Road trip around south-west Scotland
We have recently returned from a 2-week road trip around south-west Scotland. I’ve added a map of the places we visited. I could spend hours telling stories about this trip. It turned out to be one of the best holidays we’ve ever had and we will almost certainly be repeating parts of it in future trips. Anyway, I’ll try to stick to some highlights.
We started off in Carlisle on the Jubilee Saturday (4th June). It was a beautiful day to visit the Castle, Museum of Military Life and the Cathedral. I’m a wheelchair user with an assistance dog, so most of our days out have to be well planned. This one was less well planned than usual. We particularly liked the cathedral, where we sat and listened to the organist practising. Apparently, he’s only 18 years old, but he’s pretty good! I’ll be honest, the castle was a bit naff and access was rubbish but the museum, on the same site, was okay.
We spent our first night at a BritStop just north of Carlisle. It was a pub/restaurant and we enjoyed a lovely meal overlooking the River Esk and had a very peaceful night’s sleep. For those who aren’t members, BritStops offer one overnight stay for free. They hope you’ll spend some money there but there’s no pressure. They are great for road trips but often don’t have any facilities.
Day 2 was one of the highlights as we visited Gretna Green. Everyone had told us it wasn’t worth visiting. They were wrong! The exhibition was delightful and we enjoyed the courtship maze and attached a love lock to the LOVE wall to mark our 30th anniversary (next year, so early).
We stayed at a CL site, Mollance Farm, which was a small, very pretty site with lots of bulls in the fields and an overgrown ruined house at the top of the site. Enid Blyton, eat your heart out!
Day 3, we went hiking in Dalbeattie Forest Town Woods. Yes, wheelchair users can go hiking. I have an off-road wheelchair and thanks to a big garage on the back of the motorhome, we always take both wheelchairs. The easy walk was plenty for us, as we had a fair drive to New England Bay and wanted time to enjoy the beach there. The walk was beautiful though and a great place to let my assistance dog enjoy some off-lead shenanigans.
New England Bay club site, on the Galloway Peninsula is awesome! It is nothing like any club site we’ve seen before. The site is huge and split into different areas, each with different views and character. We went for a beach side pitch and spent hours walking around the site and on the beach. The only downside was in the evening, when millions of midges appeared out of nowhere. They were evil little blighters!
Next day (lost track of days by now) we visited the Robbie Burns birthplace museum, just outside Ayr. I loved it! Most museums do stuff chronologically. This was more about literature, poetry, inspiration and how randy he was. 13 kids by 5 different women! Not sure how he had time to write poetry!
Next day, we were catching a ferry to Arran and decided to overnight in Saltcoats Harbour. The car park there is free and next door to Aldi and Iceland, so good for stocking up. We’ve never stayed in a public car park before. This one allows motorhomes and we had a peaceful night. It’s also very close for ferries.
We’re quite new to motorhoming and hadn’t done ferries before, so with the added complications of wheelchair and assistance dog (who has never sailed before either) it was all a bit trial and error. Calmac, the ferry company are always in the news for being rubbish. That was not our experience. We couldn’t fault them! They were so helpful on all our crossings, ensuring we had enough space around the motorhome to unload me, my chair, the dog, etc. Accessibility was great! We can’t wait to go island hopping again!
Arran is stunning but our American friends had a tropical storm they were no longer using, so sent it over to us. Torrential rain and howling gales did put a bit of a damper on the visit. Nevertheless, as true Brits, we still got out and visited places. Brodick Castle was a reasonable day out and I strongly recommend a visit to the Arran Cheese Shop. Their ginger cheese is to die for!
The campsite we stayed at for 2 nights was at Bridgend. It’s a lovely site with some level pitches and so friendly and helpful. If you can stay awake long enough, pitch 2 gets excellent views of sunset, which may have been the only time we actually saw the sun there.
Next island hop was from Largs to Cumbrae. The storm was still with us so our planned hike around the circumference of the island was abbreviated to a 3 mile each way to Fintry Bay. We stayed at Garrison House, which is a motorhome Aire-style site. It’s a great base for exploring the island. Cumbrae Butchers is an absolute must! They do amazing pies of every kind. We got a rhubarb pie which was really good, as well as other treats. The restaurant at Fintry Bay is also excellent. If you’re into bird watching, the island has loads of oyster catchers, which are very photogenic.
