Day 51: Sunday 29th May 2022

Day 51: Sunday 29th May 2022

We packed up and left by 8am this morning as it was a fairly long drive ahead of us. 

From Killin, we were able to pass Loch Lomond on the route, which was incredible to drive past due to its length. We stopped to take a few photos but left fairly quickly, as the lay-by was not very wide, so other vehicles may have struggled to get past due to the width of Marvin. I’d love to come back and climb Ben Lomond another time though.  

Braving a paddle in Loch Lomond!

Driving around Glasgow was tricky! In order to get from one motorway to another, the satnav took us through some of the back streets of Glasgow, where we had to make lots of left and right turns every couple of blocks. We were relieved not to have gone wrong as it was very confusing!

Because we had left so early, we got to Ayr at 11.30am and could not check in to the campsite until 1pm. We managed to find a car park by the river, with lots of swans. I have never seen so many swans in one place before - I counted over 40!! 

The campsite let us check in slightly early, so after setting up, we headed in to Ayr to have a look around and a walk by the beach, before walking back along the river. The beach was nice - sandy and very long! It is nice to see a different part of Scotland, as recently we have seen a lot of mountains and lochs! 

Day 50: Saturday 28th May 2022

Day 50: Saturday 28th May 2022

Having stayed at Killin a month ago, one of the main things we had wanted to do was to climb Ben Lawers, the 10th highest munro in Scotland at 1,214m. However, getting there is tricky, as it is about 7 miles away from the campsite, including a single track road for part of that. Having thought about getting a taxi but realising how expensive it would be, and also difficult knowing what time we would be finished, we ended up driving there quite early this morning. 

We arrived at the carpark around 8.45am, and already it was nearly full, so harder to find a parking spot. Luckily, there was a spot in a corner so although we had worried about taking up too much room with the size of Marvin, we were out of the way for everyone and not taking up too much space, which worked well. We left the van around 9.30am once we had made lunch and got sorted with everything.

The walk was lovely! In total, it took us about 5 hours, with a few stops for lunch/ other breaks and lots of photo opportunities as the sun was shining! The route took us through the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve, which is managed by the National Trust for Scotland. Here, it is famous for its arctic-alpine plants in particular. We followed the Edramucky Trail for a little way, before following the path to walk up Beinn Ghlas, another munro. This had stunning views of Lock Tay and the other mountains in this area including Ben More. 

Ben Lawers Nature Reserve

The walk ahead of us

Reaching the top of Beinn Ghlas

From the summit of Beinn Ghlas, we followed the path down and along to reach a climb to the top of Ben Lawers. This again had amazing views, although it was extremely windy and therefore hard to stay at the top for long. 

The summit of Ben Lawers 

The view of Loch Tay

We followed a slightly different route when walking down, on an easier path, which was good as we were out of the wind this way, and able to stop for lunch. 

We got back to the van about 2.30, and by this point the car park had emptied out, so it was a lot easier for mum to reverse! 

This has definitely been one of our favourite things we’ve done, having wanted to come here for a while, so we were so glad to have made it. 

The rest of the day we spent at the campsite. We are travelling again tomorrow, on to Ayr, near Glasgow. 

Day 49: Friday 27th May 2022

Day 49: Friday 27th May 2022

Travelling day again, this time back to Killin, where we stayed on our way up through Scotland. We decided to go back for two nights because of how much we liked it, and as it’s cheaper and in a convenient location.

The route took us through Glencoe, which is very beautiful! Stunning mountain scenery, with rivers and waterfalls. We stopped a couple of places briefly, but there were lots of tour buses with tourists taking pictures so it was slightly too busy for us!

We reached Killin around 1pm, and then just relaxed for a couple of hours. We have chosen the same pitch in the campsite that we went to before! 

After getting some food supplies, we walked back along Loch Tay. It was lovely there, and looked a bit different from when we had seen it before, as this time the sun was out and the various peaks across the loch were more visible. 

The walk from the village is quite long back to the campsite however, as there is no footpath, so you have to walk along a fast section of road. We were tired when getting back to the van. The evening passed by quickly, and we have not completely decided what we are doing tomorrow, although probably another walk somewhere. 

