Month: October 2021

Scotland at its best

Scotland has done everything to make up for our last trip. The weather has been really nice, warm and sunny and Caithness has turned out to be a much more welcoming place than one could think. The countryside is breathtaking and the heavily peated river reminds me of why Scottish Whisky is the best.

Our neighbours have kindly taken us under their wings and are making sure we don’t miss out on the sites, one has to visit up here. Having travelled a lot, they are giving back some of the kindness they experienced themselves while abroad. We could not have had better luck.

To round up a beautyful day, I was able to attend a choir rehearsal in St. John’s Church in Wick. It was balm for the soul to be singing in this wonderful old church with sweet and kind people who made me feel, like I belonged.

But the most heartwarming moment was not even the music but really the teatime with some members of the choir afterwards. It was so refreshing to be part of that group of smart and witty women. Thank you for letting me be part of that!

First night on the loch

So we made it up to Caithness. The road was good. We were once more surprised at how serious the Britts are about those traffic cones. They not only mark the way with them, they litteraly build walls with those things…

Before arriving in the UK, we have been worried about the fuel shortage, we read about in the news. This is why we decided to first leave the bigger cities behind us, before trying to find diesel. Turns out, there was no problem really. The very first gas station we tried, had fuel and not even a line of waiting cars. So we took that for a favorable sign and continued our journey north.

Loch Watenan welcomed us with some rain but also with the most heartwarming hello from our neightbours.

Having learned from our last trip, we did NOT try to drive on our plot by night without knowing the state of the ground. This is why we stayed over the night on the parking space south of the lake.

The night was calm and clear, allowing us to see an amazing starry sky.

(OK, you might need some imagination for that one…)

And right now, the day is breaking in a breathtaking manner on Loch Watenan…

The next adventure

After our very adventurous trip at the end of the year 2020 we have been waiting for the covid situation to get better and allow us a next trip to our future homeland.

Now we are ready and will be leaving on the 1st of October for the north.

We learned from our past trips and have been updating our gear. For instance, we bought a great 4-seasons tent from Hilleberg, that can be pitched completely without external gear. And we built a little terrasse for the roof top tent, where we can for instance store the diesel heater. Also, Ronald offered me the best Quilt possible. It is made for temperatures down to 20 degrees below zero. So, it is for the first time really a realistic possibility, that I won’t feel cold during the night.

This time we plan to really meet all our neighbours and invite them to over for a Raclette. To do so, Ronald constructed a wilderness Raclette oven.

With this nice construction we will be able to feed 20 people with molten Swiss Cheese.

But of course, that is not the only plan we have. We bought fantastic Brompton bikes and are planning to test them on the route from Loch Watenan to Wick and back.

Apart from that, I have been preparing myself mentally for a new encounter with the wild horses on our land. Last time I was really afraid, and the stallion might have noticed that, which lead to him behaving even more crazily. This time, I will try to not show any fear and I also bought a bear whistle, that might help with wild horses also. I will write an update on how that worked out…

But for the moment, we are getting together our gear because in the tomorrow we will leave around 5 in the morning to reach the ferry in Amsterdam in time.

One minor problem we might encounter before arriving in Scotland on Sunday: UK has seen some shortage in gas. Therefore we can’t be sure to find a place where we can fuel up while in England. But hey… it wouldn’t be our trip if it was not an adventurous one, would it? So, we will walk that bridge, when we arrive there….