After another night of Charlie playing musical beds and with a rather poorly feeling Struan, we were packed up and gave the house a going over.
We then wandered down to the Slappie to meet Matilda, who chummed us round the harbour and showed us where to spot the seals. Grace tried calling the dolphins, I tried not to die (could taste the shellfish 😬🤢) Struan was feeling sorry for himself and Charlie was trying his best to break free and jump into the harbour!
As the tide was right in we could only take our last few steps on the beach before saying cheerio to Matilda, waving goodbye to Burghead and most definitely putting Burghead back onto next year’s to do list.
We took the Old Military Road to Granton On Spey, couple of nature pees and a stop at the House of Bruar so Struan could use a posh loo! and that saw us home… oh no wait.. Tiso at Perth was also used as a pee stop!
This was Chelsea’s first time over the Queensferry Crossing!
Safe to say we had an EPIC week, some more than others are suffering sleep deprivation, but definitely a trip of a lifetime. ❤️
We asked everyone to choose their favourite part of the week:
Grace- my favourite part was when Snuz made me glow in the dark and the best thing to see was the cows 🤦🏼♀️🤣
Struan- my favourite part was staying at the bnb (so the camping trip went well 🤣) (#boy can’t survive without wifi) and best thing to see was the seals.
Snuz- breakfast on the beach, swimming in the sea (warmer than expected.. not regretting forgetting wetsuit) and driving epic roads!
Chelsea- seeing all the beautiful places and NOT DRIVING THE EPIC ROADS! #ThanksSnuz!
Charlie- seeing different tractor in their natural habitats 🤣🤣
To conclude our superb week away I’d like to thank Chelsea for being more organised than me, keeping me sane and being a legend with wee Charlie.. and thanks to the kids for making me realise stopping at one child was the correct decision!
FUNNIEST QUOTE OF THE WEEK: goes to Grace: “what does apple juice taste like?” Snuz:”Apples” Grace:”so like oranges?!”
943 miles covered with a dodgy sounding steering rack.. dont worry it’s on the to-do list before next year, also thanks to Ryan (TD TYRES) for ensuring our brakes were spot on for our adventure.
Beginning to regret bringing my 4am alarm clock (Charlie)! Chelsea took one for the team this morning by feeding the spawn and keeping them quiet as Charlie had been playing musical beds/rooms since he woke!
Chelsea took Struan and Grace along the beach towards Hopeman to allow Snuz a shower in peace.. however it wasn’t that peaceful as Charlie couldn’t decide if he wanted the shower or bath or both!
We all met up about an hour later and we headed to the sandy beach which went on for as far as the eye could see!
We spent a good few hours here playing in the water, building sandcastles and burying children before taking a very grumpy Charlie and a mildly grumpy Chelsea home for a nap!
I tried to have a nap on the couch but Grace wouldn’t sssh, instead I got roughly 2 minutes of shut-eye in-between the many jigsaws 🤣
With everyone now back at the top of their game, less grumpy and lots of energy.. we donned our wetsuits, life jackets and wandered back to the beach via the viewpoint. The path we took was treacherous, narrow and steep and of course Charlie was back my shoulders!
At the viewpoint we met Caitlin with her new gun dog puppy, Solo. Dunno who was more excited.. the pup or our pups!
We wandered down to the beach for a swim, sat our dry bags high up on the rocks and kept walking and walking and walking, still only thigh deep! We turned to see the tide was coming in faster than we had anticipated and if we hadn’t exited the sea by this point, the dry bag was getting close to swimming!
We headed back to the flat with some chittering children where they all got hosed down and stripped off and the poor washing machine was back in commission.
I nipped out to book the Harbour Inn for dinner but it was full so Dominoes pizza it was! We ordered online and collected ten minutes later and enjoyed our last supper (MASSIVE FEAST).
After dinner the kids and I had a glow-stick party in the living room whilst Chelsea wrestled the washing!
The kids went off to bed, Chelsea organised the house, the van and our lives 🤣 and Daz popped round for a few beers.
Having reached the bottom of every bottle possible.. we said cheerio to Daz and hit the sack.. might have been 1am roughly!
My 4.30am alarm clock woke up at what seems to be the norm this week! A refill of milk later and wee Charlie was back asleep til 7am. We got dressed and sneaked out the tent to allow Chelsea, Struan and Grace a lie in!
Charlie and I headed down to the beach to collect sand, jump over the many jellyfish and do a bit of rock climbing.
