The long, high road...

Scotland is, without question, our favourite place.

Actually, that's a bit sweeping. The Highlands of Scotland are without question our very favourite place.

In fact, one of the driving forces behind our decision to buy a caravan in the first place was the amount of money we were spending on self catering accommodation up there - a price comparison I may discuss in a future column.  The Highlands are awesome, in every sense of that word, but they are also a long way away from where we live, so any foray to the far north is going to involve one of those long drives I was going on about in the last post.

We only had a few days - in my day job I'm a teacher which means I get a week off at the end of October but Mrs Snail has a proper job and so limited holiday time. Since we were limited to five days, a trip to the far North West Highlands, our very favourite part of our very favourite place was more or less out of the question. It's basically a two day drive, and however much we enjoy driving, spending eighty percent if our holiday in the car isn't that much of an attractive proposition, so we lowered our sights a little and set off for the Caravan Club site at Bunree, just south of Fort William. Usually this is a stopover point for us as we make our way to what we think of as the "real" Highlands, but the Lochaber region is pretty attractive in its own right and a great place for a relaxing autumn break.

Of course, we had to get there first, so having done all the hitching up stuff the night before we climbed into the car at six am on a dark, cold and rainy Saturday morning at the end of October and pointed the whole outfit north on what is one of our very favourite drives.

We joined the A1 just north of our home base in Harrogate and heading north. Just because it's close to home doesn't mean it's devoid of interest - as I believe I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I'm something of a 'plane nut and one of the first landmarks on the road is Dishforth Airfield. This used to be an RAF base, but has been operated by the Army Air Corps since 1992. They used to fly AH-1 Apaches out of there, but these days it's a base for the Lynx. In more than twenty years of living in the area I don't think I've seen a single aircraft fly in or out, but I live in hope.

With the cruise control set to sixty we trollied on towards Scotch Corner and the A66. Scotch Corner is an odd landmark when you think about it. It's signposted from miles away, but it isn't really a place at all. I mean there isn't really anything there - it's just a junction where you keep going straight on the A1 if you want the North East of England or Edinburgh, or you turn left (or right, if you're going south) onto the A66 if you want the North West of England or Glasgow. That's it. Oh, there's a hotel and a service station there, but they're only there because of the junction. There's no real landmark, no reason to make a fuss about the place.

So we didn't. We took the left hand turn and made our way onto the A66.

Billy Bragg has a song about the A66, and it is most certainly one of my very favourite roads because there's so much on it. As you head north west from the A1 almost immediately you could turn off to explore the Bowes Museum in the little market town of Barnard Castle. This treasure house used to belong to the Bowes-Lyons family, but was given to the nation and turned into a museum which is administered by County Durham Council. It's an amazing place, but to do it justice you really do need to spend a whole day there (the "Yorkshire Rarebit" in their cafe is nearly as good as the Croque Madame I had in Dartmouth, so there's no need to take lunch) and we didn't have the time. Also, it wasn't quite seven in the morning so it wouldn't have been open, and in any case I wouldn't fancy getting a caravan into their carpark. So. Onwards!

There are many other landmarks that the '66 has to offer. There's an Army training ground at Warcop, with many signs warning that Tanks may be crossing the road, although much like Dishforth's apparantly helicopter free airfield the Army once again proves itself to be a massive tease. In a lifetime of travelling up and down this magnificent road I've yet to see a single armoured vehicle. Less elusive are the ruined castles at Brougham and Brough, both rich in history, and both within easy sight of the road.

There are any number of excellent cafes and tea rooms along this part of the route, but I refer you to comments in an earlier post about lay-bys. There are many of these along the length of the '66, including one, just on the border between County Durham and Cumbria which sits high on a hill and commands fabulous views of the valley below with the hills of the Lake District in the far distance. It is here that we stopped for a well earned breakfast of bacon sarnies and coffee before setting off again, full and refreshed - and still more than two hundred miles from our destination.

Eventually, you get, if not to the end of the road, at least to the bit of the road where you have to turn off onto another bit of road. In our case, that's just outside Penrith, where we take another sharp turn northwards onto the M6, then the A74 and the M74, towards Scotland, Glasgow and Stirling.

This slog through the borders is perhaps the least interesting section of the journey. I don't know why but it always feels like a bit of a long trek, so it's nice to be able to break this section up a bit. We tend to stop at Annandale Water services on the M74 just north of Lockerbie. This is partly because by the time we get there we've used about half a tank of fuel and although I know the trip from there to Bunree will also only use half a tank, I always try to avoid driving on fumes - especially when the caravan is on the back.

The fuel station at Annandale is as expensive as you'd expect on the motorway, but it boasts a large and well spaced forecourt which makes caravan access easy, which is always a bonus. Caravan parking is less good - shoved out on the far side of the car park, and not terribly large. In the summer you can often find that the caravan spaces are actually taken up by cars, which is pretty maddening too. But that's not really the reason we like Annandale so much.

After a couple of hours in the car, it's nice to get out and stretch your legs. At most service stations that would involve a quick turn around the carpark. At Annandale however, you can stroll around their rather nice lake, feed the Swans and escape the traffic noise for a bit. Fair sets you up for the rest of the drive...

