Bonnie Scotland

[NonMember]

Last week, my other half and I went up to Scotland on holiday. We took Tessa because Spitfires and GT6s don't have enough luggage space (and Scotland is too lovely for a Mondeo!)

The first day was a slog up to Edinburgh via the A1 and A68 (similar to a certain long distance driving event) and a stay in the city. The next morning we headed up to Pitlochry for a look round, then a not-quite trouble-free journey to Balmoral. Tessa overheated a bit after overtaking a queue of slow moderns, uphill, with a throttle linkage problem. She carried on fine after a couple of minutes rest. We then had an overnight stop near Inverness, before driving down the side of Loch Ness:

Our destination was Oban but we took a short detour into a rather wet Glencoe:

Oban is a lovely town with very good food. The next morning we took the ferry:

over to Mull. Apparently, quite a lot of people do Oban to Mull then straight to Iona, but that's missing out big time. We stopped off at Duart Castle first:

then up to Calgary and Tobermory. The roads on Mull are fabulous:

The next day we did go over to Iona, on foot as cars are only allowed by special permit.

Back on the mainland, we made our way to Stirling by a scenic route:

After Sitrling, we visited the Bo'ness and Kinneil railway, then drove to Newcastle. Tessa had been worrying me by apparently running really hot, but when we finally found a proper petrol station where I could fill her up (instead of pre-selecting the amount of petrol in pounds!) I realised the voltage regulator had packed up and she was pretty much at normal temperature. We got home smoothly after that.

Overall fuel economy was 34MPG, which is the best she's managed in a long time. Mind you, after failing to reach Newcastle on last year's Cambridge area NC500 run, this was also by far the longest journey she's undertaken since her engine rebuild four years ago.

 

[dougbgt6]

Well done NM, I went camping in Pitlochry in the grounds of Blair Castle. Glorious weather, but decided we couldn't stay there all holiday so left for Glencoe. It tipped down, we stayed one night and went back to Pitlochry. Always rains in Glencoe! 

Doug