stewby's snapshot of scotland...

[Muzorewa]

Looks good. Are you not going to see the dead Catalina on Vatersay while you're there, there's a causeway to get there from Barra Oh, and a fantastic beach

[stewby]

oh yeah... it is on my other map. i will need to add it in. (the map is the one i created from your trips).

[idetika]

We spent 10 days travelling from Barra to Skye through Uist, Harris and Lewis a few years ago, best holiday ever. We didn't have an awning but did wild camp with a Quechua pop up and had no problems at all.
Our favourite wild camp was on North Uist:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sour ... 2,,0,17.34
We had the beach to ourselves on a sunny Sunday in August, bliss!!

Hopefully heading to Orkney in a couple of weeks, but will return via the west coast.

[stewby]

so.... due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to postpone (most definitely not cancelled) our trip.

however, we are going to leuchars air show this weekend so are having four nights away in the bongo. all of them at the craigtoun meadows campsite.

plan is to head down on the thursday (tomorrow) via pitlochry (i think. unless anyone has any other suggestions). my dad is joining us on the friday and we are walking into st andrews for the day. saturday is obviously the airshow. sunday is a bit empty (any hints)... and monday is the blair drummond safari park.

so... questions:
* is pitlochry a nice place to go for a pit stop?? i only remember that it has a fish ladder.
* would you recommend going to st andrews cathedral and castle??
* any recommendations for sunday??
* will billy the bongo survive the safari park??

oh... and we have two cartons of "um bongo" bought and ready to pack.


thanks in advance for any help.

[Muzorewa]

Can't comment on St Andrews.

Pitlochry seemed to us a tad expensive and geared for our former-colonial cousins but is a nice enough place. The fish-ladder is only any good when the salmon are running and I've no idea when that is. I take it you'd be getting there over the Cairnwell Pass through the Spittal of Glenshee - That's a trip I did only yesterday, the run along the Dee through Ballater and Braemar is lovely and then the Cairnwell was a stonker, although I was in a German thing with a 7-speed flippy gearbox which did enable me to scare the life out of my passengers

Which flavour of Um Bongo did you get?

[stewby]

according to googlemaps... we head over the devil's elbow (i think) to get down to pitlochry. pretty sure that is our name for the spittal of glenshee. it was due to a very dangerous bit of road (which they have since corrected. but you might have seen it as you were travelling north. judging by your wide knowledge base, you probably know more about it than i do).


is there somewhere other than pitlochry that you would suggest?? braemar and ballater are a bit every day-ish for us. (oh, highly recommend loch muick for pretty pictures by the way if you ever come up this way for holidays).


you maybe came through my hometown then... did you go north deeside or south deeside?? south is slower and more twisty but the scenery is lovely. also... did you wave at the queenie. she is in balmoral just now.


i can't decide on what to do. i hate not being prepared. it's driving me mad.


oh. tropical and mango and apple um bongo. very excited. hope they are still as good as i remember.

[Muzorewa]

North, we just came round Anderson Drive to North Deeside Road and stuck with that through Banchory, Aboyne, Ballater and Braemar. We did drop it down a couple of gears to keep the revs up past the corgis

Devil's Elbow, that's the one. Could be interesting in winter

I'll have a look when I get to a proper computer and let you know any other places I'd go

[stewby]

my dad has just suggested the grouse experience so i am away to nosey at that.


good good. got to let the queenie know you exist.


cool. thanks very much muz.

[Muzorewa]

Looks to me like going to Pitlochry is going quite a bit out of your way. Doing the Glenshee road is cool but I'd carry on to Blairgowrie and head directly into the Kingdom of Fife.

I'd probably do Earlshall castle and the Scottish Deer Centre, if you like old dears

Matt (Driver+Passengers) has to be a good contact for ideas, also briwy whose daughter is at St Andrews uni

[stewby]

oooooooooooooooh. will he be likely to have a nosey in this part of the forum or should i pm him?? my dad is not keen on culture on the friday... he wants to find a pub and have drinks followed by supper.


so we will probably do the castle and cathedral on the sunday. once dad has left. might see if we can fit in the earlshall castle too. cause it looks nice. (less ruin-y than the st andrews one).

[Muzorewa]

PM Matt and Brian. You probably met Matt at the Queensferry malarkey. Always good to have too many options