See what I did there? No? Well I’ve revised our trip down from the 500 to the 410, this being the distance we have actually travelled. We have, to misquote Eric Morecambe, done most of the bits but not necessarily in the right order. We gave up on the top section from Durness to Wick a distance of approximately 90 miles (management accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of this measure, it’s what my phone told me) of single track roads, hence the 410. The drive from Scourie to Durness we did sans caravan and, similarly, yesterday we drove from Brora to Wick and a bit beyond – to Reiss Sands which is a part of Sinclair Bay – and this great building on the right, first built in the 15th century, in the Land Rover. The pups liked this a lot
All quite pleasant, but here’s the catch, and it’s a big one, the roads are much better (and everybody drives much quicker), but the scenery is less better, positively dull at the top end. This by comparison with the West coast of course. This maybe a reason for doing the 500 anti-clockwise rather than the way we did it. That way the scenery gets better as you go. If relaxation is the goal of the holiday then you could argue it the other way. Get hardest part over with first. Hmm. A lesson learned, maybe, but hardly likely to be applied either way, because I doubt very much that we’ll do this again, at least not pulling a bloody caravan.
There is much (IMO) to enter in the negative column about travelling with a caravan and perhaps at the end of this trip, whenever that might be*, I might attempt to summarise them or maybe I’ll be just glad to get home to our creature comforts and put this whole thing down as a life lesson. I’m not sure. The biggest positive as far as I can see about having a caravan is leaving it behind. If that sounds a little on the negative side let me explain. You can drive to a spot you fancy, roads and campsites permitting and unhook it (with some difficulty) and drive off and visit places that might be inaccessible if you didn’t have the ‘van’ as a base. As we did on the West coast. These side trips have been the best parts of our venture. Also you don’t have to drive a large motorhome to the pub when you fancy a pint.
Among the worst bits were the two nights clinging to anything that wasn’t vibrating which actually was nothing at all. These two nights in the teeth of Storm Ali were the worst nights of our lives weather-wise and deserve a separate blog of their own. Suffice it to say we were frightened and stayed up the whole night fully dressed with the duvet clamped between our teeth in order not to scare the doggies. They didn’t seemed bothered, I suppose, for them, it was just like being in the back of the Defender on a Scottish single track road – bouncy and moving from side to side in a motion like riding one of those bucking bronco machines. They were fine provided we showed no fear, hence the duvet.
So we moved on South and West to the campsite at Brora where we are now. And here’s the paradox. It’s safe but slightly dull. It’s a Caravan Club site (some say a little regimented but the guy in charge was friendly enough even when I told him I didn’t reverse, he let me drive in an arc on the grass but did warn me sternly, in true Caravan Club style, that I would have to learn how to reverse, next time I lied through my teeth) and the very site I imagined we would avoid when I vaguely contemplated this trip. That was back in the day when it seemed like a great bucket-list type idea.
It’s neat and sheltered from the wind although not the rain. The rain comes at a stroke (flick of a switch?) in Niagaran proportions. It feels something like this – Mrs Summerhouse says I’m going for a shower. The guy upstairs says, she’s coming out, hit the hose. Rain hits caravan. Mrs SH says I’m not going out in this and sits down. The guy says turn it off lads she’s not coming out. Mrs SH seeing it’s stopped steps out the caravan. She steps out, quick turn it on lads she’s out. You can hear them laughing, she’s had a pre-shower, good one, lads. Well that’s how it seems.
It’s that old comfort zone concept. Can you recognise it when you’re either in it or out of it (mostly the latter) and should a retired person aim for one or the other? Should we be pushing at the envelope or relaxing with pipe and slippers (a metaphor again)? Last night we certainly re-entered our comfort zone in a slightly strange way by eating in Sid’s Spices, an Indian restaurant in Brora – excellent and made even more comforting when we found out the waiter (who’s helping his uncle) came from Leeds. We greeted each other like long-lost brothers, exchanged a few clichés about taking what we had left out with us for another meal, not needing to add (but I did) we were from Yorkshire and didn’t like anything to go to waste. Hardly necessary to say in Scotland one would have thought, but it felt comforting to say it.
There has been very little on this trip that has felt familiar. Even going into a pub for a pint has that slightly alien feel to it, hence the comfort zone thing which, inadvertently, seems to have become the theme of this blog, without answering the big question that goes with it, as above, should one aim to stay in or out of it? My answer is a dull one, predictable at least, and it relates to one of my favoured life values and retirement, that’s life right, that of maintaining a balance. So a bit of being out of the zone but not the whole trip. The balance on this trip for us has been too much skewed towards the discomfort zone but, so far, we’re glad we did it.
*I say ‘so far’ and here’s the next big decision, to cut the trip short, return the caravan and head for home or stick it out until Saturday. At this point, on Monday, I have no idea what we will do. It might depend on what our son-in-law has to say about the state of the grapes** in our vineyard. You’ll just have to read Friday’s blog, assuming I write one, to find out.
**Not ready yet so no excuse for cutting our trip short.