Change of plans, visiting the Caladonian Channel

Yesterday evening we decided to change the startingpoin of our tour. Instead of going to inverness, and start the NC500 there at the official starting point, we would drive from Perth to Applecross, making Applecross the start of the NC500 for us. By doing so we would pass the Caladonian Channel, something I want very dear. 

And so this morning we started packing the Van, when our neighbour dropped by. He is driving this really cool, very expensive Maserati. But was also camping in this small tent with his wife, so funny.

Anyway, he really liked Tos, so much that he offered to swap his Maserati for it 😂. Naturaly we declined. But it still gave us a good feeling.

After saying goodbye we left the campingsite towards Fort August. At Perth we had some delay because of road works, but after that is was okay. The scenery was really fantastic, blue skys, great views, and an occasional sheep on the road. 

Just before Fort August we stopped at a petrolstation for some groceries. Supermakets are very rear here, so the petrolstations are also the lokal supermarket. Anyway, this one also had a carwash station. And because Tos was dirty, and the weather was nice, Tanguy decided to give him a bath.

Tos and Tanguy ended up much cleaner than before.

After the shower we headed on to Fort August to visit the Waterlock of the Caladonian Canal. We arrived at 16.30 hour and saw that the next lock passage would be at five. Good reason to waith and have a beer.

At five there was some action in the water, but unfortiunatly no boats who wanted to cross. So we had our beer for no reason, what a shame 😉.

Time to find a place for the night. Walking back to the van we saw another HY van parked at the Loch Ness tourist boat jetty. No way we could leave without a picture of the two cars together. 

After the picture moment our search for an overnight spot started. The owner of the loch ness van told us about a nice parkingplace in the forrest, sounded great, but at arrival there was this sign saying “no overnight camping”. And being the good tourists as we are, we  left the spot in search of a campsite. We found a camping on google, just a bit further along the road. It turned out to be a tents only camping. And also terrased, no way we could camp there. So we went back to Fort August, just to find out that the campsite there was still closed till june 😤. So we decided to continue our way heading to Applecross and stop at the first parking suitable for overnight camping. We found a nice laybye along the A887, so we diceded to spent the night here. 

The bbq was delicious and so was the whisky afterwards 😊