1-2 May and 25-30 May 2024

I’ve noticed that I have a gap in my records, so for my own benefit I’m filling it in. It’s taken a bit of detective work to be sure of the order in which we did things.

Where was Bertie? Wednesday & Thursday 1 & 2 May – Creag Meagaidh Nature Reserve Car Park (donation); Saturday 25 May – Motorhome parking area, Arbroath; Sunday 26 May – usual pull-in near Shap; Monday 27 May – small parking area on a minor road by Tebay; Tuesday 28 May - The Ship @ Freckleton; Wednesday 29 May – Ma-in-Law’s Drive

After leaving Killin on 20 April Bertie had spent his time parked at Newtonmore Hostel, but the guest situation at the hostel on 1 & 2 May meant that he needed to vacate the driveway. It seemed like an excellent excuse for a couple of night’s out. Creag Meagaidh wasn’t far away, it has a good car park that allows overnight parking, and I’d never been up the hill, so that’s where we went.

Was it the snooker that was on at the time? Whatever the sport was that we wanted to watch we arrived to find that we had no phone signal on our usual phones. The spare phone came to the rescue again we were able to watch.

The hills we wanted to visit were duly visited (as described on t’other blog) and on the Thursday morning we returned to Newtonmore, realising on the way that we had forgotten to put any money in the donations box in the car park. Google to the rescue and I put right our omission electronically.

The rest of our time in Newtonmore saw Bertie back at the hostel, then in the middle of the Challenge he transferred to the car park of the Park Hotel in Montrose.

I knitted a jumper for a beaver. As you do...

Leaving The Park on 25 May, after a trip to Charleton Fruit Farm with Martin, Sue & Ali (where we were joined on our table by a couple of parkrunning women, one of whom was quite overbearing), we made it all the way down to Arbroath (some 15 miles distant) to spend the night.

I wasn’t optimistic about getting a spot in the motorhome parking area there. Last year we arrived just as someone vacated a space and it seemed unlikely that we would be that lucky again, and we weren’t in the market for parking in the ‘no motorhomes beyond this point’ area, even though many, many others do.

We arrived to find two spaces spare!

Our mission in Arbroath was to find a Smokie Pie. A TGO Challenger, who had finished her Challenge in Arbroath, had posted a photo of one on Facebook and it looked like the sort of thing I would enjoy. She’d given us directions (the main points were: by the harbour, blue building) and off we set. We soon found that most buildings by the harbour are blue, but we eventually found Cel’s, housed in a purple building.

Me, harbour, pies.

I’m sure the pies would have been nice, if they hadn’t added a bucket of salt to the already salty fish.

The following day, Sunday, was the day of the Edinburgh Marathon, but driving around Edinburgh whilst it was in full swing, we didn't get held up. Anyone who took part in that event is probably still scarred from how wet the day was, but it dried up, per forecast, by the time we reached the location of the three hills I was tackling that day.

The hills were bagged and on to our usual pull-in at Shap we went.

On Monday it was Mick's turn for some exercise and a short drive took us into the Howgills. The parking area I thought I'd found on StreetView didn't work out, but as I was staying in Bertie and could move him at a moment's notice, we went with a slightly inconsiderate spot (marginally impinging on access to a cattle grid bypass gate). We spent that night not much further south, in a little parking area on a minor road just S of the village of Tebay.

My first draft of this post didn't mention this night, because until I found this photo we had completely forgotten about it ...which is why retrospectively writing this post is important to me!

Tuesday morning and we had a late morning date with Conrad at Café Ambio at the cattle market. After an early morning march up to a local highpoint for me, southwards we went with plenty of time to spare, as we needed a stop on the way. A few days had passed since our last shower and we didn’t have enough water in Bertie’s tank to have anything more than a cursory wash, so we pulled in at the first Motorway Services to avail ourselves of their shower facilities.

We knew that Motorway Services had showers, but we’ve never used them before, so it was a surprise, when I asked for the key, that they asked for my car keys in return. That was a problem, as I had left Mick in Bertie and had no keys on me. I offered my phone instead, and they accepted.

The shower was good, if you ignored how filthy it was, and once I was done I took the key straight out to Mick so that he could avoid the whole car key/phone rigmarole (of course, I would have phoned him to summon him to come over, if it wasn’t for the fact that I no longer had a phone!).

Cafe ambio, sadly without Guinness cake

Onwards to visit friends near Preston, with whom we went out for a meal in the evening. I’d come up with a couple of potential places to spend the night and the first one came to fruition: The Ship, where we had our meal, had no objection to us spending the night in their car park.

We were on our way relatively early the next morning, over to see Ma-in-Law. I think we only spent the one night on her driveway, before heading home the next day.