Carrie and our British Porsche in Snowdonia Wales. This car would make a nice artificial reef in the Atlantic.
I never really thought about or wanted to drive in a country that chose to drive on the left side of the road. It always seemed unnatural to me. But drive I did; totaling over 1500 miles in England and Wales. And to top it off, I did it in a rented Ford Fiesta which had been maintained about as well as a porta-potty at the 1969 Woodstock Rock Festival. But it was now time to say good-bye to our British Porsche, because we were heading off to Scotland’s high country where a real car is a necessity.
But as I sat in our hotel room in Newark, England, the city where we rented our car and therefore the return point, I felt a sense of melancholy. For over more than 2 months we had been exploring every nook and cranny of England and Wales and we were overwhelmed with its natural beauty, its culture, its ales, its architecture, its pubs and ales, the kindness and friendliness of its people, and I was already missing it. To be fair, I must confess that I won’t miss the weather or the cuisine very much.
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So with sadness, the next morning we headed for the train station on our way to Glasgow where we
Waiting at the Newark, England train station for the train to Glasgow. Trains are not cheap in the UK, but efficient.
would pick up the ‘Scottish Porsche’. The 4 hour train ride provided an opportunity to start thinking about the adventures that lie ahead and our sadness quickly turned to anxious anticipation. However, since my knowledge of Scotland was limited to knowing that they make great whiskys and a short travel article I read about North Coast 500 circuit, supposedly a road trip to end all road trips, I was left with little to imagine. The North Coast 500 is billed as the US Route 66 of Scotland, but through unspoiled country with roads barely wide enough to accommodate one car. At least I won’t have to worry about which side of the road I need to drive on, I thought.
Day 1 – It’s a short taxi ride from the train station in Glasgow to the Enterprise Car Rental facility and only a slightly longer drive to our first stop, a Premier Inn, just outside of Glasgow. The taxi driver, a stereotypical Scottish lad, manages to wrangle an extra 3 pounds from us. “Taxes for driving you into this zone.” he proclaims as we eye the Enterprise Car Rental facility. Right! We just considered it his tip.
Our new car, affectionately named the Scottish Porsche. A much better ride than the old English Porsche. Styling!
The Enterprise experience couldn’t have gone better. Efficient and courteous, they decide, based on our driving plans, to upgrade us at no charge to a Mazda S6; sweet! Well, except that it’s huge compared to what I’ve become accustomed to driving in the UK. “It’s a bit large for someone not used to driving on the left side, isn’t it? Don’t you have something smaller?” I ask. “Oh, trust us. You’ll love this car and you’ll really appreciate its ground clearance and suspension where you’re going”, they tell us with a look of been there done that drive. By the end of the trip we were in love with our Scottish Porsche and we were sorry to leave her behind. The drive to the Premier Inn is a nice easy drive, mostly via carriageway, providing ample time to get used to our new ride. And this word, carriageway? Why the hell is it called a carriageway? There haven’t been carriages on the road in over a hundred years. Call it what it is, a damn highway! Oops. Wait a minute. Why do we call it a highway? I don’t think it’s a place to get high. I think the powers that be actually discourage getting high on the highway. I digress. Safely parked and checked in, it’s time for a little dinner.
Premier Inns and a good value with locations all over the UK. However, the associated restaurants are not as well managed. Lousy food topped with bad service. They did have ale though!
Since our hotel is in the middle of nowhere, we’re captive to the attached restaurant. Shittiest food I’ve eaten in my life, topped off with terrible service. The ale helped relieve the pain. More pain relief is consumed in the form of a scotch whiskey in our room before dozing off to never-never land, with dreams of the distilleries to come.
Day 2 – The plan is to drive from North Glasgow to Kinguissie, a small village near a few distilleries. Since it’s just a few hour drive, we figure that we’ll have plenty of time to do some proper tasting. First
Our first distillery stop. Beautiful setting, excellent whiskies, and crappy weather.
stop is the Dalwhinnie Distillery, and they really know how to do it up right. We decide to do the 3 whiskey tasting paired with fine chocolates. Although we would have preferred to do a larger tasting, Scotland’s zero tolerance law put the fear of god in us and we planned on doing a few more tastings before day’s end.
A proper whiskey tasting. Even Carrie enjoyed the chocolate pairings.
Dear Prudence open up your eyes. Dear Prudence let me see you smile. Second stop, our flop house for the night, the Scot House. A charming guesthouse, with a family style restaurant and pub.
Our first guesthouse in Scotland. Located in the village of Kingussie, this charming little place had everything required; food, ale, and proximity to distilleries and cool ruins.
Modernized to meet safety codes combined with the addition of indoor plumbing it felt like we had just entered the labyrinth of Daedalus. Doors and more doors; entry door flanked by the bathroom door, followed by a door to the main chamber. Fortunately, no Minotaur were encountered.
Carrie has the next distillery plugged into Google maps and the Google Bitch at the ready; “In 500 meters, at the roundabout, take the second exit.” she snaps. On the way to Speyside Distillery we pass a cool looking ruin named The Barracks.
The Barracks. Life was hard for these poor soldiers, but they had a great view.
