Sunday 11 August – Glencoe to Milnathort
For breakfast Ros cooked up bacon and eggs. The eggs were beautifully poached. The bacon was quite nice too. A nice start to the day – a day full of driving and sight-seeing along the way. The only thing we forgot was some bread, whoops.
We had an early-ish start (if 9:30am is early) to get on the road as there were a number of stops on the way we wanted to make.
Our first stop that we weren’t aware of was just outside of Glencoe. As you drove around a corner, there was a spot to pull up with magnificent views both up and down the road. When we pulled up there was only one other car there. By the time we left there were about 10 cars. There was quite a bit of space so I was able to put the drone up and take some lovely shots.
Our next stop was going to be Glen Etive – there is a spot along a road off the main road where they filmed some footage for Skyfall (James Bond). David Mossom told me about this one and I had a look for the spot – just GPS co-ordinates and a picture. I’m not sure if I found the right place, but all the stops along the road were magnificent. We pulled up where there was a waterfall and rock pool and used the drone. We took some pictures/video of ourselves as well as the landscape. While taking one of the videos the battery was quite low. At the conclusion of taking the video, the drone wanted to land straight away because it only had a few % left – that would not be good as it was in some thick brush (but thankfully not in the waterfall). I was able to keep the drone up enough to get it to land about 20 metres away at the original point. Lesson for next time listen to my wife when she say’s that’s a battery low warning 5 times!
At Glen Etive we also saw a number of people camping by the river. But more interesting were the people going swimming. Surely that would be freezing!
On the way back down the one-way track we stopped to take some video of a waterfall. Thanks to the recent rain there was lots of water coming off the mountain. I had an idea (not sure if it was smart or not) to take some video flying up the side of the mountain videoing the waterfall. Some context – the mountains are hundreds of metres high and about 200 metres away. I proceeded to fly out and up – keeping the video going and judging how high above the water I was. It was quite interesting; towards the end I was about 300 metres high and about 600 metres away. I flew the drone back but overshot my position by about 50 metres. It was getting quite windy and cold so we headed off.
One of the guys that Ros works with was originally from Scotland. He had mentioned a number of places to go, including Luss. Luss is on Loch Lomond. We drove there through a bit of rain and lots of traffic (mostly caravans going about half the speed limit – we had learnt by then that whatever duration the GPS said, add about 30% extra). The Luss Seafood Bar was recommended to us so we had some lunch there. We ordered the smokehouse platter – which was three different types of smoked salmon plus a salmon mousse, mussels and bread. It was interesting, but a bit too much smoked stuff for me. After this we walked back to the car, via the pier. On the pier we saw a couple of people in swimming togs. The father went first and jumped off. Next up were the two kids – all we heard after they landed was one screaming out “cold, cold, very cold”. Haha.
After Luss we continued onto Greenock. Greenock is an industrial port city. There were great views from a place called Lyle Hill. Unfortunately the rain was quite heavy here and the views of the water were a bit obstructed. We were going to visit Largs, a site of Viking settlement. Given the time we decided against it and instead drove towards my aunt and uncle’s place in Milnathort as it was still quite a distance away.
The drive to Falkirk Wheel was in the pouring rain. There was so much rain some of the side roads were still a little bit flooded. We kept to the main roads. At Falkirk Wheel we sat and waited for the wheel to kick in. Quite a spectacular site seeing two boats going opposite directions. Nearby were ‘The Kelpies’ – two large horse heads in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. We paid 2 pound to park, but given it was still pouring rain we simply drove to a spot and took some photos from the comfort of the car. Nothing but the easiest for us here!
Next stop, Milnathort. Via quite heavy traffic we crossed near Glasgow and headed to Milnathort. We were last here two years ago so had an idea of where we were kind of heading. The GPS still took us down the quickest path through some farmland and one-track roads. We arrived at Milnathort around 5:25pm with David and Louise arriving just a few minutes later. Perfect timing!
After settling in, Louise took Ros and I to the local supermarket to get some dinner. We started with selecting dessert – profiteroles and custard slice, before working out what we wanted to eat for the main. We got everything we needed and headed back home to put on dinner. It was an enjoyable dinner, made all the better by having it with family. We talked about some of the stuff we had seen, got suggestions on things to do while in Scotland and also things to do at our next destinations.
Tomorrow we will be heading off on a tour with Louise during the day while David returns to work.