Day 48: Thursday 26th May 2022

Day 48: Thursday 26th May 2022

Today we decided upon having breakfast at the cafe in the campsite. Mum had a veggie sausage in a roll whilst I had a mini cooked breakfast of veggie sausages, beans and tomatoes. It was really nice! 

We headed out on a walk to Dùn Deardail Fort to see a view of Ben Nevis. The walk was about 6 miles in total, 3 miles to the viewpoint before retracing our steps back. We were lucky with the weather, as although it did rain, as we got to the fort ruins it did clear so that we could see more of the path up Ben Nevis, as well as views of the surrounding mountains.

After returning along the same route, we decided to catch the bus into Fort William again for another lunch at The Wildcat cafe, as we liked it so much! This time we both had Buddha bowls, and I tried another of their hot chocolates. We shared a cake from a different bakery, Rain, which was also delicious! 

As the bus returning to the campsite wasn’t timetabled to run for another hour and a half, we decided to walk back, which was about 2.5 miles. Along the way, we chatted to a couple of people who it turned out would be working at Glastonbury this year! So perhaps we will see them there! It was a really interesting chat - he said he had worked for quite a few years doing the signs, and managed to get into the backstage bars last time to have a drink with Lizzo and a few other artists! 

Continuing back to the campsite, we decided to stop at the restaurant for a drink. The people who we had kept on bumping into yesterday also turned up, so we ended up sitting with them. It was nice to chat about the various experiences that we’ve all had with the vans, and good to know we are not the only ones happy to put up with a slope to avoid using the chocks! 

Back at the van, we got ready for moving onwards again tomorrow. It’s been such a brilliant time at Fort William, we will be sad to leave. 

This evening, a rainbow appeared over the path up to Ben Nevis! So pleased to have seen it. 

Day 47: Wednesday 25th May 2022

Day 47: Wednesday 25th May 2022

My legs were fairly achy today, so we had a rest day! We headed out to catch the 10.10am bus to Fort William. Funnily enough, a couple who we spoke to a bit yesterday turned up at the bus stop. They also ended up next to us at the cafe, and caught the same bus on the way home too - either we are following them around everywhere, or they are following us! 

The bus journey was only around 10 minutes long, before we arrived in the town centre. It had rained very hard whilst we were at the bus stop, so we were a bit wet and cold, but enjoyed walking along the waterfront, before looking in a few shops for Mum to get some wellies.

Lunch at The Wildcat was delicious!! I had a hot chocolate and a Buddha Bowl, and Mum had broccoli, leek and potato soup and a coffee. Then perhaps the best cake we have had yet - chocolate and hazelnut, as a celebration for our achievement yesterday! It was such a nice place and amazing food :) 

After getting a bit more food shopping, we caught the 2.30 bus back to the campsite. We then decided to walk to the Visitor Centre to get a map of the area in order to decide a walk for tomorrow, and had a nice wander back along the bluebells and river.  

Climbing Ben Nevis!!!

Day 46: Tuesday 24th May 2022

A big day today - we have been planning to climb Ben Nevis (the main reason for staying at Fort William) and the weather is forecast to be best today. 

We did actually start later than we had originally wanted - around 9am. In the toilets, the radio was playing and we heard the lyric “there’s a mountain top, that I’m dreaming of” - what a coincidence, and added to the excitement we were already feeling! 

We started the route past the Glen Nevis Hostel, starting the actual route about 9.20am. This joined up with the main path and we felt slightly quicker, though steep. 

The weather was really nice - we had planned for cold weather so were wearing far too many layers!! Mum did struggle to begin with for the first quarter of the hike up, due to being too hot, so we did stop a few times. We weren’t sure at this point whether we would be able to make it up, because she was feeling a bit sick, but she wanted to keep going and shortly felt a lot better. Changing out of her thermal leggings was a bit of a challenge on the side of the mountain, but she managed to use the coats as a screen and all was good for us to continue the walk. 

The path did “zig-zag” a lot, and passed a loch and other incredible views of the valley. It was so stunning and definitely worth doing!! We stopped a couple of times for water and to eat a piece of fruit, but not for too long. Some people were passing us having already reached the summit, including someone who had got up at 3am to do so! There was a bit of a tricky spot when crossing a waterfall, but generally the path had been fine with no ‘scrambling’.  

