Scotland Road Trip 2022 - Part One - Is It Raining Yet?
There is nothing like a little spontaneity to bring some variety into your life.
So last week we thought, that thing we have mentioned on and off for some time, should we do it and should we do it now?
And we decided, yes, yes we should do it. And we should do it right now
So thanks to retirement, AirBnB and a positive attitude, we did.
So welcome to part one of our Scotland Road Trip 2022.
Day One
An early start to avoid the traffic yet still we managed to hit delays on the M25. Frustrating to be stuck in standing traffic just 7 miles from home when you still have to drive another 340 or so, but such is life on a road trip.
The morning was lovely, blue skies and mild for mid October. We passed the uninteresting hours travelling away from the South East listening to the radio and finding random things to discuss. Who would have guessed that almost every other car on the M40 through Oxfordshire would have been a black Range Rover? (most of you I’m sure) And who would have thought that there are seven acceptable words that can be used as a collective noun for red kites (kettle, soar, husk, roost, brood, wake and stoppingare). Kettle was our favourite.
As we got further up the country the skies started darkening. Unfortunate but it did suit the rather dramatic hills that we navigated as we got closer to the Scottish border. A short stop at Tebay, our favourite motorway service station and farm shop, and we crossed the border a little earlier than planned, our M25 delays thankfully long forgotten.
So we decided to do a little “brown signing” with the extra time and dived into The Devils Porridge museum in Eastriggs.
Tucked away in a small village just over the border into Scotland, it tells the fascinating story of thousands of mostly young women who helped turn the local area into the biggest munitions factory (HM Factory Gretna) in the world during the First World War. Fascinating and horrific. Many of the women were tasked with mixing acid and waste cotton to make nitro-cotton and then, in large bowls with wooden paddles or even with bare hands, mixing it further with nitro-glycerine to make a paste (the devils porridge) in the production of cordite. Read about it, it is genuinely horrific.
Suitably shocked but feeling better educated, we drove the final few miles down the road to the outskirts of Annan for our first stop of the trip.
Out in the countryside, we spent the first night of our road trip in a rather pleasant cabin. Very clean (number one on the list of expectations that my wife has, apparently) and also very new, it had impressive views of the northern hills of the Lake District out over the Solway Firth. The grey and ever darkening skies, along with some rather unfriendly winds, convinced us that further investigation was not wise. An early night was called for.
Maybe, if we woke early and felt so inclined, we would explore a little more in the morning.
Day Two
The rain arrived overnight.
Heavy. With strong winds. Which we didn’t manage to sleep through.
A quick look out of the window convinced us that a walk along the shore of the Solway Firth would have to be indefinetely postponed.
So we set out for a little pre-planned “brown signing” instead.
Just a few miles along the road we stopped off at Gretna Green, famous for the Old Blacksmiths Shop and run away weddings.
How romantic must I be to take my wife to visit Gretna Green? Not very, I suspect she would answer.
For some reason I had always wanted to visit. After all this is one of those places that almost everyone has heard of. It must certainly be popular in Japan, judging by the coach load of enthusiastic visitors that had arrived just before us.
It has now, of course, been re-branded in the manner of all modern tourist attractions. I mean, who can resist the “Original Home Of Romance” and the “Home Of The Anvil Wedding” all within a modern visitor centre?
Quite a few, it would appear, as apart from the Japanese tourists the place was deserted.
Back on the road again and we were delighted to see that the rain had begun.
And when I say rain, what I mean of course is Scottish rain. Good, old fashioned, heavy, north of the border rain.
To say the next few hours and almost 200 miles of driving were enjoyable would be a lie. It rained a lot. The satnav was temperamental. We found roads that we had really not expected to find. But we got where we planned to be.
Eventually.
We crossed a bridge over the Firth of Forth (not that one) and we crossed another over the River Tay (also, not the obvious one). We stopped at a rather unloved service station outside of Stirling and felt just a little bit fed up as we watched the rain through the windows. But then we heard that the Prime Minister had resigned (yes, another one) and actually cheered us up a little.
The final stretch of the journey, once we had got through the seemingly never ending stretch of roundabouts through Dundee, was much better. The weather improved a little and we arrived in a rather unexpectedly dramatic Montrose feeling positive once more.
We resolved a little blip when we discovered that our home for the next three nights was actually a caravan (I had somehow booked it thinking it was a house) but realised that any reservations we might have would be minimised by having a wonderful nature reserve and beach on the doorstep.
We did however make a much better decision when we decided to check out the beach before the light went and the rain arrived once again. It was simply stunning. Wild and windy, rather chilly but thankfully dry, the unspoiled and almost deserted sands and dunes were breathtaking. St. Cyrus beach and nature reserve is highly recommended and, weather permitting, we looked forward to exploring further.
This is the Scotland that we wanted to find!
