Last Sunday, we drove four hours up the western coast of Scotland to Gairloch, where we stayed for several nights along with Jacob’s family. We were celebrating his and his mom’s birthday, which are the same day. As we made our approach to the campsite that first night, we turned a corner and came over a rise and the beach was suddenly in front of us, a long, wide stretch of empty sand filling my vision. I couldn’t wait to walk along and listen to the waves and breathe the ocean air. Luckily, the campsite backed onto the beach, so we had easy access. The campsite itself was really nice, very spacious and scenic and with new facilities. We stayed in a large, grassy area which had various tucked-away spots in amongst the dunes. Jacob’s parents had picked out one such spot for us, large enough to fit their van and ours, plus a tent for Jacob’s sisters. Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily when we arrived and it was already late in the day, so we huddled in the van for dinner and had an early night.
Our days in Gairloch were fairly relaxed. Jacob and I worked on tidying the van, and we managed to get everything pretty well sorted while we were there. We went “below decks” (which is how I refer to the area under the bed) to sort our camping and hiking gear and store our summer clothes, as it was apparent we wouldn’t be needing them quite yet! Happily, the sun did make an appearance on Jacob’s birthday, and we were able to soak up some vitamin D - we even went for a quick dip in the Atlantic! It was pretty chilly, but we did swim for a few minutes before heading for the hot showers in the campsite facilities. That night, we had hamburgers for dinner cooked on an instant barbeque, which I’d never seen before. We also invented a British-Canadian version of s’mores, which involves roasting pink marshmallows on the instant BBQ and putting them between chocolate-covered Hobnobs (my British biscuit obsession).
Big Sand Beach near Gairloch
That night, I awoke to the sound of gusting wind and the feeling of the van swaying suddenly to one side or the other. I was immediately alert with fear that the van might tip over! (I am not particularly rational when I first wake up.) Frustratingly, Jacob was still sleeping soundly next to me, unaware of the potential catastrophe that could strike at any moment! After my not-so-quiet whispering of “Are you asleep??” and some extra-vigorous tossing & turning still went unnoticed, I went with a more direct poking approach and got the result I was looking for. Jacob kindly reassured me that the van was just rocking on the suspension and we would not in fact tip over, and acknowledged that yes it was quite windy outside and it was “super intense” (my choice of words). I felt a lot better after that, but it still took me a long time to fall back asleep.
The strong winds continued for the rest of our time in Gairloch and the Highlands, causing quickly-shifting weather patterns: pouring buckets one minute, cloudy but dry the next, followed by some sunshine and then back to rain. Anytime we wanted to go for a walk or do something outdoors, we’d wait for a “weather window” to open up. If it was raining when we arrived somewhere, we’d just sit in the cab and eat a Hobnob or two to see if it would dry out. Sometimes we’d luck out; another time, we ended up soaked from head to toe after a ten minute walk to a viewpoint. Thankfully, we have good rain gear!
Exploring near the Allt nan Uamh waterfall
One of my favourite parts of last week was the drive between Gairloch and Ullapool, along the coast on the A832. We had decided to head a bit further north before driving down to Wales (where we are now). We got really lucky with the weather on this particular section of the drive and had a mix of sun and clouds. The wind caused the clouds to blow over quickly, creating roaming patches of sunlight that illuminated sections of the ocean and grassy fields with rich, bright colours. And the ocean - I can’t describe how brightly the blue water glittered, dotted with whitecaps from the wind. I felt like all I could see was the ocean; my eyes were glued to the coastline, drinking in the grandeur. The landscape was rugged, having withstood harsh weather year after year. But all this scenery was really for visual enjoyment only, not to be fully participated in, because as soon as we set foot out of the van we were blasted by the wind. That somehow made it more magical for me; it had this feeling of “look, but don’t touch.” This whole section probably sounds really cheesy, but I’m just telling it the way I experienced it: I was in awe.
Driving up the north coast of Scotland
The torrential downpour was back shortly thereafter, however, and we quickly got tired of the bad weather - especially after checking the weather report for Wales, which was sunny and in the teens! So we decided to leave the coast behind and make our way down through the Highlands, stopping in Glen Coe to do some hiking. Here we found more jaw-dropping scenery and stunning views from the top of Stob Dubh.
View from the summit of Stob Dubh
This post is already quite long, but I wanted to share a few quick musings on van life so far. This probably sounds silly, but I hadn’t realized quite how much driving we would end up doing. If there are a lot of things you want to see, the driving time really adds up. I think we’ll need to adjust some of our expectations on how much we can do during this trip, and plan to stay in each place longer, rather than going to more places. We want to focus on actively exploring our surroundings, be it hiking, biking, or otherwise, so that’s what we’ll make time for.
We’ve also had some van “firsts” since the last post - we’ve had our first showers in the van (Jacob seemed fine, I felt stressed the whole time about my water usage), we’ve emptied our cassette toilet for the first time (it was far less disgusting than I was anticipating! Fingers crossed it stays that way), and we spent our first (and many subsequent) nights parked in whatever quiet layby or parking area we can find. We’ve done quite well outside of the comfort of a campsite, but it’s always nice to have the opportunity to refresh our water, empty the tanks and enjoy the occasional electric hookup.
The other fun thing we’ve discovered is the “camper wave” - if you’re driving along and another camper van or motorhome comes along in the other direction, you wave! Or at least, that’s the idea. Sometimes we don’t notice until too late that we’ve been waved at, or we wave and the other person doesn’t wave back. But in those cases we just assume that they didn’t notice until too late either. It just gives a nice sense of camaraderie on the road. Now please enjoy this photo of an adorable calf with its mother.
A Highland calf with its mother