Monday 1 to Wednesday 10 June - Dufftown to Home

Monday 1 June

Where was Bertie? He spent a night in the parking area for Ben Rinnes, SW of Dufftown

Weather: Decidedly wet morning, drier later

To the best of my recollection (writing this over two weeks later), it was the combined factors of it being a cold morning and knowing that the Tap o’Noth car park is relatively small, that caused me to suggest that we moved immediately on getting up. That gave the advantage of using Bertie’s engine, rather than the gas heating, to warm Bertie up, and being sure that we could manoeuvre easily in our destination car park on arrival. The latter turned out not to be an issue – the weather was foul and the busiest we saw the car park was us plus one car that arrived whilst we breakfasted.

We didn’t tarry once we got back to Bertie after visiting our hill, as the car park was on such a slope that I felt sure the next parking area would be better. It was on our way there that we appreciated the luck of moving before breakfast – the road we were on was now closed, and had we been later we wouldn't have been able to access my hill. Whatever work was taking place must have been on the section we'd already driven, so other than needing to squeeze past the road closure signs to exit the closed section, we weren't impeded in getting to my next hill either. 

Our next parking area was flatter, but being an informal pull-in that wasn’t much bigger than Bertie it wasn’t the sort of place that you’d want to spend much time – particularly as we were now on the diversion route for the closed A-road. I did pause for a cup of tea and a buttery before I went up my hill, but we were off as soon as I got back.

A shopping trip to the Coop in Dufftown, and onto Ben Rinnes we went – not to go up the hill, nor those on the other side of the road, having done all of those before, but just to while away the rest of the day.

Another motorhome joined us late in the afternoon, but soon left – possibly when they discovered a lack of mobile phone signal. We’d known that to be an issue with this spot (having parked there when I did the hills to the NE), but decided it was an acceptable cost of an otherwise excellent overnight spot. 

A low cloud base meant it wasn't the best hill-bagging weather. It rained most of our descent too.

Tuesday 2 June

Where was Bertie? Allanreid car park, at the end of a minor road in Glen Livet.

Weather: Rainy morning and late afternoon, but with a good dry spell in the middle (contrary to the forecast, so I didn’t make use of it!)

Another day of moving before breakfast. I can’t remember whether it was a cold start to the day; it might just have been so we could get a phone signal to look at the weather forecast and make plans.

We’d started the day in Tombae car park, on the same minor road. Glad we hadn’t tried to overnight there, as it was unpleasantly sloping, even for Mick to sit around for a few hours, never mind for sleeping. Allanreid car park was nearer to the only hill I had on my agenda on this day that was forecast to be miserably wet, but it didn’t seem worth driving Bertie an extra 2.5km down a tiny lane just to save me 5k of walking.

Having returned from my hill along the road and established that you could see the next passing place from the previous one, and that there were no low hanging branches, we then moved up to the nicely flat Allanreid car park to spend the night, also positioning me nicely for my hills for the following day (I’d thought we’d spend the night at Tombae and I’d cycle from there – the 2.5k move up the glen gave us a comfortable night and me a shorter bike ride).

We did stir out of doors in the evening, after an afternoon of being cooped up – just a short wander to look at the track I would be taking on my bike in the morning.

The only issue with this parking spot was the complete lack of signal on EE (Mick’s and the spare phone’s network). I had a decent signal on Three, but it meant that I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with Mick whilst I was out for several hours the next day.

Wednesday 3 June

Where was Bertie? He spent the night all alone in a very large car park at The Lecht ski centre (at 650m, at the high point of the road).

Weather: Dry morning, some rain in the afternoon – windy late afternoon.

The day didn’t start entirely well when Mick went to get my bike out of Bertie’s boot and didn’t notice the fresh fox poo right outside the boot’s door. He proceeded to tread it all over the boot. It still reeked even once the matting had been scrubbed and bleached.

Yesterday we’d had the car park at the end of the minor road in Glen Livet all to our selves, which wasn’t surprising given the forecast. Today another car arrived just as I was setting out on my bike. Mick had a chat to the occupant and established that he was going up the same hills, but he was apparently surprised at my intended route (specifically, the bit where I was just going to drop straight off the side of Cook’s Cairn, rather than retracing my steps down the track). I might have seen that chap as I was on my way back to my bike but given that it was raining heavily at the time, I didn’t pause at the junction of paths to await his arrival for a chat.

By the time I got back to Bertie the car park was busy, which is to say there was another motorhome and two cars. We soon freed up our space, heading over to The Lecht, via a very welcome bin in Tomintoul.

