The Scottish Highlands.

Wednesday dawned a much brighter day so we drove further out towards Ben Nevis to take some photos. Leaving Fort William behind we travelled south through the real Highlands. The scenery through here is just stunning, narrow winding roads bordered on either side by centuries old dry stone walls. No place to misjudge passing oncoming buses etc as the walls are obviously very unforgiving to vehicles - the fact that are are still intact after all this time is testimony to that. We passed through Glencoe, a winter ski slopes area, then through a very steep and narrow pass. As we descended the pass there was quite a nasty accident. A small sedan had rolled on a tight bend and ended upside down in the deep ditch at the edge of the road. Several cars had already stopped and were directing traffic around the spot on the very narrow road. Later we passed several police and rescue vehicles on their way up the mountain. We then drove alongside Loch Lomond, through Dumbarton and on to Glasgow then further south to Dumphries. On the outskirts of Dumphries near the small village of Shawhead we located a farm stay caravan park, our overnight stop. We went for a long walk through the fields of the farm amongst the black faced sheep before preparing dinner.
Thursday we pressed on to Gretna Green, famous for its elopments over the years as it is just across the border into Scotland. We spent quite some time in this very pretty little settlement. Windemere was our next destination in the Lakes District, then on to Kendal and finally located our next overnight stop near Beetham. I say finally as we rejected two earlier parks (both members of the British Caravan Club) due to their exhorbitant surchage for non-members - £5 at one, £8 ($20) at the other, this on top of an already higher rate than non BCC parks. After dinner we were able to contact Jim Taylor, (a friend we met through Carol Hunter) with the view to catching up with him on Saturday evening. Friday more travel south, this time on the M6 where we saw the most incredible traffic jam which extended for almost 4 miles, brought about by a truck ripping its roof off on a bridge over the motorway and blocking 2 of the 3 lanes. Fortunately for us it was on the northbound side and we were heading south. After taking a couple of wrong turns and almost doing a 30 mile loop, we decided to stop overnight in Llangollan - Wales. We settled on a riverside caravan park on the outskirts of town, then walked back into town and along the canal loking at all the narrow boats. This brought back fond memories of our narrowboat holiday in 1995 with the Smiths and The Irish mob, near Stoke On Trent. Earlier today we stopped at a Stepped Lock and watched several narrow boats negotiate the mutiple locks - one again fond memories of our similar experience in 1995.
We are laughing now but we nearly had an abrupt ending to our holiday this morning - at least Gail did. As we drove along a motorist pulled along side and informed us that the rear door on the motorhome was opening every time we went around a bend. Gail decided she could close and lock it while on the move as the narrow roads leave little room for stopping. So she unbuckled her seat belt and made her way to the rear as we continued to roll along. Not a smart idea Grandma. Initially all went well but before she let go of the internal door handle it suddenly flew open again and almost dragged her out flapping in the breeze. The things some people do for excitement.
Kevin & Gail.
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