It’s been a funny old year………..
That must be the biggest understatement of all time ! To say that “normal” life has changed somewhat doesn’t need labouring any more. Omnipresent influences of COVID have been doing their damndest to disrupt everything – including (selfishly) my holidays………
But ho hum, we just have to make the best of it and hope that things get better in 20201 – must be optimistic, I guess.
So, the original plan hatched at the end of 2019 was to give sunny places (like North Cyprus) a miss this year and concentrate on the home country for a change. I’d always wanted to do the North Coast 500 (NC500) drive around the coast of Scotland. Little did I know what a prescient decision that would turn out to be…..
The total trip was to last at least 3/4 weeks, to fully justify the glories of Scotland, that I was assured (by experts) that I would find on my travels. A mixture of hotels, AirBnb and camping seemed to beckon, so planning commenced in earnest. This was February 2020, mind. the month of May was selected as being the best compromise – midge wise – as well as missing some of the school holidays.
But COVID and Boris, it seemed had other plans………
So, out came the spreadsheets, Booking.com was cranked up, websites plundered for convenient campsites, deposits and some full payments paid, new camping bits and and pieces ordered, travelling schedules worked out, etc, etc.
To include:
- A quick trip to the Isle Of Bute on the way North, especially Rothesay, where Billy Connolly used to go for summer holidays, apparently
- A nostalgic look at the now defunct Rest and Be Thankful hillclimb course
- Day out on the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig
- Minibus tour around Skye, after a train ride from Inverness to the Kyle of Lochalsh
- Bit more railway stuff at Aviemore on the Strathspey line
- A wonderful “relaxed” 10/12 day bash around the NC500, with castles, distilleries, beautiful beaches and sumptuous scenery all figuring somewhere…
- On the way home, stopping in Eskdale to go on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway
That was the plan. Then came the lockdown at the end of March. Like everyone, life changed and I spent the next 20 weeks essentially housebound. Not technically ”shielding”, but definitely keeping away from places and people, except to buy food and go out for walks. So plenty of time to re-plan………
Without exception, all the places where I’d made bookings were overwhelmingly helpful and understanding about having to postpone. I suppose they didn’t have much choice really as we were all being told what to do. Not good for business, thats for sure, but some form of resigned optimism seemed to prevail.
Eventually………..
I took a bit of a punt for September, hoping that things generally would get better and businesses would start to open up again. However, some of the proposed side trips looked a bit in doubt, almost up to the last moment.
Anyway, as much as I could finalise things, I packed the car, with oodles of spare clothes, a spare tent, boxes of food and other stuff. All with a view of essentially trying to keep in my own little semi-“bubble” as much as possible.