Arriving at The Lecht, if we’d driven past the buildings we would have found another large car park, but that one’s reasonably flat. We parked in the sloping one, but we found a tolerable spot. What we hadn’t anticipated when we drove up there (perhaps rather shortsightedly) was the wind speed. We were being fairly battered by it, and we wondered whether we should retreat for a good night’s sleep. Instead we put our faith that the weather forecast would come good and sure enough at sometime around 8pm the wind dropped to almost nothing and a quiet night was had.

Bertie all on his tod at The Lecht Ski Centre
 

Thursday 4 June

Where was Bertie? He spent a night at the campsite in Grantown on Spey at a cost of £36.70.

Weather: Some showers

After nipping up our final hill of the trip first thing, we timed ourselves nicely to arrive in Grantown not long after the earliest check-in time. I’d booked this campsite the evening before and with the advertised price being £37.70 for a standard pitch (£42.xx for a Super Pitch) it was going to be the most expensive campsite we’d stayed at (I don’t think it won this award when we last stayed there around 10 years ago). The price came down a whole £1 during the booking process as I was able to give a C&CC membership number, but it retained it’s ‘most expensive’ crown.

Predictably, the place was almost empty. I do wonder whether, if they charged £30 they would have three times as many visitors? Certainly, at a more reasonable price, we would have stayed for two nights rather than just one.

Our purpose there (other than to make extensive use of their shower facilities) was to meet up with a couple of TGO Challengers and after a retrospectively amusing misunderstanding surrounding ‘meet at reception’ (we were in the reception of the hotel where we were going for a drink; they were at the campsite reception) an excellent night was had. We were the last people in the bar, but we took the hint when the lights started getting turned off around us.

Friday and Saturday 5-6 June

Where was Bertie? In the pull-in on a minor dead-end road in Newtonmore

Weather: Still showery

Since we were last in Newtonmore, Ali & Adrian have sold Newtonmore Hostel, thus removing our handy parking for Bertie. They still live in the village, but their house isn’t accessible to Bertie (rough track with low trees), so we opted for the nearest alternative location we knew of, just a few minutes walk across a couple of fields.

Most of the time was spent at their house, with Bertie just used for sleeping.

Sunday 7 June

Where was Bertie? He spent another night at Perth’s Broxden Park & Ride.

After brunch in Kingussie with Ali & Adrian, followed by pudding in Newtonmore (Ali makes an incredible carrot cake), we made the 2-hour hop down to Perth for the night where, surprisingly, we were the only motorhome in the large car park. I don’t think that’s happened before (unless we were alone on our emergency stay in late December 2023, but that was in Erica).

Monday 8 June

Where was Bertie? He spent a night in one of the motorhome parking areas at Lytham St Annes at a cost of £10.

An earlyish start for a lunchtime rendezvous with Conrad at Café Ambio. Arriving in good time, we took the negligible detour to Canal Garage where we were able to fill up with both LPG and diesel. We’d rationed the former so well whilst we were in Scotland (where we didn’t pass a single LPG-selling station), that we still had about 20 days-worth left. We didn’t particularly need diesel, but it was the cheapest we’ve seen in quite a while, so topped up.

We spent longer in Café Ambio than the average customer, and they were sweeping up around us by the time we left, opting to head down to Lytham St Annes, positioning ourselves nicely for the following day.

Previously we’ve stayed in the car park next to the Toby Carvery, which (I think) was the original motorhome parking in the town. They’ve since extended the scheme to various other seafront car parks, most of which seem to cost £15 for one night and £25 for two. The reason we chose the Fairhaven Lake one this time was because it’s £10 (or £15 for two nights), and for our purposes it was just as good a location as any of the others.

We nipped out for a strollette only a few minutes after arriving, but didn’t last long. The wind was strong and biting, and it looked like it was about to rain.

Tuesday 9 June

Where was Bertie? He spent a night on Al & Nicky’s drive.

I’d intended to join Mick for a run in the morning, but with the rain drumming down, my enthusiasm waned. As it went, the rain stopped as Mick went out and didn’t start again until he was back.

Late morning, we headed over to AlaNicky’s house, where we chatted away the afternoon, before heading out for dinner at The Eagle, a pub I last visited in 2006 or 7 after a meeting at BAE Systems that has only stuck in my memory due to the impressive rant that my boss directed at the customer’s legal team.

Despite being offered a bed, we opted to sleep on their drive. It was level enough and it saved us having to think about what we would need to pack for a night indoors, with it being almost guaranteed that something would have been forgotten and not noticed until it was needed at bedtime. Plus, why cause someone a need to do laundry when we have our own bed with us?

