The honeymoon in Scotland

Fifteen of us headed off on the honeymoon on the Monday morning. John and I, El and Bryce, Eileen and Gerry (parents of the bride) Rhonda and John (parents of the groom) Phoebe and Cohen (Bryce’s sister and partner) Adam (great aussie friend of El and Bryce) Nathan (lovely young Scottish friend of El’s who rode with us most of the time) John and Sharon (friends of the Penfold family from Australia) … and the fabulous Darragh … El’s brother who was tour leader … and of course Darcy … Eileen and Gerry’s Dachsund!

So it worked out that El, Bryce, Darragh, Adam, Nathan, John and I camped and the others stayed in various styles of accommodation.

The first night we all headed to Oban and John and I split from the group as we had Alasdair and Rhona … friends from the Isle of Tiree in town for a couple of nights which worked out perfectly for us to catch up with them. So a stop off at a little pub and then dinner together where we ran into the rest of the crew.

Second night we headed to Ballachulish and stayed at the rather spectacular Invercoe Campsite. We headed to the pub for dinner but I was spent so headed home to bed early … unfortunately! As it turned out they had a fabulous night as a couple of musicians had brought their guitars along so our crew soon made friends with them and the whole pub was singing along to their songs. Once again John has videos.

The third day we headed to Portree on the Isle of Skye and visited the Eileen Donan Castle of the way.

Day four we got up early and drove to the Old Man o’Storr … a rock formation … and climbed up to it. Just over an hour up and back but rather steep. We were on a time limit as we had to catch the ferry to the Isle of Harris … from Uig.

We made the ferry in plenty of time … although I slept while we waited … the walk after so much partying took me out!

When we arrived on Harris we visited a Gin Distillery, visited the Harris Tweed shop and stocked up on groceries for lunch as we had decided to have a picnic lunch. Darragh’s van is a great VW van that can sleep four but they ended up sleeping El and Bryce in the van, Adam and Darragh in the annex and Nathan in a tent. However, Nathan slept in our van a couple of nights and Phoebe and Cohen slept another night. As we had the easiest facilities I organised the lunch … cold meats, salad and wraps … perfect.

The place we stayed that night was stunning!!!!! It completely blew me away and it was my favourite of the whole trip … Horgabost Beach, Isle of Harris.

That night it was just the seven campers for dinner. So I cooked up some roast veggies and made a big salad and Darragh pulled out his fire pit … what he kept pulling out of his little van amazed me! … and we had a bbq then sat by the fire and had the odd sip.

These campsites are amazing … it is an honesty system … 4 pounds per head per night for this one. There were a couple of spotlessly clean demountable buildings with toilets, showers and a sort of kitchen area. I couldn’t get over what fabulous facilities they had and how clean!