Scottish Driving Roads
Discussion
moribund said:
Just watch out for midges and caravans at this time of year - Spring or Autumn is best.
Just remember your bottle of Avon skin so soft and the midges wont touch you. Buy it before you go from your local avon girl of its about £6 a bottle in the highlands.http://avonshop.co.uk/shop/product.asp?pf_id=4982&...
sherman said:
moribund said:
Just watch out for midges and caravans at this time of year - Spring or Autumn is best.
Just remember your bottle of Avon skin so soft and the midges wont touch you. Buy it before you go from your local avon girl of its about £6 a bottle in the highlands.http://avonshop.co.uk/shop/product.asp?pf_id=4982&...
As for the roads, yep general advice to head north is good, but there are also some great roads in the borders and south west.
The roads in the Lake District are OK (I moved from there), but the roads in the north west Highlands are something else.
http://www.stevecarter.com/picaday/roads.htm
If you can get this far north, e mail me and I'll happy shed some light. Driving at the right time is really important Between Easter and the end of summer. I did the 42 mile Applecross round trip this morning at 06.30 and didn't see a single car. As I type - 16.25 - it's like Silverstone behind a safety car!
Steve
http://www.stevecarter.com/picaday/roads.htm
If you can get this far north, e mail me and I'll happy shed some light. Driving at the right time is really important Between Easter and the end of summer. I did the 42 mile Applecross round trip this morning at 06.30 and didn't see a single car. As I type - 16.25 - it's like Silverstone behind a safety car!
Steve
John MacK said:
sherman said:
moribund said:
Just watch out for midges and caravans at this time of year - Spring or Autumn is best.
Just remember your bottle of Avon skin so soft and the midges wont touch you. Buy it before you go from your local avon girl of its about £6 a bottle in the highlands.http://avonshop.co.uk/shop/product.asp?pf_id=4982&...
We bought 6 bottles of the stuff last week - should just see us through the summer. Most of the reason it works seems to be that it's pretty oily stuff, so any midge that lands on you can't get 'purchase'. All the fishermen in the village use it - prettiest smelling fishermen in the world 
We cringe when, on a still damp night in August we see people leave their hotel windows open with their lights on at dusk. Some of them leave the next day swearing they'll never return!
ETA... which is why we installed air-con into our house when we built it!
We cringe when, on a still damp night in August we see people leave their hotel windows open with their lights on at dusk. Some of them leave the next day swearing they'll never return!
ETA... which is why we installed air-con into our house when we built it!
Edited by GetCarter on Saturday 30th May 09:22
Set off from Insch yesterday, thinking we'd take the Tuscan to the top of the Lecht and back, so up to Huntly, down through Rhynie and Kildrummy, through Strathdon and up Cock bridge to the Lecht...got there and decided to carry on to Tomintoul...then Aviemore...then Pitlochry, then back through Strathardle and over the Cairnwell and down Glen Sheil, through Braemar, Ballater, Tarland, Alford and home.
A full lap of the Cairngorms, in stunning sunshine, very little traffic, just perfect! All one on tank of fuel too!
Cheers,
FT.
A full lap of the Cairngorms, in stunning sunshine, very little traffic, just perfect! All one on tank of fuel too!
Cheers,
FT.
The b7363 is more or less a rally stage:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...
Edited by militantmandy on Thursday 4th June 16:56
Just come back from up north - got two roads to recommend -
One - the fully completed Fort William - Mallaig A830 - now brilliant with the addition of the BEASDALE - ARISAIG section - great driving road - but don't forget that the Glenfinnan -Lochailort section is getting on for about 50 year old now ,and it was designed as a 40 mph road .Beware as it has quite a few bends with negative camber on this stretch
Two - Ardgour - Strontian ---absolutely brilliant .
And for the adventurous - I've always mentioned this road with reservations for lower cars - Salen -Ardmurchan point - B road - full of twists/turns etc - only about 20 miles (plus a bit extra to the lighthouse) -- but the views at the end are fantastic ( and that's from someone native to that part of the world) - to the south Coll / Tiree -to the north Rhum /eigg as not seen from pictures .Went down there on wednesday ,and road has improved . Years ago , we moved all stores from the racks and put them on the floor of the van when going to Kilchoan - saved picking them up off floor . Now a days - doubt if anything would get moved .It's only 20 or so miles - but this is Scotland that time has forgotten - allow an hour to get there -forget high MPG - but take plenty of film as the views on a good day are out of this world.
One - the fully completed Fort William - Mallaig A830 - now brilliant with the addition of the BEASDALE - ARISAIG section - great driving road - but don't forget that the Glenfinnan -Lochailort section is getting on for about 50 year old now ,and it was designed as a 40 mph road .Beware as it has quite a few bends with negative camber on this stretch
Two - Ardgour - Strontian ---absolutely brilliant .
And for the adventurous - I've always mentioned this road with reservations for lower cars - Salen -Ardmurchan point - B road - full of twists/turns etc - only about 20 miles (plus a bit extra to the lighthouse) -- but the views at the end are fantastic ( and that's from someone native to that part of the world) - to the south Coll / Tiree -to the north Rhum /eigg as not seen from pictures .Went down there on wednesday ,and road has improved . Years ago , we moved all stores from the racks and put them on the floor of the van when going to Kilchoan - saved picking them up off floor . Now a days - doubt if anything would get moved .It's only 20 or so miles - but this is Scotland that time has forgotten - allow an hour to get there -forget high MPG - but take plenty of film as the views on a good day are out of this world.
This is my favourite route. From Aberdeen, out to Rhynie, Dufftown, Tomintoul, Ballater, then South Deeside back to Aberdeen.
Click for map
Click for map
Thanks for all the tips. I'm back from a week based in Fort William, enjoyed the A82 and drive to Skye the best. I've posted some pics and road recommendations in the Pork forum here:
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...
Cheers!
http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/xforums/topic.asp?h=0...
Cheers!
Steve
Thanks for the tips - I stayed over in Applecross on Monday night and drove past your place early on Tuesday about 10am .. the coast road was deserted at 9am but as we had such a lot of rain and torrential rain - it meant the roads were pretty slippery.
Still the scenery was superb.
Spotted a Chimaera in Applecross and perhaps the same car again in Aviemore.
Thanks for the tips - I stayed over in Applecross on Monday night and drove past your place early on Tuesday about 10am .. the coast road was deserted at 9am but as we had such a lot of rain and torrential rain - it meant the roads were pretty slippery.
Still the scenery was superb.
Spotted a Chimaera in Applecross and perhaps the same car again in Aviemore.
Edited by rev-erend on Thursday 3rd September 11:40
Edited by rev-erend on Thursday 3rd September 14:40
rev-erend said:
GetCarter said:
It was CRAP weather wasn't it!
At times it was hard just to see the road 5 yards ahead .. still going over the highest mountain pass was more interesting not being able to see a thing 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrGwCO1hiwU
sherman said:
rev-erend said:
GetCarter said:
It was CRAP weather wasn't it!
At times it was hard just to see the road 5 yards ahead .. still going over the highest mountain pass was more interesting not being able to see a thing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrGwCO1hiwU
I know most of you have seen this before, but just in case... slightly better weather:
http://www.stevecarter.com/911turbo-scotland.wmv
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