Wednesday 10 June

Our final leg of the journey started late in the morning. The date of our return was based on needing to do some gardening (not at our house) by Friday lunchtime, but we got home to realise that the forecast for Thursday was heavy rain all day. The forecast came true too, so it was an early start on Friday to get everything done by the deadline … or not quite everything as I managed to mistake an extension lead for the lawnmower lead, so we had a lawnmower but no means to power it. Fortunately, the bulk of the work needed was weeding.

We then managed to stay at home for a whole 2 days before heading out in Bertie again, but that’s a subject for a different post.

Monday 25 to Saturday 30 May - Montrose to A Random Car Park on the A97

Another delayed typed-it-but-didn't-publish-it post. It's really just for my own records, so I'd recommend going and reading something more interesting elsewhere!

Monday 25^th

Where was Bertie? He spent a night at the Back of Hill of Fare car park

Weather: Mainly sunny and suddenly warm

After availing ourselves of the shower facilities again, we announced our intention to leave the Temporary Holiday Site at Montrose – a necessary part of the process as there’s a height barrier at the end of the access road, and one of the wardens needs to go and open and close it for every arrival and departure.

A quick supermarket trip, then north-westwards we headed, with our afternoon’s objective being Hill of Fare. For future reference, I should note that in Fettercairn there’s an arch that spans the B road with a width restriction of 2.3m and a sign saying ‘cars only’. As Bertie is more slender than that and could easily fit through, we decided that for these purposes he is a car (he is, after all, a Class M vehicle), but in future I’d try to remember to go another way.

Our destination car park was empty, bar a chap in a works truck who sat around for an hour or so before leaving, and proved to be suitable for a night-stop. A good thing, as I didn’t have a Plan B and, having now decided that I had a cold, I wasn’t really in the market for rushing through multiple hills so that we could find somewhere to spend the night that wouldn’t require a backtrack.

Tuesday 26^th and Wednesday 27^th

Where was Bertie: He spent two nights at Tarland Camping & Caravanning Club Site at a cost of £27 per night.

Weather: Lots of sun and warm

Whilst looking to see what the parking opportunities were in Tarland, I found the C&CC Club Site. To my surprise, even though it was a school holiday week, the price was reasonable, so I booked two nights, allowing us to go and walk a circuit, taking in the summit of Pressendye, on Wednesday.

First, though, I had two hills on the way to Tarland, and having done those we were still a bit too early to arrive at the campsite, so we parked up in The Square, and would have gone to the café, except it’s closed on a Tuesday and Wednesday.

Arriving at the campsite a few minutes after the earliest arrival time, I was asked if we wanted a pitch in the sunshine or the shade. With hindsight the correct answer was ‘near the toilet block’, as needing to do laundy, have a shower, and do dishes, it was a lot of walking back and forth from the sunny pitches, right at the far end of the site, to the amenities near the entrance.

Buying a laundry token a while later, the warden commented that I wouldn’t need a dryer token today. So it seemed with the warm sunshine, but by the time the washing cycle finished, the sky had clouded over and it was looking threatening. The forecast confirmed a high chance of showers, but I optimistically pegged it out anyway – a good call as it never did rain.

Wednesday morning we spent out walking, then Wednesday afternoon I set about processing the first batch of TGO Challenge 2026 All-Routes images. That was something of a trial, as phone signal at the campsite (and in Tarland in general) was non-existent on my network, weak on Mick’s, and the campsite wifi was also really slow (I think due to the quality of connection in this area, rather than the campsite not buying enough bandwidth).

I often hear people lauding places that don’t have phone signal or wifi, saying that holidays are for getting away from it all. I say if you want to get away from it all, then don’t turn your device on, but in our case, we need connectivity most of the time (I would also make the distinction that we are living on the road, rather than on holiday). It was for the lack of internet that we didn’t stay another night.

An example of the All-Routes images that I produce. The green lines are all of the gpx files received from TGO Challengers for the 2026 event, with the lighter line being Janet Jones's route (actually, it was my submitted route, but all samples go in the imaginative names of Janet Jones & John Smith).  
 

Thursday 28 ^th and Friday 29 ^th

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights at Black Bull Byre Motorhome Aire at a cost of £15 per night including electricity (it’s £10 without)

Weather: Sunny and warm, but windy on Friday.

We started our day by walking into Tarland to the café that had been closed when we’d arrived on Tuesday. There we received the warmest of welcomes. The scones weren’t out of the oven yet, but we were happy to wait, so we ordered drinks (“Just ask if you want more water in your teapot” is such a simple thing to say to every tea-drinking customer, most of whom probably don’t take them up on it, as the teapots are amply sized, but it just gives a good impression (I am slightly scarred by twice in recent weeks having ordered tea and been served a cup the approximate size of a thimble)).