We sauntered back to the tent to meet the gang, got organised, jumped in the van all ready for the week’s most northerly adventures… THE VAN WAS DEAD 👎
As Chelsea was the organised one of the trip, she had even packed jump leads 🤣👍, however the kind gentleman who provided us with his car to assist us didn’t have a clue how to even access his battery! Luckily, I seem to have had plenty hands on experience throughout my driving years and knew exactly what to do. SO… turns out the guy’s car didn’t have enough oomph to get the van going so we asked the campsite owner (who has been most helpful throughout our stay) for a jump.. he brought along a jump pack that he uses to start boats! The van was up and running in seconds and we were off!
The first official stop (other than nature pee stops) was Kylesku Bridge, where we got lots of pictures (leaving the van still running! Didn’t want to chance needing another jump start!).
The roads were incredible, very smooth apart from the odd crater in some passing places, and some verges had steep drop offs, not always with barriers, or were very soft as one car had found out whilst trying to squeeze past a lorry instead of using a passing place! How the car hadn’t rolled onto its side was beyond the rules of gravity!With a few more pee stops on route, we arrived at Durness.
We had a quick stop at Spar to replenish fluids and munchies before heading to Smoo Cave.
The kids were suited, booted and waterproofed up and we opted for the uphill path taking us anticlockwise round the hillside before descending down to sea level and into the cave.
We walked into the cave and along a wooden bridge to the viewpoint inside the cave, where normally a waterfall comes thundering into the cave from a hole above, believe it or not there hasn’t been enough rain!
We explored the stoney beach and collected funky rocks (dinosaur eggs!) before heading back up the giant steps (with Charlie on my shoulders.. this week has introduced the inability for him to walk uphill unaided!! I’m not on holiday to take up weight training! #snuzthebodybuilder!).
Back at the van, as we were making the kids’ lunch, a couple of familiar voices appeared from the distance.. my friends Simone and Clinky with their wee boy. We had a wee catchup blether before they wandered down to see the cave.
We videocalled Mark, (1st time having steady signal in days!) who asked why we went the long road north to Durness.. I had said it was because the roads were better, however we opted to follow his advice and take the coastal road back to the campsite… BIG MISTAKE! More about this shortly..
We stopped just along the road at the signpost similar to the one at John O Groats for an obligatory photo before starting on the hairiest road we’d been on so far…
To sum up the coastal road… squeaky bum moments, 2 x ambulances almost sending us into a cliffside, disappearing roads (due to the steepness of the downhills at the brows of hills) and celebrating getting into 5th gear despite not getting over 30mph! In Chelsea’s words the road was “utterly f*cking horrendous” 🤣 I secretly enjoyed driving this road but my muscles will probably not thank me in the morning!
Back at the campsite we headed straight to the beach for some cartwheels, headstands, sand yoga, rock climbing, sand dune running, race the waves and one faceplate in the sand!
Guess who faceplanted?!
We wandered along the road to the chippy (Closed), but the nice lady from the (Closed) local shop allowed us to stock up on milk 👍
Back at the campsite we used the cooking facilities/dining area again to make and eat our dinner, then it was showers, milk and bed for the kiddos.
We high fived to another day survived! Thankfully not as many questions were asked today but I will finish today’s blog with a few things the kids have came out with today…
Struan : next year Charlie’s birthday will be on the 11th! This is because, looking at his calendar, the Tuesday of Charlie’s birthday this year, 12th, is the 11th next year 🤣
Grace : Is this the Skye Bridge? Having seen 1st hand the Skye bridge yesterday, we laughed then put her right.. it was Kylesku Bridge which looks completely different!
And Charlie’s new word is “shoulders” everytime he sees a hill that he would like carried up!
Yet again Charlie (who honestly normally sleeps to anytime between 7.30am and 10am) arose at 4.30am with everyone else following at 8. It was rather moist outside the tent so we opted for breakfast bars in bed!
We got the kiddos changed, strapped into their carseats and got the tent down, having to pack the dry inners separate to the absolutely soaking outer.
A quick toilet inspection and sand collection and we were once again on the road again. Tonight’s campsite is Clachtoll Beach away up the North West of Scotland.
We topped up with fuel at Broadford and waved cheerio to Skye as we drove up and over their fantastic bridge.
After roughly 242 questions and several bottles of juice later we arrived at Dornie village hall to make use of the superb public facilities available.. yep toilets 🤣
Here we took the chance of getting some pics of Eilean Donan Castle and a funky bridge with kayakers about to paddle under before we all bundled back into the van excitedly as our next stop was only about 2 minutes away.