And there is still a fair bit of driving to do once you're past Annandale...

Fortunately, once you get past Glasgow the scenery gets a little bit more interesting. Most Sat-Navs and computer generated directions will actually take you through Glasgow and up the side of Loch Lomond to the little town of Crianlairach. This is most definitely an interesting and attractive drive, but having made it many times before aquiring the caravan, we've always felt that life doesn't need to be as interesting as all that.

For a start, having done it by accident once, I would suggest that Glasgow is not a particularly caravan friendly city. Miss your turning and you're in for a world of confusion - the last time we did it, which was actually on the way back south a few years ago, we ended up hopelessly lost driving past the Rangers ground on the day of an old firm match and getting chased for about two miles by an irate taxi driver who thought we'd cut him up.

Not making any of that up.

If that isn't bad enough, the road up the side of Loch Lomond is very twisty and horribly narrow in places. I'll admit that we stopped going that way when we first got the 'van, and our inexperience probably made us over cautious, but that whole stretch of road remains filed under "more aggravation than it's worth" for us...

So instead we cut around Glasgow and head up past Stirling. And before you look at a map, yes, if we went via Edinburgh up the A9 it would probably be shorter, but the A9 is hideous and we shall not speak of it here. Besides, the A89 past Stirling is a great bit of road. It cuts around the outside of Stirling, giving grand views of Stirling Castle (and we do love a good castle) and the Wallace Memorial, before heading off through the little town of Callendar and along the picturesque shores of Loch Lubnaig. If you're passing that way there are some excellent lochside lay-bys along the shores of Lubnaig, and if we'd been there slightly later in the day we would have probably pulled in for a spot of lunch.

 So, onwards, through the landmark town of Crianlarich, where the road becomes the A89, and the hills start to become a little more mountainous. It's when we get to the bustling little town of Tyndrum, a few miles further on that the Highlands really feel like they've started.  It's a funny little place, Tyndrum. For a start, I've only ever seen it written down so I have no idea how to pronounce it. Is it "Tin-drum" or "Tyne-drum"? Or neither? From an anglophone perspective the trouble with so many place names in Scotland is that they're anglicised versions of Gaelic, and so the pronunciation isn't always obvious. The upside of this, of course, is that the further north you go, the more signs are bi-lingual and so you can start to work things out. Slowly but surely we're starting to grasp the rudiments of the gaelic language this way -although at our current rate of progress we're still about sixty years away from fluency...

There don't really seem to be many residential buildings in Tyndrum, with pretty much everything you can see from the road existing to serve the many, many tourists who pass through. Chief amongs these would appear to be the "Green Welly Stop", which can be identified as you drive through by the enormous image of a smiling green welly on the whitewashed exterior wall. This is a strangely impressive emporium which sells all manner of tourist tat, from a key-ring costing pennies to Harris Tweed handbags costing a couple of hundred quid, as well as whisky, high end outdoor clothing and pretty much anything else you could possibly want.

And yes, they do sell green wellies...

Should you be feeling peckish, and not in the mood for cooking in the caravan or - heaven forbid - not travelling with a caravan, you could do a lot worse than pull over on the other side of the road from the Welly Stop check out the renowned "Real Food Cafe". Since we do tend to use the caravan kitchen when we travel we haven't visited all that often (their carpark is a little tight too, so if you're stopping with a 'van on the back you might want to park at the Welly Stop) but a couple of my very best friends visit regularly on their way to Skye and they swear by it.

Don't just take their word for it mind you - check out their menu and, perhaps more persuasively their bucket loads of awards...

As I said, we tend to make use of the caravan kitchen on long drives, so we eschewed the delights of Tyndrum and continued on, out of the town and up the hill to a lay-by a couple of miles outside the town.  Here you have a fabulous view of a big hill, a railway line and the West Highland Way. Don't get too excited, in many years of stopping here we've never seen a train, although you do catch a glimpse of the odd walker. On this occasion I have to say that the weather was not really with us and there were not walkers, and no trains. Just some really rather nice sandwiches and a lot of drizzle.

And then onwards again. Down the hill, around Loch Tulla, and up one of the steepest climbs I've ever done with a caravan on the back, up onto the magnificent desolation of Ranoch Moor, and the home straight. I really love driving across Ranoch Moor. It's one of the wildest places I know, and yet there's a road and a train line running right through the middle of it. As you drive through the middle of one of the UK's last areas of genuine wilderness the sense that you're literally in the middle of nowhere is almost overwhelming. If you pay attention and are suitably lucky you can see Red Deer here, but even if you don't I defy anyone to travel across this huge expanse of emptiness and not feel privileged to have done so.

From there, there's just the descent into Glen Coe, and before you know it you're across the bridge over the narrows that separate Loch Leven from Loch Linnhe, through the little town of Onich, and you're there, at the Caravan Club site at Bunree. More about all of those places in future posts, but for now, I think I've wibbled on enough so I'll leave you in the heart of Lochaber. Trust me - there are many, many worse places to be.