I have to admit: for the last couple of weeks I couldn’t stop thinking on the adventure we were about to start now: Road Trip in Scotland and wild camping for 6 days!!
Marie and Thibaud came from France to London to visit me and last night we got the National Express coach from London to Glasgow – a 10 hours journey that we’ve got for as little as £22.
GlasgowGlasgow
7:20 am, we arrived in Glasgow… the city is slowly awaking up for another day. The downtown of Glasgow is not that big and there is not that much to see, but we found people from here very nice and always in a good mood!
We stopped near the river to plan a bit where to drive? Best places to camp? How long would take from one city to another?! Hard to tell… so we choose the first place to go – Oban.
So around midday we picked up the car from the renting company in Glasgow Airport.
Marie was the first to drive! Driving on the left is such a challenge! Your brain automatically set to the right, now you can’t think the same way: stand on the left, get into the roundabouts through the left, when approaching another street, look right then left and keep on the left again! As we move on to busier roads I remember my road trip through south England last 2011 summer… we called Keep-on-the-Left-Road-Trip, exactly to remind us where to stand. But this time the sentence most pronounced was: you’re too much on the left! The roads are so narrow and we have the feeling that cars are coming over us. So dangerous!
After 2 hours of driving, we found a nice and green place to relax and eat.
Back on the road, this time Thibaud is driving!
It started raining when approaching the city of Oban, but we go further south, where the clouds open to let the sun shine this little island called Seil.
The small road took us to a small lovely village by the sea.
Seil IslandSeil Island
Look! There is a small boat arriving with people who have just been exploring the coast of the island. From the accent we can tell they are Scottish.
Seil IslandSeil IslandSeil Island
5pm, it’s time to get back on the road and start looking for a place to camp: ideally far from the road and from houses as we want to make a fire! So we go north, to the Glen Coe mountains.
All right,… so a place to camp, let’s try by the lake?! After about 20 minutes driving we found a spot with plenty of space and the left overs from an old fire!
“Looks perfect, let’s check it closely”
We got out of the car to explore the area and automatically we are attacked by this sort of mosquitoes, very tiny, very annoying that makes it hard to talk, breathe or even open our eyes! It became very unpleasant and quickly we were forced to get back in the car!
We tried another place along the lake and the same happened… at first it seems there are no mosquitoes, until suddenly hundreds and thousands attack in a group!
What are they?!?!
Midges, tiny mosquitoes that in the summer come out to the streets with the sunset. Unfortunately there isn’t any sort of insect repellent that works on them. Later we found out about the miraculous cream from Avon that seems to keep Midges away, unfortunately it was too late to buy one for our road trip.
VERY IMPORTANT: they do not like sun, smoke and wind! Keep it in mind.
We decided to look for another place, maybe far from the water will be better…. so we drove to the Glen Coe valley. But even here there are thousand of Midges!!!!
The dark of the night came quickly without letting us find a decent place to stay overnight. We were not going to be able to light up a fire today anyway and now is harder to explore the area. So we decided to stay right here, by the road. We set up the 3 second pop up tent and quickly got inside.
We were tired from such a long day, but it still took us time to fall asleep. This first night was so frustrating, totally not in our plans and there was still the unknown of the 5 nights still to come.
Eventually, we fell asleep listening to the sound of water coming down the rocks in the mountain, like a lullaby.
I love your articles and can't wait for the story of the next days.
At the end, will you succeed in killing all these midges with a single firelight ? Will you be able not breaking the car at all ? How will you handle with washing your bodies and keeping your clothes dry ??
7:20 am, we arrived in Glasgow… the city is slowly awaking up for another day. The downtown of Glasgow is not that big and there is not that much to see, but we found people from here very nice and always in a good mood!
2 Comments
I. Singh
Lovely blog!
Love reading about your adventures.. keep them coming! xx
Aurélien Gadenne
I love your articles and can't wait for the story of the next days.
At the end, will you succeed in killing all these midges with a single firelight ? Will you be able not breaking the car at all ? How will you handle with washing your bodies and keeping your clothes dry ??
Coming soon…