New Found Freedom in Hello.

Since I wrote my last entry, we’ve been on an epic roadtrip to Scotland and back. It might not seem epic to most people, but seeing as I’ve just passed my driving test, I decided to get all the scary things over and done with while everything is still relatively new and scary anyway! I work with a lady who passed her driving test 12 years ago and is still yet to drive on the motorway. I wasn’t going to be like that, get more confident in my driving, yet not going on the motorway so that it remained this big old scary thing that I’ve yet to do. As it happens, it’s not such a big deal. Coming on and getting off were slightly scary (I felt like an aeroplane getting ready for takeoff when I’m running down the sliproad onto the motorway!) and I’m still not very confident with the multi-lane roundabouts that are at the ends of the slip road coming off most of the motorways that I travelled on! I also got slightly confused by the satnav, coming onto the left hand lane when I was about 3 miles from my turn off, only for that lane to turn into the actual sliproad not once, but TWICE whilst navigating Glasgow. The satnav (which we nicknamed Yolandi for some inexplicable reason) thankfully got me back en route, but also seemed to become intelligent to my ineptitude, telling me to move to either of the right hand lanes when it thought I was going to do it again!
So Wednesday we travelled from Cumbria to Loch Lomond, with plenty of stops along the way. The West Highland way is very pretty, but had lots of steep hills and sharp bends for me to practice my gears on. Thursday we went from Loch Lomond to Kilberry to a beautiful campsite overlooking Jura, with a stop at Lochgilphead on the way. That took me along a 12 mile single track road that was all twisty-turny and uppy downy and I had to do almost the entire thing at about 25-30mph for fear of meeting something coming the other way! Thankfully that wasn’t too bad as there was literally about 6 houses and the campsite along that road, meaning I hardly encountered any traffic.
Friday we sailed from Claonaig to Lochranza, but me, in my ineptitude, copied down the postcode from the ferry terminal incorrectly, so the satnav tried to send us the wrong way. Thankfully I’d bought John the AA road atlas to keep him quiet in the car, and there was only one road anyway! We pulled the car up at the ferry terminal and as the other cars in front of us started to move, I tried the ignition. The car coughed and wouldn’t start. I tried again. Again nothing. Eleanor was panicking as the gap in front of us widened and I waved the cars behind us to go in front. I had to think on my feet....John wanted me to push the car onto the ferry, I said I wasn’t doing that, as what would we do at the other end? So we ended up pushing the car off the concourse, with a bit of help from some passing cyclists, into the carpark over the road. Thankfully we’d taken out breakdown cover before we left and we had a local mechanic with us in about 2 hours, who told me I’d flooded the engine and it was really easy to start the car if it happens again. I’ve looked it up and I still don’t know how I did it....dad’s had the car 15 years and said it’s never happened to him. I tend to think it was having a grumble at having to drive so far at below 30 miles an hour, haha! In retrospect, it was probably the best place for us to break down if it was going to happen. We could have broken down on the single track road and caused a blockage, or actually on Arran and not been able to get someone out to fix the car for hours. We got to Arran in the end though, phew!
Friday night we camped at the really remote campsite near Brodick (beautiful scenery!) and on Saturday we went to our lodge. It was great, everything we expected. We were along a really quiet minor road, but only 15 minutes walk from the nearest town with its beaches, shops and cafes.
We visited King’s Cave, where Robert the Bruce supposedly hid from King Edward, the castle, a very damp walk to a nearby loch, an agricultural show, where it poured down but was still really well attended, and basically just chilled. I tried not to do much driving, after all, I was on holiday too!
I do like camping, but when you’re in a tent, once you’re awake, it’s not really much fun sitting in a cramped space with everyone’s sweaty boots, so you kind of feel obliged to go out. At least in the lodge, we could sit around in our pyjamas till lunch time if we wanted and didn’t have to put shoes on for the 3am toilet trips!
Saturday we managed to get an earlier sailing home. We had to be out of the lodge by 10am and we thought about going to go to the highlad games and sail at 4.40pm, but I think by that point we just wanted to get home, so went to sit in the cancellation line, where we watched three pipe bands do an amazing rendition of Scotland the Brave for the folk coming off the ferry, before promenading up the high street. We got on the 11.35 sailing and were home by 5, fairly uneventfully. It got a bit blustery after Gretna and I was nervous being buffeted about on the motorway, so I ended up sticking in the left hand lane at 60mph all the way to Penrith, where we came off.
We saw tiny frogs and toads and also a lizard! I’ve never seen a lizard in the UK and I used to take kids on educational walks where I’d talk about them and show them the tracks, so I was chuffed to find a tiny baby sand lizard in Scotland.

Jura from Port Ban campsite.

Eleanor and Bel inside King’s cave.

One of the many carvings inside. John said they were Pictish.

There were a few of these in front of King’s cave, this was my first attempt. I’m proud.

Catalogue pose and Drumadoon Point.

John and Eleanor look at a very soggy eagle owl!

The highlight of Eleanor’s holiday, crab fishing! She caught five, but this area is a no take zone and we had to put them back.

S’allright, innit?

Sogggy walk to Loch Urie. Bel wouldn’t wear her waterproof, thankfully it was fairly warm.

Tiny toad!

Last updated August 11, 2016