This travelogue is about my trip to the United Kingdom in 2013 - it was a business related trip post which I decided to stay back and explore beautiful Scotland.

Best time to visit: Year round except winters (too cold and snowy for driving)
How to reach: Fly into London or Edinburgh and rent a car from the airport
What is special: The Hebrides and the lakes!
PS: All pictures, except the 1st, were taken by a Samsung S3 Smart Phone
When: August 2013

Introduction

Summers are typically the best time to visit the UK and this time around specially, the sun was out for more than a fortnight, turning the sky crystal clear for beautiful views of the countryside. Hence I decided to explore the lovely countryside of Scotland which is a part of the United Kingdom - year 2013

Day1

Heathrow to Weatherby: 320km

I got free from my work by afternoon and was driven to the Europcar Rental office outside the London airport by early evening. I had already made a pre-booking for a car and the process turned out to be easy. I was asked to choose a car from the parking area and immediately zeroed in on the Hyundai i20 as I drive (at that time) the same car in India. It was a top of the line petrol version and had less than 500 miles on the odometer! I signed all the documents, turned on my Google Maps on my phone and drove towards Stevenage to pick my friend, Mani Babbar (@firepower knows him too) whom I had known for over ten years by now.

He is settled in the UK now and would be my guide for the trip too! By late evening, we were on the motorway towards North UK. This time of the year, the country sees longer days which meant we had over three hours of day light and hence decided to drive for the night to Weatherby, just over 160 miles away.

For a first timer to the UK, it is essential you make use of a GPS device. The motorways however are well marked but make sure you don’t over speed. Speed limit on the motorways is 70mph or 112km/h and the cops will, in most cases, not stop you unless you are doing over 75mph or 120km/h. Stopping by the road side is only allowed in designated areas and fuel on the motorway is generally more expensive than inside a town. The i20, inspite of being brand new, felt calm and smooth at an indicated 75mph / 120km/h. What is interesting is that the UK version of i20 comes with a complete driver information display including fuel economy display - something that is missing on the Indian version.

Weatherby is a small town located just off the main A1 motorway and we checked into Swan Guest house on the main road. It did take us a good ten minutes before finding it but thankfully, it had its own secured parking area. We took a walk in the small town, discussing our plan for tomorrow.

Day2

Weatherby to North Uist island: 800km

With 750km to drive to North Uist (including the ferry distance), we had to leave early from this little town of Weatherby. As fuel is cheaper in small towns than on the motorway, we first decided to fill up, pick up a few snacks and continue ahead. As is the case with most European countries, one fills up the car himself, notes the pump number, goes inside the shop and pays. Simple as that!

Mani Capturing the scenic views

As we neared Scotland, the views around changed dramatically

The motorway drive is pretty interesting and boring too – you have to make sure you stick to the speed limit of 70mph and but at the same time, the drive can become generic too. However, it does kill distance quickly and that is what we wanted!

The Loch Lomond Lake

Watersports in the lake

In just over three hours, we hit Glasgow city and immediately took the outer road to bypass the town and within half an hour, got our first glimpse of the massive Loch Lomond lake. Now the word “loch” means a lake or an inland sea in Scottish language and hence all the major water bodies have the prefix “loch”. The view of the lake on the right side, alongside the road was indeed beautiful and we did stop by for the a few pictures.

Lunch on the go

Over the next couple of hours, we also came across other majors lochs and I can safely say that Scotland is the country of lakes! We also stopped and walked into the Loch Lochy, experiencing the cold and fresh water first hand. Lakes in this part of the world are very clear and the whole area is clean with not a single piece of trash or waste seen around.

The North part of Scotland has amazing views

A small town enroute Isle of Skye

After driving past other lakes like Loch Garry, Loch Loyne, Loch Cluanie, Loch Dutch and Loch Aish, we finally took the massive Isle of Skye bridge into our first major island. Isle of Skye is a pretty big inhabited island and we drove right to its ferry terminal at Uig for our ferry journey to Hebrides – North Uist.

A lake we walked down to

We decided to walk down into one of the lakes

Beautiful roads of main-land Scotland with scenic views around

Portree, Isle of Skye

We had reached well on time and parked in the queue of vehicles waiting for the ferry to arrive. This form of transportation is pretty common here as the number of islands is many and people often use ferries to go from one island to another. The ferry mind you is huge and it’s common for long truck-trailers to use these as well. By late evening, we were driving into our ferry for the journey ahead. This was my first real experience like this and the pristine beauty of the islands around as we continued deep into the Atlantic sea was simply breathtaking. Inspite of being summers, the air was chilly and the right side of the sky wore a magical look due to the sun-set. Even by 10pm, we had day light in the sky as we were moving West. I spent most of the time sitting on the upper desk enjoying the cold breeze.

The Uig to Uist (Lochmaddy) ferry

The ferry finally entered the terminal at North Uist at a place called Lochmaddy at midnight and we drove out into the isolated and dark island to find ourselves a room! Thankfully, youth hostels are famous here and we drove into a quite parking area, walking into the hostel whose door was unlocked – safety is not an issue in Scotland I guess and we slept cozily in one of the rooms here. The moon was out in all its glory and helped lit up the room on the inside. Day 2 had been brilliant for us – covered 750km, experienced the lakes, drove across the bridge into an island and finally took a ferry ride to the Eastern most islands of Scotland!

Day 3 was more beautiful than I had ever imagined - stay tuned :)

PS: Did you see my motorcycle trip to the Alps yet?