappeared off to arrange this but eventually came back with a different plan. We’d open the barrier on the slip road and do it that way. Whilst Steve drove his van to the next junction and back, we had a lovely chat with Karen. Apparently, we’d been in a blind spot on their cameras so she was quite surprised when we said we’d been there for an hour. It was like being in a new reality TV programme ’M6 Tolls, road to hell’.
Finally, we got in the back of Steve’s cab and he drove us to a layby where he basically ripped the panel off the car and said we should just carry on. It’d be fine. Of course, these were just the words we wanted to hear so after a little more reassurance thats what we did.
By now it was getting dark, it was starting to rain and the rest of the journey was pretty rubbish including a closure between junctions 22 and 23. Our planned lovely dinner turned out to be a quick dirty MacDonalds at the service station.
I was very stressed and thinking I’d never want to drive anywhere again. However, all of that dropped away when we arrived at 10pm at lovely Willowbeck Lodge near Carlisle. The marvellous Jo had been keeping in touch with our progress and stayed late to let us in. As we arrived she gave us a virtual hug with a large glass of red and a beer for Jane.
After a lovely nights sleep and a big breakfast we were on our way again. We met Joyce and Enid up at Balloch Lake Shores after a nasty long drive up through Glasgow in torrential rain.
Here we explored the retail emporiums and all bought extra waterproofs and layers of warmth. The sun briefly came out and we had a more promising view down the lake before we drove onto our lunch booking at Luss, the Village Rest Cafe. Now this was more like it, a lovely traditional Scottish cafe who served us tea and cake or soup and a bap. We had a quick look around Luss which was very cute, the Loch here was a bit wild looking today but the banks were indeed very bonnie.
Next we had another 2 hour drive through thunderous rain over to Oban. I wasn’t impressed by Loch Lomond, the road was v narrow and there seemed to be nowhere to walk or stop to admire the view. Not that there was one today. On we travelled. Eventually we had awesome views towards the coast where there was some blue sky and bright shining sun. It was quite glorious and Loch Awe and Loch Etive looked beautiful as did the stretch of coast from Connel down to Oban. The rain stayed away as we unpacked into Sleepy Bear Cottage and stocked up on supplies at the big Tescos.
So, here we are….let the adventures begin. But its absolutely tipping it down with rain this morning and I’ve never seen a sky that’s a sort of indigo and brown colour. None of this is in my Powerpoint plan.
Where shall we go to next? 