We had found the hidden gem called Manuelas Bakery where we opted for some epic Nutella and biscuit croissants. The bakery is like no other due to it’s fairytale characteristics (see photos below as our descriptions won’t do it the justice it deserves!)
The next leg of our journey consisted of many road types and surfaces, lots of haribo sweets and of course the obligatory questions! We had a quick pee stop at Achnasheen Railway Station (where, for just a brief moment, we considered sending the kids home on the next train) before we were back on the road with our next adventure stop being at Corrieshalloch Gorge.
The sun was shining brightly as we walked down the easy going path and over the suspension bridge (which Chelsea was definitely not keen on) to the viewpoint which also happened to be about 800 thousand feet up in the air much to Chelsea’s delight 🤣🤣
After several wobbly steps and a few photos taken as quickly as possible (not just cos Chelsea wanted back onto solid ground but also that Charlie was trying to climb up the bloody thing!), we headed back to the van with a few nature pees on route!
With everyone’s water bottles replenished and yet more sweeties shared out we headed up the road to Ullapool to top up out very low supplies of beer, milk and munchies!
From here we headed up to Clachtoll Beach Campsite on some very twisty, up and down and narrow roads, (Even I was getting rather travel sick despite being the driver!) They do have some pretty random road signs up north though…
We pitched the tent (just the outer to give it time to dry off a little), whilst the kids played some games on the large grassy bit behind the van.
Before we knew it, it was teatime! We headed down to the incredible kitchen/diner area where we made hotdogs, scoffed our faces with donuts and toasted some marshmallows. Charlie also enjoyed “helping” everyone with their washing up!
From here we headed round to the games room where the kids enjoyed playing some guessing games, reading books, a very competitive game of Hungry Hippos between Charlie and myself, and wondering why they couldn’t see any stars through the telescope when looking through it up into the sky… it was 7pm in the height of summer 🤔🤣🤭
With the inners of the tent now up and all beds made it was time for pjs, milk and bed. The kids settled down no bother which allowed Chelsea and I to tag team going for a nice long hot shower each. Not much banter this evening as everyone was tired and a tad grumpy! It had been a long day with a good few adventures!
Before we start to tell you about day 2.. Chelsea would like to clarify that my kid, Charlie boy, was actually up before her 2 early morning risers!
Cracking sleep, at an alright temperature, was had by all. Smiles all round this morning, and to save waking the remainder of the campsite, we grabbed a groundsheet, camping chairs and some cereal and headed to the beach. Breakfast al fresco.
The kids enjoyed playing musical cereal, while the big kids enjoyed an energy drink and listening to the waves. We all collected shells then wandered back to the campsite to strike the tent.
The tent was down in under 5 mins as we fired the kids in the van out of our way first 🤣👍 Dishes done, kids made to have a last minute pee and 3 gallons of water topped up as the weather was warming up quickly, we set off to Mallaig to catch the boat to Skye.
Tickets collected, another toilet inspection and roughly an hour later we were on board the ferry to Skye. Despite the ferry journey taking less than 45 minutes, Struan managed to turn the same colour as his shorts (neon green), Chelsea didn’t look too good either, Grace asked another hundred questions and Charlie tried to join the captain!
On reaching Skye we were first off the boat, I was very thankful the handbrake held well as we were millimetres away from the front of the boat! We headed along the quiet, clear road to Carbost where we parked up at The Old Inn. One of my SARDA (search and rescue dogs association) friends works here, it was nice to see Antje. Here we enjoyed a fulfilling lunch followed by a wee trip across the road to the kids playpark, where Struan was a pest, Grace liked to moan about everything and Charlie wanted to play on absolutely everything! Once the kids were run ragged we put our bundles of delight back in the van and set off for the Fairy Pools.
From the minute we arrived at the Fairy Pools it pissed with rain, so waterproofs (which were thankfully to hand) were required. All set and ready to face the elements, we ventured along the rocky and boggy path, following the river and pools upstream. The path was like a motorway! So busy! The kids were absolute troopers and managed to wander a good distance up the hillside, pointing out every single waterfall, plunge pool and drainage gaps which we jumped over.. every single one of them!
Chelsea and Grace continued up a little further for more opportunities while I took the boys back to the van via another toilet stop! The toilet block there was a welcome sight, what an improvement from the last time I was here.. the carpark has expanded greatly and the facilities were very much needed. We all reached the van at the same time and whilst getting mauled by midges, the kids all got thrown in the back, seatbelts on, juice bottles refilled and we set off down the wee single-track road to Glenbrittle Campsite. After checking in, we sat in the van for almost two hours waiting on the rain easing, although during this time Chelsea and I braved the rain and midges to get the tent pitched whilst the kids ate us out of house and home! Another toilet trip later, pjs on and 2½ bottles of milk for Charlie, the kids were in bed.
