On the Road Again

– north to Tomatin, Scrabster and Orkney (23rd and 24th June)

It was in the last week of my previous trip that I contemplated, not for the first time, quitting the rental on my Lake District cottage and moving into the van full-time.

I thought, as on previous occasions, that I would change my mind on getting ‘home’, but this time that didn’t happen. The idea just grew. I could see only pluses, and had a sharp retort for any minus that arose..

Here (in the photo below) was ‘home’… Roja and I in the Lowther river as all swelter in the recent heatwave, enjoyed only it seemed, by the many biting flies..

It will be missed, but there are other wonderful places, many of which I haven’t discovered yet.

I have so many places I want to go. On getting ‘home’ so much of my time is spent planning the next course, counting down the days until it arrives.

It seemed pointless paying rent, council tax, and services 12 months a year to live there for just 5, which has been the case in the last two years, and would have been less this year.

The energy I used is almost completely from the sun, only in the winter months do I have any need for the grid.

The backdrops to daily life are almost always spectacular.

I will quite contentedly spend many days with only Roja for company, and the various birds and beasts of the locale, though the occasional people I meet usually provide a worthwhile distraction.

A writer from one of my favourite publisher’s, Tartarus from Sheffield, inspired me with his words when he himself gave reason for moving on.. ‘to live more widely’.

The only minuses that concerned me were that it might be a struggle another rental place such as the one I had. But the more I thought about this, the more I will relish the challenge. I have no idea where that will be anyway at the moment.

Life in the van will have a shelf-life, but at the moment I can’t say whether that will be 2 years or more. At the moment, I just see it as another gap-year, my fourth.

I expect to look for short term rental for three months in the winter.

My cottage was so small that it wasn’t really possible to pack anything up until the lock-up I had rented became available. So, in the course of the last week, I boxed stuff up, binned quite a bit of it and felt good about it, and moved it into the lock-up just off the A66 by Dacre. For the bigger items, I had help for which I am very grateful. That was a hectic Thursday, the first busy day I’ve had for a few years.

Friday morning I was away, starting with a last trip, for now, to the lock-up, a coffee with my mum in Carlisle, and then an uninterrupted journey up to Tomatin.

I hadn’t expected much in terms of a stopover. I looked first at the Distillery overflow car park, but it wasn’t suitable; wrongly titled as it was tiny, sloping and litter-ridden. I headed out on the small and rarely used road into the valley of the River Findhorn. There was a place marked on Park4Night, and a Dutch van already in it. I had a chat with the sole woman owner, who had a dog and cat with her, and we got on well. She too, was considering living in her van, and on her way back home to resign from her job.

Though the place was remote, quiet and scenic, it was dirty, with lots of evidence of toilet waste. I moved about a hundred metres back along the road after an exploratory dog walk, where it was a bit higher up, with a good breeze. I expected midges, but they never came. It was a great place, and a real bonus as I had expected much less.

For much of the night it rained heavily, but the morning was clear, and perfect for Roja to base himself outside as has become his habit, me to finish my book and take coffee, my habits, then head out for a couple of hours wander.

There is a new wind farm nearby, but new deer fences and new locked gates which made access to the route I had planned impossible. Tracks that had been used by mountain bikers and hikers a few years ago were now closed. In Europe I have seen the opposite happen, the construction of the farms has meant new tracks which after construction were then opened to riders and walkers.

Nonetheless we found some good country to walk.

From there it was just 20 miles into Inverness, and a quick Tesco visit. Then onwards and northwards to Scrabster up the A9, all of which was very smooth going.

Flash-backs kept coming to me on the northerly section of the road, after Dingwall. We cycled this in the year 2000 as part of a relay team non-stop Land’s End to John O’Groats attempt. It was a group of about fifteen 14 to 17 year olds from King Edward Lytham. By this stage the team that was resting had become very difficult to wake. We took just over 4 days (100 hours) to complete just over 1000 miles, and chances to sleep were rare, and very brief when they did happen. I recall the van driving at 4 mph alongside a newly woken cyclist pouring strong coffee down them as they rode and I drove, and Dylan blaring, One More Cup Of Coffee Before I Go..

I was into Scrabster just after 4 pm and wanted to head out on the footpath just next to the ferry terminal to Holborn Head, and its lighthouse. The previous time I was here, May 2021, I had no time to do it.

It’s just a half hour hike to the cliffs at the Head, and well worth the slight effort. I sat chatting to two women there for a while. One, a Thurso resident all her life, was being visited by her school friend who now lived in Virginia. The last time they had been at this spot they were 14 and skipping school, with cans of cider, sat with legs over the cliff edge. Today all three of us were ten metres further back throughout.

They’ve had very little rain here for the last two months, as we have in the north of England. It was 26C in Scrabster at 4 pm, humid, with thunder clouds building, hardly average conditions for the time of year.

It’s a 90 minute ferry to Stromness, skirting the spectacular cliffs of Hoy and passing the Old Man in the evening sun. The ferry docked on time at 8:30 pm, and twenty minutes later I was on Skaill Beach. There are several such beaches adjacent to small roads on Orkney mainland that make idyllic stop-overs. There were two other vans there, but each more than fifty metres away. Though it had been warm here also, it was pleasantly cool in the late evening sun, with a magnificent sunset, just after 10:15 pm.

I had my second of three frozen meals from my old freezer, a Malaysian Rendang curry cooked a couple of weeks ago as the daylight slowly faded and midges failed to appear. It wasn’t dark properly until after 11:30 pm.