People, through the drizzle, were snapping pictures left and right.
A little taste of life at The Barracks back in its heyday.
We decide to return the next morning on our way out of town for a photo shoot. For now, we need to get to the distillery before closing time. “Turn left now!” commands the G-bitch. “Carrie, are you sure she’s got this one?” I counter. But, the Bitch is not to be challenged and we turn onto the one lane dirt road. Thankfully our Scottish Porsche has no problem with the mud and potholes. “You’ve arrived at your destination. Your destination is on the right.” says the G-bitch. We pull into the empty gravel parking lot. Not a sign to be seen that would indicate that it’s a distillery or for that matter any type of business at all. Surrounding the parking lot are 4 buildings. I tell Carrie to go check it out and I’ll keep the car running, prepared for an escape. Carrie heads for the closest door and enters into an empty room that appears to be someone’s livingroom. Oops! Now running, she hops into the car and we’re off, bouncing down the single lane bog for a road. We later learned that the Speyside Distillery wasn’t open to the public for tastings, so we’re still not sure if the G-bitch took us to the correct place or if she was playing a cruel joke on us for occasionally bad-mouthing her. It’s still too early to head to our room so what to do?
Tomatin Distillery was a real disappointment after Dalwhinnie. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day.
Search for another distillery nearby, that’s what, and see if the G-bitch can redeem herself. Tomatin pops up, but it’s around 35 miles away. We’re only in the area for one night so off we go, but as it turns out, we wish we hadn’t. Road construction almost the entire route made the trip take over an hour and Tomatin, unlike Dalwhinnie was completely unorganized and at full capacity with tourists off loaded from mega tour buses presumably from Inverness. To top it off, they wouldn’t even serve me because I was the driver. Ahh…who cares; their whiskies weren’t that good anyway.
Another photo from the Barracks. Not even tourists were around on this rainy early morning.
The Barracks.
Day 3 – Carrie and the G-bitch decide to deviate from the proper North Coast 500 route, taking us
Sights along the way from Kingussie, heading toward Loch Ness.
southwest along the coast of Loch Ness, before reconnecting with the proper route just north of Inverness. Much more scenic I’m told and we’ll avoid those large, nicely paved carriageways. Conveniently, the Barracks, the ruins we passed yesterday is on the way. A really cool place to photograph and since it was early morning we had the place entirely to ourselves. I could also have mentioned that it was raining, but it is almost always raining.
The rain didn’t seem to bother these guys very much. Although they seemed very interested in what we were doing. We ate a few of their brethren during our time in Scotland.
So, unless I say otherwise, assume foul weather. Our next major stop will be to tour Castle Urquhart, on the Loch Ness coast. The drive, as billed, is
A monument to the Royal Marines. A stop near Loch Ness on the way to Urquhart Castle.
incredibly beautiful with sheep dotting beautifully green hillside pastures, waterfalls, ancient homesteads, and Loch Ness coast line. Traffic, in places, is a bit dense as this is a well traveled tourist area with Urquhart a very popular destination. So popular in fact, we had to park in the nearby village of Drumnadrochit and trek nearly 2 miles to reach the castle.
The views from The Royal Marine Monument were spectacular.
Finally we arrive at Urquhart. The cool part was that we found a distiller selling his honey infused whiskey in the gift shop. It sure hit the stop on this cold and rainy day. Got to love summer in Scotland.
Carrie in her element at the Glen Ord Distillery.
Enough of this touristy stuff, time to find another distillery. An hour later and the G-bitch has us in the parking lot of the Glen Ord distillery. Another Diagio brand. Diagio has been buying up
Glen Ord’s patented still shape.
many of the Scottish distilleries and currently owns more than half of all the distilleries in Scotland. The distillery tour is well worth the price. We learned that Glen Ord provides the malted barley smoked with peat to the Talisker brand and that they sell mostly to the Asian markets.
As you can see, Glen Ord’s whiskies are nectar from the gods.
The Clynelish Distillery near Brora. Another Diageo distillery.
It has been a pretty full day of driving, touring, and drinking, so we’re anxious to get to our next guesthouse, the Sutherland Inn, in the village of Brora.
And this is what’s produced at the Clynelish distillery. We consider these breakfast style whiskies because we were here in the early morning.
Old, quaint, with an excellent restaurant, we head to bed exhausted. Tomorrow we head further north to land’s end – John o’ Groats and the Single tracks are coming.
Stay tuned for part 2! More photos below.
Hike Drink Live Laugh – Apero Time!
The Clynelish Distillery warehouse facility. Yum! The aroma was intoxicating.
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Countryside on the road between Kingussie and Loch Ness.
The countryside near Urquhart Castle.
Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness. No Nessie sightings, however.
Love it. I’ve been to England and Wales but this looks like something I would love to see. That picture by the Loch Ness looked exactly like what the author described in the book we just read for our book club THE RIVERS EDGE.
Thanks D.J.! Glad you enjoyed the post. It is certainly a beautiful, albeit harsh, part of the world. We’ll have to look for ‘The River’s Edge’. Part 2 should be up soon.