Hi All,
Early in June I was looking for info re the Torvean site on the S.W. outskirts of Inverness. Now Molly and I have spent a week there. For anyone interested, Torvean is a small grass site, well managed and kept clean but there is no outlook from it. It is just across the road from the Jacobite Cruise terminal from where you can cruise down the Caledonian Canal and into Loch Ness. It is a good touring base and only two or three miles from the centre of Inverness. There is a bus service which saves the hassle of looking for a parking place and perhaps having to pay for it.
From Inverness we went up to Ullapool where the Broomfield Caravan Park is an entirely different kettle of fish - but still excellent. You drive into the site, find yourself a pitch and check in at the office between 3 and 5pm. It is avery large site and quite informal but is one of our favourites with spectacular scenery at hand and some of the most magical sunsets you'll ever see. Great walking country too.
For those who have a preconceived notion of Scotland and think the roads must be rough, twisty and hilly it would be an eye-opener. Most roads are extremely well engineered and surfaced and, north of Inverness traffic is light. In fact on a day trip north from Ullapool into Sutherland we travelled a distance of about ten miles on a beautiful road without seeing another car going in either direction.
There are, of course, still some stretches of single track roads with passing places like the two sections between Achnasheen and Plockton (famous for the T.V. Robert Carlyle series Hamish McBeth and one of the most beautiful places in the country). We used that road going from Ullapool to the Caravan Club site at Morvich, a site of the very high standard expected of the C.C. and set among grand mountain scenery. Morvich is handy for Eilean Donan Castle, the most photographed castle in Scotland, and for the now toll-free Skye Bridge. We did a trip onto Skye and opted to return by the exciting single track road to the ferry at Kylherea, crossing to Glen Elg and returning to Morvich over another single track road with breath-taking scenery across to Shiel Bridge and the main road.
Our eventual return home was mostly through some of the wildest places Scotland has to offer - the A87 past Lochs Cluanie, Loyne and Garry to Invergary then the A82 past Loch Lochy, Aonach Mor and the north face of Ben Nevis, Fort William and then Glen Coe and, standing guard at the end of the glen, the mighty Buachaille Etive Mor, the Shepherd of the Glen, a mountain which no photographer, not even the most casual snapshooter can resist. Then at Crianlarich we changed to the A85. From Lochearnhead the countryside gets to be more civilised and, after Callendar, less interesting.
Rob S.
Early in June I was looking for info re the Torvean site on the S.W. outskirts of Inverness. Now Molly and I have spent a week there. For anyone interested, Torvean is a small grass site, well managed and kept clean but there is no outlook from it. It is just across the road from the Jacobite Cruise terminal from where you can cruise down the Caledonian Canal and into Loch Ness. It is a good touring base and only two or three miles from the centre of Inverness. There is a bus service which saves the hassle of looking for a parking place and perhaps having to pay for it.
From Inverness we went up to Ullapool where the Broomfield Caravan Park is an entirely different kettle of fish - but still excellent. You drive into the site, find yourself a pitch and check in at the office between 3 and 5pm. It is avery large site and quite informal but is one of our favourites with spectacular scenery at hand and some of the most magical sunsets you'll ever see. Great walking country too.
For those who have a preconceived notion of Scotland and think the roads must be rough, twisty and hilly it would be an eye-opener. Most roads are extremely well engineered and surfaced and, north of Inverness traffic is light. In fact on a day trip north from Ullapool into Sutherland we travelled a distance of about ten miles on a beautiful road without seeing another car going in either direction.
There are, of course, still some stretches of single track roads with passing places like the two sections between Achnasheen and Plockton (famous for the T.V. Robert Carlyle series Hamish McBeth and one of the most beautiful places in the country). We used that road going from Ullapool to the Caravan Club site at Morvich, a site of the very high standard expected of the C.C. and set among grand mountain scenery. Morvich is handy for Eilean Donan Castle, the most photographed castle in Scotland, and for the now toll-free Skye Bridge. We did a trip onto Skye and opted to return by the exciting single track road to the ferry at Kylherea, crossing to Glen Elg and returning to Morvich over another single track road with breath-taking scenery across to Shiel Bridge and the main road.
Our eventual return home was mostly through some of the wildest places Scotland has to offer - the A87 past Lochs Cluanie, Loyne and Garry to Invergary then the A82 past Loch Lochy, Aonach Mor and the north face of Ben Nevis, Fort William and then Glen Coe and, standing guard at the end of the glen, the mighty Buachaille Etive Mor, the Shepherd of the Glen, a mountain which no photographer, not even the most casual snapshooter can resist. Then at Crianlarich we changed to the A85. From Lochearnhead the countryside gets to be more civilised and, after Callendar, less interesting.
Rob S.
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