Next island was Bute, a bit of a mixed bag! There is only one campsite on the island, Roseland Park, and we were totally underwhelmed by it. It has bags of potential but felt a bit like a trailer park, with dilapidated statics and poor facilities. As a wheelchair user, it was terrible… very steep hills, no decent surfaces at all and you had to go out of the touring area and 3 gates down the road to a different area to use the facilities.
Mount Stuart was the opposite extreme! Possibly one of the best days out at a country house you’ll ever experience. The guides were amazing storytellers and made the visit really entertaining and interesting. Access was superb and nothing was too much trouble.
We left Bute at the north of the island and took a 5 minute ferry to the Cowal Peninsula, where we drove up to the top of Loch Fyne. What a stunning journey! The scenery is really impressive! We had lunch at Loch Fyne Oysters. If you like seafood, you haven’t lived until you eat here. The oysters are delicious!
Nearby is Ardkinglas Woodland Gardens, where we did the Fairy Trail walk. It was cute and very pretty but the enormous trees were best. Some are the biggest in the UK. They made us look like toys next to them.
Overnight was another BritStop, a restaurant just outside Tarbet on Loch Lomond. It was a bit unfortunate that we’d already had a big lunch but it would have bit rude not to enjoy a big dinner too, with deep fried Mars Bar bites for dessert – yummy!
The next day should have been multiple stop-offs down the coast of Loch Lomond. In reality, we visited Luss, which was great! We paddled in the Loch there and enjoyed meandering around the quaint little village. It was like stepping back in time.
From there, the day went belly-up. As we pulled back onto the A82 (pretty much the only road) there had been an accident, with 2 HGVs and a mini that blocked the entire road. Having established that nobody was seriously hurt and having researched alternative routes, we decided to sit it out, along with a few other die-hard motorhomers and caravanners. Give us a shout if you were there!
Although it wasn’t the planned way to spend 4 hours, it was actually quite nice, sitting out, picnicking in the middle of the A82, chatting to folks, sharing holiday stories and following the rescue mission up ahead. For 4 hours, we were relaxed and happy, observing the chaos on the alternate route via social media and congratulating ourselves on not joining it. Then, as suddenly as it all began, the accident scene vanished and we were off. I doubt that motorhomes have ever packed up with such speed! Gas off, stuff secured, vents down, dog belted up, wheelchairs away… and we were off again, smack into rush hour on the motorways of Glasgow.
We arrived at Strathclyde club site, late, tired, hungry and slightly stressed, in spite of our relaxing afternoon. We’d planned to visit a farm shop to pick up food for dinner and that hadn’t happened, so ended up having bacon sarnies, which probably compensated for the previous day’s gluttony.
We had planned a day out from Strathclyde but ended up spending the day walking around the country park. Considering it’s a big city, the country park was really quite pleasant. The only things that spoiled it a bit were yet more midges (we were prepared though) and millions of geese. They were perfectly calm and friendly but blocked paths and pooed everywhere. I think I still have Strathclyde goose poo on my wheels!
The final day, the entire country was basking in a heatwave (not really my thing) but we had yet more torrential rain, so we headed back towards home via a lovely farm shop on the A66, where we had planned to overnight, but decided to keep going and get home in time to do a lot of washing, cleaning and dieting.
Definitely a holiday to remember. At some point, we want to visit more of the islands, along with Kintyre (which we eventually found out the name for, after calling it by a body part it closely resembles) and possibly Loch Lomond, as we didn’t really see much of it. If you’ve never visited this little corner of Scotland, you really should consider it. It is so beautiful and there are many fantastic attractions. Just a shame it had to come to an end.
Comments
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Great story, Finns, interesting reading. I thought I recognised Luss from the photo.
I agree with you about Calmac. They've always seemed helpful to us.
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Thanks for sharing and the photographs. We visited Ayr and Garlieston probably a week or two before you trip/ (see story below)
David
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Great trip and photos, thank you for sharing 🙂
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Great story - thanks for sharing! New England Bay was the first site we stayed at when we got our van last month.
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