Day 4 - 24th June
I’ve managed to escape the heat of the country by driving up north, but what I have not managed to escape is the midges. Sitting out for more than a minute results in a lot of bites on any exposed bit of skin. My legs and arms are really itchy and full of bites. This is not going to be a pleasant time with these bites.
The trip from Oban to Skye is the longest travel day with a planned route totalling 152 miles. The satnav turned on, destination was set and I set off. I stopped in Fort William at Morrisons to pick up a couple of things and grabbed a very tastly bacon butty. I ate this in the car park and carried on. Dutifuly following the sat nav, I turned and headed towards Mallaig.
What I noticed on the route is how there are a lot of people who give motorhomes a bad name. There is a vistor centre on the way to Mallaig and this was still taking people in to the car parks as there was space. As you will see shortly, this was not the case on the way back (foreshadowing).
As I got into Mallaig it suddenly dawned on me that this was the end of the road. To get to the Isle of Skye, I would have to get on the ferry. This was not part of the plan. Swearing to myself I parked up for a couple of minutes, changed the settings in the satnav to avoid ferrys and set back off for the Isle of Skye. This added approx 80 miles to the journey. Luckily for me, the road to Mallaig was nice and smooth.
Coming back near to the visitor centre, parking on the side of the road became attrocious. There were lots of vehicles parked in nearly every available little space resulting in slowing traffic and quite dangerous situations for pedestrians. There also seemed to be lots of people stood near the Fort William - Mallaig railway line, but there was nothing I could find on why they were there.
Once I was back through Fort William and heading in the right directions, the scenery changed and was stunning all through the valleys. There was also a Eurofighter practicing the low level stuff that flew through as well. Fantastic.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, just beautiful countryside with smooth roads.
The Skye campsite was in a great spot as well. Low down on the Loch, I filled up with water and checked in. Managed to get the van fairly level for the evening and sat down with a beer and watched the world go by. This included somone managing to get their car stuck on a rock.
The showers in the morning were ok. They are not of the standard of other sites I’ve been to but were hot and thankfully midge free.
