To the best of our knowledge and belief, Erica has never been to Scotland before. She spent the first 6 years of her life as a little-used NHS patient transport vehicle based in Sheffield, during which period it’s difficult to envision a reason that she would have ventured anywhere near the Scottish border, and in our ownership the nearest she’s been is Penrith. We decided she was the most appropriate vehicle for this trip, so she’s on an adventure visiting some of the places that Big Brother Bertie has been (and others that he hasn’t).
Monday 7 August
Leaving home on schedule at 0900, things looked good for a timely arrival for our lunch date with friends near Preston. Then we passed a ‘Road Ahead Closed’ sign, soon after which we belatedly remembered our conversation of a week and a half ago on this very road, when we’d seen the ‘advance notice of road closure’, noted that it started on the day we would be travelling to Scotland, and agreed that we would need to take a completely different route. Add in an accident on the motorway and our journey was significantly longer than it should have been.
A good catch-up with Al & Nicky, then on to Arnside for a quick cup of tea with Conrad, before we headed further north. We’d been unsure as to whether to spend the night at Shap or at Gretna, but opted for Shap. I’d say they’re both equally good kipping spots, but Shap is free, versus £5 at Gretna, for the same facilities (i.e. none).
Getting Erica sorted for the evening took a bit of effort, as we were by no means travelling light on this trip (Erica is only our accommodation for the trip north and south; we’re in a house whilst here), but all was fine once we’d rearranged our load such that everything that wouldn’t fit in cupboards was shoved into every nook and cranny of the cab.
Tuesday 8 August
We were on the road at 0730, but only for an initial half-hour
hop to the next services, where we breakfasted in the car park and availed ourselves
of their toilet facilities and bins*. Our next stop of any significance was
Perth, for fuel and a bit of shopping at Tesco, followed by a bigger shop at
Aldi. From there it wasn’t too much further to Newtonmore, but I decided on a
little diversion en-route. There were a few places we'd wanted to visit on our way to TGO Challenge Control in April/early May, but circumstances prevented us from executing that part of the trip. Some of those side trips are on the agenda for this trip, and this was the first: at Dalwhinnie we turned left and made our way via
Laggan to Garva Bridge, where Mick dropped me off so that I could run a route on
the north side of the Spey down to Spey Dam. We'd mentioned this off-road alternative to various Challengers based on the map; we can now recommend it based on experience.
It's only a short hop from Spey Dam to Newtonmore, where we intend to stay for a wee while.
(*the previous night I’d opened a cupboard and thought we’d accidentally packed two bags of protein powder. Then I discovered that no, one of those bags, empty of its original contents, had been used for kitchen waste, then had erroneously made its way into Erica’s cupboard.
(post blog note: five weeks later, as we repacked Erica to come home, we discovered that the bag of nuts sitting at the back of our food cupboard in Newtonmore was in fact a bag of mouldy rubbish (used tea bags, mainly) from our journey north, so our outward error was not an isolated event!))
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