Well!! This is the start of throwback/history-time!!

Old slides that I've now converted to digital pics. Bear in mind these are taken with old 35mm cameras (not expensive either), and have been languishing in old cupboards and draws for decades. So quality is not the best.....

We start with Geoff Barrow and I going off for a 2 week driving camping holiday in the wilds of Scotland.........

We were just 20 years old - Geoff had been driving for a couple of years already - me not! He had this (if you remember) sit-up and beg Ford Anglia - light green. Not much boot space, but the back seats were available for our rubbish. For some reason we took a canoe strapped on the roof - don't know why - neither of us were canoeists!!

It didn't have a radio so I took along my Pye portable (about the size of a large box of chocolates and purchased at Squires of Ealing Broadway), which didn't pick up much when we were moving, but got "the Light Programme" OK when stationary, and sometimes that "cool" program hosted by Brian Matthew (cannot remember its name) around 16:00 weekdays.

One thing I do remember about the "design" of the Ford Anglia.... the wiper blades worked off available power from the engine. So when the engine was working hard (e.g. going up a steep hill or whatever) - the blades would gradually come to a complete stop.

Anyway, we set off from Greenford, and headed (would you believe??) - North - remember - no Motorways in those days. I've got the route plotted on a map and it appears we went up to Doncaster then detoured via York (I think we camped there) out to Scarborough (why?), then back to Darlington and across west to the Scottish border near Carlisle. We stopped at Gretna Green for a wander round, and pushed on to poor old Lockerbie - I can distinctly remember that darkness was falling, mist/fog was rising and we still hadn't made camp etc for the second night...

Across to Edinburgh (up the castle etc..), then over the Firth of Forth - I can remember standing on the waterside underneath the Railway bridge and steam locos going overhead. Don't know why - but I don't seem to have any piccies of this part of the trip. No road-bridge in those days........

******************** Update!! ***************** Update!! ******************

As of May 2008 - I've found a black and white piccie of the road bridge being built. Dunno if Geoff or I took it....

Anyway - couldn't drive over that..... so the long way round to Perth, Pitlochry across country to Inverness then up the coast road through Tain and Wick to.......

John o' Groats

I can remember being so impressed with the white sand. This is looking northwards towards the Orkney Islands.

and looking east.... it was .....soooooo peaceful

Couldn't waste time.... onward - a couple of miles to "the Northernmost point of the mainland" - Dunnet Head

  where I was most impressed with the light and burner at the top of the lighthouse.

A few miles west and we viewed the Dounreay Nuclear Power Station - weird looking thing miles from anywhere. And a few miles further on from there...

a disused house with great views.

That night we camped (just - anywhere) near Tongue, and shared a spot with a lone guy who was using that spot as a base and was walking most of the mountain peaks aroundabout...

that's his A30 and orange tent, ours is the more sober offering at right.

All the way round the northern coast......

Durness or thereabouts

Near Laxford or Scourie

We city boys were amazed that sheep (and other things) were free to roam everywhere, including the road!

Small harbour - fishing boats tied up - and a storm coming....

Here's the first piccie of the car - somewhere in that far north-east, probably close to the Kylestrome Ferry and then  Unapool.

This is Lochinver - where we decided to try out the canoe... we went about half a mile straight out. then came straight back, and never used it again!!

From Lochinver, down to Ullapool then Braemore, then a right turn onto the A832 West to Gairloch alongside Loch Maree to Kinlochewe and a right turn onto the A896. Just before Ardarroch there's a right turn off this A road - onto a very small track-like road - which apparently had only recently been built - what a road!! Fantastic!!.... The road to Applecross!!

it was getting dark, and we'd decided - Applecross tonight!! This was a view early on in the drive, which probably measured only 15 miles - but it was such wild country, and it was all uphill - poor old car!!. We got to Applecross, decided there was nowhere to camp - but found B & B or a small Hotel. Next morning we retraced our drive and this is what we'd come over...

Right far down in the mist is a Loch (most likely Kishorn), with a hanging valley in the foreground. There are two white specs, slightly left of centre, about one sixth of the way up from the bottom of the piccie - these are cars on their way up to Applecross!

Back onto the A896, round Loch Carron to the Kyle of Lochalsh and the ferry over to Skye - there were very BIG seagulls strutting around the ferry line of cars! To Portree, A855 to Kilmaluag then the A87 south right turn off on the A850 to Dunvegan and the castle, then the A863 and A87 back to Kyle of Lochalsh.

Stayed on the A87 to the end of Loch Cluanie then left onto the A887 to Invermoriston where we went left onto the A82 all the way along the north side of Loch Ness (didn't see Nessie) to Inverness.

I think this is "that castle" on Loch Ness

this is a passenger's view of Loch Ness!!

Inverness we saw a Canadian Girl Pipers Band marching/playing near the Castle (picture was very dark - I've lightened it quite a lot - but that just accentuated the circles and parts of the close-up lense I used to convert to digital). We stayed the night - then next day retraced our steps down Loch Ness all the way to Fort William.

Then on the A82 through Glencoe

Geoff standing beside the Anglia in Glencoe.

more unfenced "animals" - in Glen Coe

From there, to Oban, onto the A85 to Crianlarich then south down the West side of Loch Lomond, to Glasgow... where in the middle of rush hour - the poor old car broke down. I think it was something like the pulley over which the fan-belt ran - was not meshing well with whatever drove it, and after all our driving it gave way causing our water temperature to go too high - so we stopped! Searched around for a garage that "did" Fords - got one - but only in the morning - fixed by 12:00 - and we were off again.

To Carlisle and into The Lake District - the next 3 photies have chemical stains...

Geoff by the car at petrol station

Radiator boiling over as the poor old car tried to get up Hardknot Pass - it managed it!!

Wrynose Pass and then a few hundred miles - home...

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