Scotland - Day 1

[kmusser]

We took off from Philadelphia Thursday evening (it being much cheaper than any of the DC airports) and arrived in Manchester England at the crack of dawn. We had time for a quick breakfast with minnesattva during our layover and then it’s off again. Flights were relatively painless and we make it to an overcast and drizzly Glasgow around noonish. We do have slight problem as the taxis don’t know where our rental place is, but the nice TI (tourist information) person was able to sort us out and we make it over to Kira Rentals to check out the camper van that’ll be our home for the next week.

It’s pretty sexy, kitchenette with water and stove and seats that collapse into a full size bed in the back – maybe not quite as much storage space as we could’ve used, but there is enough. We have some trouble throughout the trip due to our inexperience with manual transmission (as in we can make it stall by looking at it funny), but overall it is very nice, and would definitely consider doing something similar again.

Anyway after some difficulty in making it start we are eventually on our way and leave Glasgow as quickly as possible. We do make another stop just outside the city in Dumbarton to do grocery shopping and with a little trouble finding the highway again we head north towards Loch Lomond. We do get some very nice views of the loch and stop for a brief lunch as soon as we find a picnic place – the rain is still coming down so we eat in the van but do venture out for a few pics (and hopefully not interrupt the wedding party that was using the same site). After that we continue north and then west, the scenery steadily getting more impressive. Stop for a few more pictures at the head of Loch Long which looks lovely. Stop again for food at the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar which was a Secret Scotland recommendation. OMG, was it yummy (of course this is also our first real meal since yesterday, so we might have been biased, but really, YUM). From there we follow Loch Fyne into Inverary, pick up a few more things we forgot at the grocery, take a quick peek at Inverary Castle (home to the dukes of Argyll), and then find a campground to spend the night. Not too many problems figuring out how everything in the van works fortunately as we are very tired. Mmmmm, sleep.

Comments

[wanderingbastet.livejournal.com]

BatBunny demands pictures!!

[kmusser]

They're on zammis' camera, you'll get a link as soon as she uploads them. Considering I haven't seen her on IM, I don't think she's woken up yet this morning :-)

[winterbadger]

Golly, Secret Scotland looks very handy--thanks for that link!!

Mmmmm, Loch Lomond, Long Long, and Loch Fyne... lovely country!