Where was Bertie? He spent Tuesday night in a pull-in alongside a B-road by Leadhills, Wednesday at a pull-in in the vicinity of Dalwhinnie and Thursday at a pull-in alongside a minor road not far from Forres.
Weather: Tuesday - mainly sunny and warm; Wednesday - disappointingly grey and, later in the day, drizzly; Thursday - mixed, breezy and cool but with a fine spell in the middle of the day
Tuesday
Monday's intended departure got delayed. The main culprits: 1) an incident of Bertie being parked next to a tree-chipping machine led to the push I've been needing to finally get up on his roof and give it a good clean; 2) resolution of the black versus white paint situation (a reference back to the footnote in my previous post; it turned out there was more than one rogue tin the shop). Add in a couple of other more minor distractions and suddenly the day had gone.
So, we hit the road on Tuesday morning and had a leisurely drive north, which isn't to say we tootled along abnormally slowly, but that we had quite a few stops (a petrol station that had no diesel; a supermarket; another petrol station that did have diesel; lunch; afternoon tea). It was thus beyond teatime when Bertie settled into a pull-in on a B-road alongside the M74. By the time I'd got half way through cooking tea, the road noise had caused me to decide that we would be moving on. A good call, in hindsight, as whilst we did drive a few miles out of our way, we found a discrete, and much prettier, spot that was quiet too.
All pitches look the same once it's dark out, but in the short while until dusk, we had a good view
After a day of sitting down, I managed to stir myself to take a bit of a stroll just as darkness was falling. My route was short due to the obstacle of a ford on the track I followed, but I repeated it four times, until the level of light told me to go inside and do a bit of crocheting for the rest of the evening.
Wednesday
The map didn't reveal an obvious place for a run in the immediate vicinity of where we were parked, but it occurred to me that Strathclyde Loch is only a couple of minutes away from the motorway, just SE of Glasgow. A prolonged pause was thus had there whilst I worked myself up to going outside (the MetOffice said that it was 9 degrees out; Bertie said it was 14; as soon as I got moving I decided Bertie was right) for a circuit of the loch, which was followed by coffee and a crossword. By then lunchtime was about upon us and had we not had good reason to end the day much further north, we likely would have found ourselves frittering away the day and staying the night. As it was, we made it to Perth before stopping for more fuel* and for lunch.
Given the way that Scotland has been overrun with motorhomes over the last year or so, we would have gone from there to a campsite near Newtonmore, except that one of them is closed and the other is only accepting stays of 7 nights or more (apparently due to Covid, but since their toilet block and reception are also closed, I can't see how the length of stay has any bearing). Unless I'm lacking some knowledge, it thus seems to me that there is not a single campsite in the immediate vicinity of the main trunk road running through the Highlands for the entire section between Blair Atholl and Aviemore. So, a layby it was for us after all.
Thursday
All was quiet in our layby until just after 1am, when suddenly Bertie started getting assaulted by a blustery wind. He pitched and rolled making us feel like we were at sea. Then it would die down, only to pick up to another squall within the hour. And so the night went on. It didn't make for the best night of sleep, which is no doubt how we came to silence the alarm at 0730 and not wake up for another hour.
Yikes! We were on a schedule today. By 0832 I had the kettle on the stove and breakfast on the table (breakfast = cold soaked porridge, so preparing it involves opening the fridge door to remove the containers and grabbing two spoons).
Having relocated ourselves to Newtonmore some delaying-tactics-faffing ensued, hoping for the rain to stop and the cloud to clear per the forecast. A short while later we headed out into the rain anyway, and by the time we'd run a 10km route up towards Loch Gynack and back** there were patches of blue sky to be seen.
After an afternoon catching up with Ali and Sue (TGO Challenge Coordinators and owners of Newtonmore Hostel), Bertie's nose was once again pointed northwards, bringing us to this spot, which positions us well for more visiting of friends tomorrow.
(*In case I've not mentioned before, Bertie has developed a problem with his fuel tank, in that it leaks when it's full. Our temporary work around has been not to completely fill the tank. This minimises the smell of diesel (the actual quantity leaking is tiny, but it stinks), but does, of course, reduce his range. He's booked in to a garage in a few weeks time for it to be looked at.