In-between showers, the big kids rearranged the van, enjoyed a few beverages, watched the sunset and funky clouds slowly sliding down the mountains before calling it a night.
The day started with throwing the rest of the gear in the van, saying goodbye to the heatwave (24° at 9am.. yep unheard of) and headed to Costco for the cheapest fuel around (190.9/L).
We had a nice clear run up the road to Dobies at Stirling, where we cleared the shelves of cold bottled water! 1st toilet stop successful!
Next stop was the Green Welly Stop in Tyndrum, by this point it was 28°… now wondering why I haven’t got round to getting the air con fixed!!
Another toilet visit and we got 2 x souvenir pennies from the machine after having to ask a nice stranger for 2 1ps 🤣
Grace had only asked about 2million questions so far by this point!
Back on the road North, the next hidden treasure was Glencoe Lochan, where we squeezed under the height restriction barrier of 2.3m (yes Chelsea jumped out to make sure the roof box was clear!) Snuz may know the width of her van very well but not the height with the added storage above!
We sauntered in the 28° heat, bounced on a wobbly jetty, patted strange dogs and posed for many photos!
After another 3 gallons of water we headed into Fort William for Grace’s 7th birthday treat, which Charlie may have missed out on due to finally closing his eyes for a wee nap!
All fed and watered we travelled round the lochside towards Corpach for yet another pee stop! On route we were stopped for a good 15minutes to allow the busy boat motorway to clear! Incredible how the road moves to allow the boats to pass through.
Stopped at Corpach at the public toilets, we took a wander over the railway and around a few of the locks, constantly looking back towards the railway in anticipation of seeing the Harry Potter train steaming its way past…(We bloody missed it whilst eyeing up the Old Boat of Caol).
We turned to see the train chugging past from afar. It was so hot you could barely see any steam coming from the train!
We wandered down the stony beach towards the shipwreck and came across our first of many jellyfish, navigated a river crossing and finally arrived at the boat, which was incredible. It would appear the pirates hadn’t left any treasure for us! Instead of loot we collected our first couple of small handfuls of sand which we are going to put in a jar with all the different layers of sand we collect throughout our adventures.
We didn’t hang about at the shipwreck for long as it was boob sweat warm! (31°) (Never thought we’d be writing that!)
On the road again, our next stop was Glenfinnan Viaduct… the car park was heaving, the view was shit and it was 3 quid to park so it was a drive through event 🤣
The road up to the viaduct was closed, and as it was too warm to walk up to we have no photos 👎
A few minor roadworks later #waytoolongawaitforgreenlihhts we arrived safely at Camusdarach Beach Campsite.
We found reception, got checked in by a very helpful and friendly lady and found our pitch: Canna 2
Whilst politely asking the kids several (hundred) times to go play in the sandpit on site so we could pitch the tent in peace, next doors kids descended on us! Grace found her new BFF and the Toilet Inspector (Struan) went off for his 800th pee so far!
Tent pitched and beds made in under 10mins, nae arguments apart from again politely asking our little angels to “feck off”, I mean “go play”.
After another 342 questions, Snuz and Chelsea finally managed to neck a beer each before all getting into wetsuits and swimmies and heading to the beach!
The beach has the whitest sand and clearest waters we’ve seen for a long time.. yep we collected a good few handfuls of sand for our jars.
Jellyfish… thousands of em!
We had an absolute blast and all kids were soaked up to their necks! Glad we got them new buoyancy aids.. could spot them a mile away (wishful thinking at this point) 🤣
Caked in sand, we headed to the shower block, unfortunately next door overheard our plans and jumped the feckin queue.. didn’t even suggest that a chittering 3 Yr old Charlie could go ahead of them! At that point, just before Snuz lost the plot, the campsite owners arrived to check everything was clean and stocked up so Snuz asked very nicely if her and Charlie could use the baby changing shower.. score! 😀
With the kids in jammies and bed, 2 bottles of milk consumed by hungry horace (Charlie) and all 3 kids passed out within 2 minutes, beers were in hand, wrapped in hoodies with only eyes and mouth showing (midges came out to play) we finally breathed a sigh of relief! Day 1 complete! Oh.. until we were both in hysterics, laughing at Struan’s impersonation of a tractor with a blown exhaust 🤣😴
Snuz's Adventures 