Water, wildlife and wonders... a road trip around Scotland COMPLETED 11/6 About This Page:

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Final thoughts:

Firstly, I want to return to the title of this trip report, as you may have noticed I changed it from the pre-trip report. I don’t often do that, but I felt that water, wildlife and wonders reflected what we’d experienced this trip.

When I got back, I went through and listed all the water we visited or saw on our travels and, wow it was way more than I expected!

• River Churnet
• Rudyard Lake
• Lake Windermere
• Coniston Water
• Ullswater
• River Clyde
• Loch Lomond
• Loch Long
• Firth of Clyde
• Atlantic Ocean
• Loch Awe
• Loch Tulla
• Loch Ba
• Loch Achtriochtan
• River Coe
• Loch Leven
• Loch Eil
• Loch Eilt
• Loch Ailort
• Loch Nan Uamh
• Loch Morar
• Loch Hourn
• Loch Lochy
• Loch Oich
• Loch Ness
• River Ness
• Loch Morlich
• River Spey
• River Don
• Loch Aboyne
• River Dee
• River Fiddich
• North Sea
• River Tay
• River Forth
• River Tyne
• River Humber
• River Thames

And as for the wildlife, well that too was more than we expected as well. I don’t think I’ve missed anything out, but shout if we have. Out of the animals, we saw:

• Bees
• Chickens
• Cows
• Deer
• Horses
• Goats
• Pigs
• Rabbits
• Sheep
• Stoats

Then there were the birds, and wow, once again, we saw so many, including many of what I’d call the common garden species that I used to see in my parent’s garden many years ago. That was a sobering thought in a way that many of them just aren’t that far south in the country any longer.

• Blackbirds
• Blue tits
• Canadian geese
• Doves
• Ducks
• Geese
• Goldfinches
• Moorhens
• Peacocks
• Pheasants
• Pigeons
• Puffins
• Seagulls
• Sparrows
• Swallows
• Swans/cygnets
• Swifts
• Thrushes

As to the wonders, well once again, there were many of them. Firstly though, I want to start with some of the things that surprised us from this trip. We were staggered by the flowers that grow this far north, especially when we’d seen signs at Balmoral (not one of the places we visited which was the furthest north) that July is the only month of the year that they’re pretty much guaranteed not to get frost. We saw acers and pieris, both of which we’ve struggled to grow in our garden, but as we suspected and Maureen confirmed when we saw her, it’s down to the soil. Who knew? That’s certainly something we learnt.

We did our usual trick of spotting international licence plates, and although not as impressive as previous years, we did still get quite a lot…

• Austria
• Bulgaria
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Great Britain
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Netherlands
• New York – remember the old Aston Martin in the Cairngorms?
• Poland
• Scotland (unsurprisingly! )
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Wales

However, we saw the most of Dutch and German number plates, and I mean stupid amounts. Literally, we’d see seven or eight a day and maybe one of the other countries every couple of days. Now I appreciate that the pound is doing appallingly against the Euro (that’s what happens if you vote to leave the European Union… ) but surely that should then apply to other countries like the French, Italians etc.? I could never fathom out why only those two countries were so prevalent there.

One final list for you before I turn to the final thoughts a bit more in-depth. One of the aims of this trip was to see more of Scotland, as prior to this trip, we’d visited Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and the surrounding areas, and that was it. As you’ve seen, there was so much more to the country than that. So how much of the country did we see? Well, you guys have states. We have counties in England, but Scotland complicates it, and has council areas, so there are a lot, 29 in total (I’ve excluded the islands, as obviously we didn’t go anywhere near those – if we count those, there would be 34 in total), but here’s the list of how many we visited:

• Aberdeen City
• Aberdeenshire
• Angus
• Argyll and Bute
• Dumfries and Galloway
• East Lothian
• East Renfrewshire
• City of Edinburgh
• Fife
• Glasgow City
• Highland
• Mid Lothian
• Moray
• Perth and Kinross
• Scottish Borders
• South Lanarkshire
• West Dunbartonshire

If we add in the council areas we’ve visited on our previous trips, which are:

• East Ayrshire
• Falkirk
• South Ayrshire
• Stirling
• West Lothian

That’s really not too shabby!

We were also surprised at how expensive some of the evening meals were that we had. Considering we live in what we believe to be an expensive part of the country, and we thought Scotland would be cheaper, we were in for a shock. It wasn’t even in cities, it was in remote locations, but I guess maybe that’s the point – there aren’t that many restaurants and they can charge what they like. However, we did find that no-one was really looking for a tip, which shocked us. We’re not that big on tipping over here (10% if you think the service is really good!), but at no point were there options left when we went to pay by credit card, which is very different to down south.

So, having said all that, let’s get on to the wonders of this trip. The first thing that springs to mind is the sheer beauty of the Lake District. I hadn’t been there since I was a child, so I didn’t know what to expect, but so many people had told me how beautiful it was, and they were not wrong. I loved getting up early that first Monday, and just standing there, admiring the view over Lake Windermere. Even better was the Steam Water Gondola allowing us to see the lakes from a very different perspective, from the water itself, and I’m so glad we did that.

In a similar view, the cruise on Loch Ness was perhaps the highlight for me – getting out there on what was essentially a private cruise was just truly magical. I can now see why there’s so mystery about Nessie, given the water is so murky and the loch is just so huge. It really was an eye opener to be out there.

I also need to mention the Maid of the Forth cruise, as I finally got to see a puffin! I really cannot thank Laurie enough for suggesting it, as I’d never heard of it, and it was such a cool experience, and a lovely way to end our time with Mari and Raleigh.

The other highlight from this vacation were some of the amazing places we stayed in. Both lodges on the loch were superb – Loch Lomond for the lovely two bedroom suite we had, and Loch Aboyne, for the spa suite with hamman. We could happily stay in those rooms again! Kildrummy Castle Hotel was also really magical, it was just like staying in your own private castle, and what a great dinner we had there, only for the Lands of Loyal to surpass that in terms of dinner the next night. That was also a very special place to stay, and I felt so encouraged that there are amazing places like this available in the UK, and they don’t cost a fortune.

But of course the most wonderful aspect of this vacation were the great times we had with good friends. It was so lovely to see Hazel and Graeme again, and guys I hope you’re back a lot closer to home before too long, and we get to see you both more regularly. Seeing Maureen is always a joy, especially given her phenomenal enthusiasm for life, given her advancing years. If I’m half as active and healthy as her at her age (heck, if I even make it that far! ), then I’ll be happy…

And as for Mari and Raleigh, we had an absolute ball with them. We always get on so well together, and I loved seeing their reactions to things, from their love of all the dinners and food we had together to their sheer wonder at seeing some of the sights along the way. I lost count of the times Mari would grab my arm and say “this is Balmoral” or “I’m at Culloden”! Experiencing that sheer joy really made all the hard work that went into planning this vacation, and from Mark’s perspective, all the driving, very worthwhile. At least next time we do it, we’ll be cruising along from New York City to Quebec City, with no driving along twisting, and turning roads, no farm machinery… you get the idea!