Walking back to the campsite in good time to be off our pitch by noon, we did the last few chores, visited the service point, then wondered what to do with ourselves as our next intended night stop hadn’t answered the phone nor yet returned our call. We opted to drive back into the village to contemplate our options, whereupon we got the call back from the Aire, confirming they had a space, but I thought it felt a bit impolitely early to head straight there (we were only 4 miles away). “We could go back to the café for lunch?” one of us suggested, so that’s what we did. The staff were amused to see us back so soon.

Then onto Black Bull Byre, a stopover chosen for being conveniently positioned for a hill that was on my hit list. The most recent review of this Aire on Park4Night gave it one star, citing sloping grass and an access track more holed than a golf course; every other reviewer had given it five stars. We are with the majority. Yes, the access track was potholed when we drove in, but it’s a farm access track and I think rather unrealistic to expect it to be smooth, and it was fine when taken slowly. By the time we drove out it was a lot less potholed, as they’d started repairing it whilst we were there. As for the parking, we were on perfectly level hardstanding, which did require us to run our hook-up cable across the track, but as that track was only access for one or two holiday lets, that wasn’t a problem.

The location itself was rather nice too, being peaceful outside of farm working hours (and there wasn’t that much disturbance even when machinery was working), and with the highlight being the birdlife. In particular, we had two fledgling wagtails sharing the hardstanding with us (young wagtails don’t half blend in well with a grey stone background), with a parent coming back and forth.  

Cafe visit no. 1. I had the Scone of the Day, which was rhubarb and ginger. Mick had a cheese scone. 

Cafe visit no. 2, about an hour later. The soup was pea and apple and was excellent. 
 

Saturday 30 May

Where was Bertie? He spent another night at Tarland C&CC site at a cost of £27.42

I’d spent half the morning sending out Personalised TGOC26 All-Routes Images, then another chunk of time contemplating the big question: to take the shortest route to Newtonmore via the unbagged Marilyns that lay in our way, or to go and do a 50-mile loop to take in some not-in-our-way hills. The main argument for the latter was that its unlikely we’ll be this close again, so it made sense to do a smaller detour now rather than a bigger detour when we go up to Elgin next year. The deal was sealed by the fact that the weather forecast wasn’t great, and the not-in-our-way hills were smaller than the in-our-way ones.

With that planned, we might have gone straight off to the first hill on the list, but I suggested that first we should nip back to Tarland, to make another visit to the café, and to stock up on a few things in the little village store. I then suggested that we could spend another night at the Tarland campsite, deferring more hills until Sunday – and that’s what we decided to do. Yes, this was a plan based almost entirely on wanting another scone!

Today’s Scone of the Day was lemon and poppy seed, and that’s what I had whilst Mick had a full breakfast. On the one hand, if I’d known how long the breakfast would take to arrive, I would have ordered the soup for myself (it had felt a bit early for soup when we arrived at just gone 11am), but on the other hand, the breakfast was so huge that Mick barely noticed the loss when I helped him with bits of it. As for the wait, everything was cooked fresh, and very well, and I reckon they even make their own hash browns.

This is another café on this trip where we would spend a lot of time if it was local to us.

We left, assuring the staff that this really was the last they would be seeing of us (they greeted us with “I thought you were on your way home?” when we walked in this time, I told them that we’d doubled back just because I couldn’t resist another of their scones).

Aside from availing ourselves of the campsite facilities, we did nothing for the rest of the day.

A huge breakfast of excellent quality

The lemon and poppyseed Scone of the Day was perfectly pleasant but a bit underlemoned, in my opinion. 
 

Sunday 31 May

Where’s Bertie? He’s in a car park off the A97 in between Alford and Rhynie.

Weather: Some showers first thing, one of which was violent and prolonged and caught me good and proper as I returned from a hill, then sunny intervals for the rest of the day.

We were away relatively early from the campsite, and I spent the morning visiting two hills. It was early afternoon by the time we pulled into this car park and after lunch I did give thought to going on to another hill, but it didn’t make logistical sense to do that, so we just stayed put. (post blog note: It was several days later that I realised that I had left just one unbagged hill in this entire area, and it was easily reachable by bike from this car park. How annoying!)

The reason for the exitence of this car park has bamboozled us. As far as we could make out it isn’t close to any attraction, and isn’t the start point for any walks. Yet, for some reason the local authority had decided to construct a car park for 20-odd cars, with spaces marked with inset bricks, and with drainage. It has a bit of an abandoned look to it, but it suits our purposes nicely.