Tag: Scotland

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….

First baby steps

Well then. We made our first baby steps on the road to Scottish landownership. The obvious ones: We drove along the coast and looked for property for sale.IMG_4511

But whenever we saw a house for sale it was either too far away from the sea or too ugly or too small or simply not what we looked for. That continued for quite a time. We also walked into a real estate shop and asked for a register but the ladies were not really helpful saying that there is no landowner register or anything like it in Scotland. A little dispiriting, but well. There we were. Driving through the beauty of the Highlands enjoying the trip anyways.

Our holiday might have ended on that note, if it wasn’t for that extraordinary sight we run into outside a very small, very remote village on the north coast of the mainland.

There it was: the well-conserved ruin of a beautiful old stone croft house situated on a small strip of land between the beach and a loch. Paradise. We drove nearer and soon saw that not only there was no for sale poster, but there was also a stationary caravan near the ruin and a lot of construction material. So somebody else had had the same idea – and faster. Damn.

The next logical thing to do: Talk to the guy and offer whatever illusionary amount of money it would take to buy him out. That’s what we tried. But: there was nobody home.

We sat around for quite a bit, waiting for somebody to show up, but after almost freezing to death because of the cozy Scottish summer we abandoned the idea and decided to ask at the next house for information about the owner. We knocked on the door of a house in view of the ruin and waited. Again nobody.

We knocked and waited… This is when our story takes another course. A neighbor saw our car and thought that we might need help. He drove by and gave us the opportunity to ask him for all we wanted to know. He had an important piece of information for us: There IS a register!

He gave us the tip to look up the crofts for sale on http://www.hspc.co.uk/

Now we are talking. Instead of driving miles and miles, we would now sit in a nice pub drinking beer and looking for our property. And there it was: A croft in a lovely little bay. Just what we had dreamed of!

Great. Let’s buy it!IMG_4535

Hm. Well. How do we do that? Call the agency? It was a Saturday evening, so we had to wait.

Great time to update ourselves about the legal requirements of such an undertaking.

First of all: What exactly is a croft?

All you need to know about crofting in Scotland you will find on:

http://www.crofting.scotland.gov.uk/

For instance, we learned that to you actually have to live on your croft land. Well, that’s another turn to the story…

Should we do that?

Here we are …

This is the beginning. Or actually, it is not. It all started maybe in August 2004, when I have been to Scotland (yet another time). And during that trip I really convinced myself that – one day – I would move to Scotland’s north coast. Ok, twelve years later I have not yet managed that. But a week ago we have been to Scotland again and we reassured ourselves that we *MUST* secure a small portion of paradise for us.

And this is the story along the way. Maybe we succeed, maybe not. Let’s find out.