Driving Scotland

Have you seen the Top Gear episode set in Scotland? No, because it would be quite impossible to race cars in the Scottish Highlands. When driving along the banks of Loch Lomand on what the map described as a British 'A' road, I averaged about 30 mph. I drove as close as possible to the stone wall on my left, and hoped the on coming bus wouldn't take off my mirror when passing me on the right. It was not the road on which to sit back and appreciate the scenery of the loch. And as I was creeping along clenching the steering wheel, three BMW's roared past me without hesitation. Maybe they were on their way to the first filming of Top Gear in Scotland.

We had chosen to hire a car in England and drive up to Scotland because that was the best way to see the country. The motorways are fast and the Lake District provided a scenic lunch stop half way. The roads became smaller the closer we got to our accommodation. The final approach to the old schoolhouse was a one lane farm track winding through the sheep fields. The high stone walls keep the sheep off the road, but also lead to many blind corners and sudden stops when we met an on-coming farm vehicle. It must not have been very smooth riding in the back seat, because my son politely asked me to lay off the heavy use of my breaks the next day.

Our day trip to Edinburgh was easier. The city has several park-and-ride lots with a short tram ride into the city. This led me to believe that Scotland was prepared for the motoring tourist and I confidently set off across country after programming the GPS to guide us to one of the three castles I planned to visit. Doune Castle is well known for being the film location for Monte Python and more recently, the Outlander series. I expected a well signed approach and big car park. The sign, however, pointed us down a small lane round such a sharp corner I had to reverse to successfully complete it. And we were lucky to find the last space in a car park designed for about 10 cars. I wondered how the filming crews ever made it to this site.

Weary of the winding roads, we looked forward to our next accommodation in the Highlands. It didn't look far away on the map so we pushed on, following the on-board GPS, "Turn left now." "Board the ferry." And just like that, we were driving on board, crossing Loch Linnhe at a gap so narrow it would have made more sense to build a bridge. The crossing took 5 minutes and cost £8. This became the norm and we boarded two more ferries on our visit to the Isle of Skye the next day.

Driving on the Isle of Skye became even more challenging. No stone walls meant sheep wandered onto the road and were not motivated to move off. Farmers herded their highland cattle across our way indifferent to motorists. And there were more deer. There was never a time when the driver could sit back and relax.
To relax meant to stay home, and there was so much to see. On the map an outing might show a distance of 30 miles, but the route directions would claim it would take over an hour to drive that distance. We had to become less ambitious with the driving we did each day. Stopping at a distillery in our area we asked when the next tour would be. Finding out that there would be a wait of 45 minutes was not a problem. We were ready to order a cream tea, sit by the fire and wait.

We avoided getting back in the car to go out to eat that evening as well. We walked down to the nearest pub.  Driving around Scotland is almost too much of a good thing. My son was starting to ask me when we would see a highway again.
You can't really compare driving in Scotland to driving in the US. We overheard a tourist explain it this way: "In Scotland 100 years isn't old, and in the US 100 miles isn't far."