You've put me in the mood for a drive, Adrian. When I was younger my friends and I would often just drive to far-flung places in the north of Scotland. Fort William? No problem, let's go. John o'Groats. Done. Killed a massive amount of migrating frogs on that journey. Was pitch dark on a very long stretch of straight road before Thurso and the road was covered in them. At first I couldn't work out what was covering the road, but then we stopped and found out. Couldn't do anything other than continue driving. Off road was a no-no in my crap hatchback car at the time and we weren't turning back after spending 5hours to drive from Glasgow to where we were. Even if I had turned back I'd still have killed hundreds or thousands of them. I found John o'Groats haunting and quite spooky. It seemed like we'd arrived at the end of the world and that civilization was over. A very unnerving place for some reason.
I was only 18-20 when I used to do all of those crazy drives, but it was a good learning experience and helped my confidence in terms of driving on dangerous roads or in unusual conditions.
I think I'd like to head up towards Applecross.
Bealach na Bà - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edit - How come Auchinleck Talbot - an amateur Scottish football team - appears so prominently on your map?
I think you are about 30 years too late! Most of the roads have been upgraded using EU money so that the French and Spanish fishing fleets can get their catch of lovely Scottish fish back to their home markets asap. Before that everything north of Ullapool was single track. I remember driving from Ullapool to Durness out of season. It took most of the day and I did not see another vehicle on the journey. There is only a few miles of single track left on that route. The few remaining roads tend to be spurs, mountain passes or coastal loops. They can be extremely dangerous, particularly in season with lots of drivers not used to them. Oddly they are much safer at night as you can see if something is coming long before its visible on the road and you are unlikely to meet for example a quarry lorry coming the other way at that time. You can still see bits of the old roads every now and then. Very nostalgic, particularly in that landscape where the roads had to loop around giant iceberg size boulders.
Lakes weren't too bad today, a little sticky round Windermere, but its always like that there.
Hardknott Pass wasn't too busy, and got up and over no bother. Would have done it in 2nd gear all the way (rather than crawling up in 1st) had it not been for somebody in an Astra crawling!
Some nasty potholes though data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 wouldn't want to do that road in a car with 19" alloys or that is lowered.
I don't know, it's on the Google maps. I think it might be a name of a nature reserve.
I'm glad I'm inspiring people to go out for a drive data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 I can't do it as often as I'd like, but I find driving (outside big cities) relaxes me.
I can't wait for tomorrow. Just doing my last minute preparation. Car had a small check up today. The tank is full. The tyre pressure is checked. All ready to go. Getting up 5 am and will be on the move by 6 am data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
There are still some great road out there, if you know where to look for them. I am definitely not an expert here, but there are others that are. I just spend some time researching and go out try to find them data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Have a look here for some inspiration. West Highlands roads (pictures by Steve Carter):
West Highland Roads
Awesome photos/roads and LMAO @ that slow pic data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Just got home.
I absolutely loved every second of it. I'd do it again tomorrow if I could, all 13 hours of it!
There were some thrills on the way (close encounter with a pheasant for example), but overall amazing roads, stunning views and peace and quite (no moaning). I am already planning my next road trip data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I'll post some more later on. I need to get few beers in my system and transfer the photos first.
I wouldn't bother avoiding pheasants, just large stuff like badgers and deer.
I nailed a pheasant at 60mph about a year ago, made a hell of a noise as it bounced under the car!
I couldn't avoid it even if I tried thanks to a local guy (I'll explain soon). Thankfully it ended up only with a few scratches on the front bumper.
I am trying to find that place on Google Street View, but everything looks so different there.
It was on a steep hill, near the summit. The clouds were very low. It was dark almost like during the night, raining hard, very windy. I was going uphill slowly around 30mph in 3rd, trying to get to the summit. Twisty narrow road, just wide enough for two cars. I saw this guy in review mirror in an old ford focus long before he got to me, overtaking people wildly. He had no lights on, even though it was very dark.
He overtook few cars behind me and sat in my review mirror for a short time. When the road straighten up a bit, he went for it. I glanced in the review mirror and saw him moving off to the right lane to overtake me. I decided to help him and let go off the accelerator. Quick glance in the review mirror, his car was between the two lanes still moving to the right lane, still a bit behind my car. I looked at the road and saw a pheasant running across the road from the right to the left not far away. I watched it in slow motion, millions of thoughts running through my brain. I knew I couldn't brake, because the guy behind who was trying to overtake me on this steep hill would hit me. I couldn't swerve because I could hit the guy. I had my accelerator depressed already. So I just watched in slow motion, fascinated. I was getting closer. The pheasant got through the right lane and started crossing the left one. It was going straight under my wheels. I was half-expecting it to fly off, forgetting that it is a fat pheasant, it is very windy, dark and ****ing down. The guy behind me saw what's going on and slowed down and was sitting in my blind spot in the right lane. The pheasant is still running. Maybe I won't hit it. It is almost across the road...
I just felt a soft *thump* and knew straight away it's not a major one. In my head I was expecting a very loud noise and me skidding off the road (which was possible if my bumper disintegrated and punctured my left wheel), but when I felt and heard the noise, I felt strangely relieved.
I stopped in the nearest place to asses the damage and except for few small scratches on the left corner and few small feathers stuck to the wet bumper, there was not much to look at. Soaked I got back to my car and continued my journey.
And some general thoughts:
I must admit, I was/am impressed with my car. Yes, the engine is small. Yes, on the extreme uphill bits (20% gradient data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7) it was lacking a bit of power/torque, but other than that I never really felt like lagging behind. In fact, when I needed it to perform, it did (Glencoe - overtaking a car and a bus, later on overtaking 3 cars). Yes, it is not a rocket and never will be. I'm sure you guys owning 200BHPare laughing your arses off reading it, but I don't think it is that bad anymore.
What's more, I am impressed with the numbers. My onboard computer showed an average of 42.2 MPG for this journey and believe me when I say that I did not drive like a granny. I did 395 miles on one tank and when I got home the car was still showing it can do another 60 miles. The roads were twisty uphill/downhill accelerate/brake kind of roads all the way.
Out of almost 400 miles I reckon I only did around 60-70 of motorway. The rest was all A and B roads and I think this is where the car shines. It is rubbish on motorways, but A and B roads were just a blast.
The roads were superb. A bit bumpy (I wished my suspension was a bit stiffer, so it wouldn't jump around so much) and some potholes, but nothing major. I went with Option C by the way, if you want to trace my route. I'm glad I did BTW, because the A93, A939, B851, B862, A887 and A87 were brilliant. If not for the amount of traffic I'd add the A82 to that list. I love that road, when it's quiet. Glencoe bit is great.
I'll be first to admit, a driving trip and a photography trip will always be a massive compromise. "Stop here! What a view! Take a picture!" vs "What a road! Keep going! Faster!". The photos I managed to take, were all a compromise. Stop, jump out, take 2-3 photos, back in the car, drive! Repeat! Rubbish idea. My brain was processing some amazing amount of information BTW. Looking for a nice photo opportunities, places to stop, is it safe to stop, trying not to crash, navigating, operating the car, going fast, etc. Yet, still. Except for the pheasant bit and the last 30 miles when I got to the motorway data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7boringdata:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 and was bored to death, it was perfect.
I've had some extreme weather in one day. Sunshine, extreme rain, gale-force winds in the mountains, wet twisty roads all the way. I can safely say that it was raining at least 75% of the whole trip and yet... I want to do it all over again data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
The idea for the next trip is already there. Still need to plan details and do a research.