About 12.15, a mist did start to descend on us very quickly, and soon the path was the only thing visible. We then started to see large patches of snow!! Some of the group just ahead of us were very excited by this! They had been in high spirits all the way - lots of singing! 

We then got to a challenging but extremely fun section - having to cross deep snow!!! Luckily we did feel prepared enough due to wearing walking boots, but a hiking stick would have been useful as it was tricky. Big smiles though!! Around this section, a number of people passing us kept on reassuring us that the summit was 20 minutes away. They weren’t being truthful though!! Here there were big drops to the left of the path, so we were very careful about where we were treading, particularly as the snow was deep and so the ground was hidden. 

At 1.10pm we reached the summit!!! So pleased!!! We had our photo taken with the cairn, before managing to phone and then video call Dad to show him the view, which was lovely. Then we ate our sandwiches and a piece of the Kendal Mint Cake bought in the Lake District to give us some energy for the way down.

Yay!!! Reaching the summit!!!

Our time at the top was shortened due to a sudden change in weather - it began to snow/ sleet quite heavily so we set off again. Crossing the big snow patch was trickier coming down, but great! The person in front of me decided to sit and slide down which looked so fun! I didn’t, but sort of “ice-skated” down! 

I’m the figure in the centre of this photo - crazy to cross this snow!

It did become dry for a time, before raining quite heavily. Here we were silly though, we had brought waterproofs with us but didn’t stop to change into them, so of course got soaked!! Luckily we did dry out by the time we reached the campsite, but a lesson learnt for next time, if there is a next time! 

The mist did clear so we had a nice view on the way down, although the rain had made some of the rocky sections very slippery which was dangerous. Someone had unfortunately injured their ankle, which was a reminder for us to be very careful at where we were stepping. Mum did slip once but not badly so all was okay luckily. 

We finished the hike at 4.45pm, getting back to the campsite at 5pm. I was exhausted! Mum somehow had the energy to do two lots of laundry?! She was very happy as they were cheapest washing machines/ tumble dryers that we’ve found on this trip! Luckily we had already cooked a meal we could heat up, which was very tasty and filling. 

Big smiles at the finish!

A brilliant day! Very tired now, but SO happy that we climbed BEN NEVIS!!! 

Day 45: Monday 23rd May 2022

Day 45: Monday 23rd May 2022

We got up early and managed to leave by 7.20am as we knew it was a long drive ahead of us. Portree had a couple of tricky roads when travelling to the campsite, so we made sure to get past those as early as we could before there was too much traffic. The route through Skye was again scenic, although still very rainy and misty! 

We crossed the bridge and then followed the signs for Fort William. We particularly liked the Glen Shiel area - the mountainous area was so beautiful and so many different colours in the valleys.

The weather got worse, but as we were early, we did decide to take a little detour to see Loch Ness, having realised that we were not far and this was something we hadn’t managed to see before. Surprisingly, despite the awful weather we had had close by, the roads near Loch Ness had not had any rain! It was very calming to be by the loch, though we didn’t stay long. No sign of Nessie! (Although the waves were moving in a peculiar way - perhaps if we had just stayed a minute or two longer…??) 

Back on our route, and we arrived at the campsite in Fort William around 11.45. Luckily our pitch was free, so we could go straight there to settle in. Once set up, we wandered to the campsite shop and then to the Ben Nevis Visitor Centre. We have been planning to walk up Ben Nevis, and tomorrow looks the best day for it weather wise, so we wanted to buy a map and ask the staff a few questions to ensure we are fully prepared. Very exciting!!!! 

After heading along the river side, we found the right paths so we know where we are heading tomorrow. It was lovely along the river - lots of bluebells lining the riverbank. 

We relaxed this afternoon, as we are trying not to tire ourselves out by doing too many steps. Dinner was nice, although I accidentally cooked couscous instead of bulgar wheat so an unexpected dinner. Whoops! Nearly packed, ready for tomorrow. Can’t wait!! Feeling in high spirits and really excited :)