**How quickly fitness is lost! It's hard to believe it was just three months ago that I ran 50km on those trails, only a few seconds per km slower than today's pace. I certainly couldn't have kept it up for another 40km today!)
Weather: Tuesday - mainly sunny and warm; Wednesday - disappointingly grey and, later in the day, drizzly; Thursday - mixed, breezy and cool but with a fine spell in the middle of the day
Tuesday
Monday's intended departure got delayed. The main culprits: 1) an incident of Bertie being parked next to a tree-chipping machine led to the push I've been needing to finally get up on his roof and give it a good clean; 2) resolution of the black versus white paint situation (a reference back to the footnote in my previous post; it turned out there was more than one rogue tin the shop). Add in a couple of other more minor distractions and suddenly the day had gone.
So, we hit the road on Tuesday morning and had a leisurely drive north, which isn't to say we tootled along abnormally slowly, but that we had quite a few stops (a petrol station that had no diesel; a supermarket; another petrol station that did have diesel; lunch; afternoon tea). It was thus beyond teatime when Bertie settled into a pull-in on a B-road alongside the M74. By the time I'd got half way through cooking tea, the road noise had caused me to decide that we would be moving on. A good call, in hindsight, as whilst we did drive a few miles out of our way, we found a discrete, and much prettier, spot that was quiet too.
After a day of sitting down, I managed to stir myself to take a bit of a stroll just as darkness was falling. My route was short due to the obstacle of a ford on the track I followed, but I repeated it four times, until the level of light told me to go inside and do a bit of crocheting for the rest of the evening.
Wednesday
The map didn't reveal an obvious place for a run in the immediate vicinity of where we were parked, but it occurred to me that Strathclyde Loch is only a couple of minutes away from the motorway, just SE of Glasgow. A prolonged pause was thus had there whilst I worked myself up to going outside (the MetOffice said that it was 9 degrees out; Bertie said it was 14; as soon as I got moving I decided Bertie was right) for a circuit of the loch, which was followed by coffee and a crossword. By then lunchtime was about upon us and had we not had good reason to end the day much further north, we likely would have found ourselves frittering away the day and staying the night. As it was, we made it to Perth before stopping for more fuel* and for lunch.
Strathclyde Loch
Thursday
All was quiet in our layby until just after 1am, when suddenly Bertie started getting assaulted by a blustery wind. He pitched and rolled making us feel like we were at sea. Then it would die down, only to pick up to another squall within the hour. And so the night went on. It didn't make for the best night of sleep, which is no doubt how we came to silence the alarm at 0730 and not wake up for another hour.
Yikes! We were on a schedule today. By 0832 I had the kettle on the stove and breakfast on the table (breakfast = cold soaked porridge, so preparing it involves opening the fridge door to remove the containers and grabbing two spoons).
Having relocated ourselves to Newtonmore some delaying-tactics-faffing ensued, hoping for the rain to stop and the cloud to clear per the forecast. A short while later we headed out into the rain anyway, and by the time we'd run a 10km route up towards Loch Gynack and back** there were patches of blue sky to be seen.
After an afternoon catching up with Ali and Sue (TGO Challenge Coordinators and owners of Newtonmore Hostel), Bertie's nose was once again pointed northwards, bringing us to this spot, which positions us well for more visiting of friends tomorrow.
(*In case I've not mentioned before, Bertie has developed a problem with his fuel tank, in that it leaks when it's full. Our temporary work around has been not to completely fill the tank. This minimises the smell of diesel (the actual quantity leaking is tiny, but it stinks), but does, of course, reduce his range. He's booked in to a garage in a few weeks time for it to be looked at.
**How quickly fitness is lost! It's hard to believe it was just three months ago that I ran 50km on those trails, only a few seconds per km slower than today's pace. I certainly couldn't have kept it up for another 40km today!)
Is there a main objective for your northern trip or are you just tootling, and running?
ReplyDeleteThe main objective was Mick's RAF CXX Squadron reunion in Elgin this weekend, but rather than just coming up for that, we're making a trip of it - including attending another (completely unrelated) reunion next weekend, which coincidentally happened to tie in nicely with us being up here.
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