De avonturen van Draakje en zijn vrienden: Slowly on our way back to the ferrie

Yesterday morning we said goodbey to the North Coast 500 route and went on our way back to the ferry. We didn’t want to rush so we have a few days for the 460 km drive. We decided to go right trough the middle of the Cairngorm national park. We know the area a bit because we spent lot of weekends there.

I started the day with my first drive ever in Tos, must say I didn’t too bad. Eventhough I only drove it out of the camperpitch and campsite. Then I switched places with Tanguy again. But at least I know now that I can move the van at all, had some doubts about that.

Liane’s first drive with Tos

It was the first day of cloudy skies and rain of the holiday, but the surroundings were still lovely. The hills could be very steep, up to at least 20%, but we made it! We even got trough Devils Elbow 😈

Ski lifts

The steepest slope of the holidays

Tanguy found a campsite via Google. The site said that they would re-open in summer 2017, so to be sure we gave them a call. The campsite was still not open, but we could still camp there, free of charge. It was at an unnamed road on the edge of the Cairngorms. Sounded good enough, so we drove there. It was very small but okay.

Unfortunately the rain wipers didn’t feel to enthusiastic today. After not being used for so long they just needed a little bit off help every turn. So to help the wipers on their way back we both had to bang on the windscreen to help the wipers over a death point. It worked, but needed to be looked at.

Just a few miles from the “camping” we needed to cross another cattle grid. We crossed a lot of them already this holiday so we weren’t prepared for what happend next. When we got off the grid Tos got luanched! All four wheels came from the ground and we fell back down with a hard bang. We were both in shock, what the f*ck happened? We weren’t speeding, the road was okay, but there must have been a dip just behind the grid with a launch platform right behind it. After some seconds we stopped to check the car. The camper part was okay, except for some books who fell down. But the cars exhaust had gotten the full blow. The exhaust is at this stupit place quite low under the nose of the cars, so it’s always the first to hit the ground when anything happens, also this time. Luckily Tos still runs fine, he only makes even more noise than normal. We decided to leave it for now and fix it when we are back home.

The camping which hasn’t been open for over a year

Our camping spot for the night

After we arrived Tanguy had a look at the rain wipers and motor, turned out to be (another) broken wire. He fixed it and now it works perfectly.

That night the wind began to blow and today was sunny but with a very hard stormy winds gusting up to 9 bft. Hard work to keep Tos straight.We passed Edinburgh and are on a campsite in Dunbar on the east coast. It is still very windy but we wil fire up the BBQ later on for the last BBQ mail of these holidays. Tomorrow we go to Newcastle and have a night out.