As mentioned in a previous chapter, Pete had decided to fly to Inverness and meet us there. This was mainly a financial decision as it would have been cheaper for him to just fly in directly as opposed to coming up from London to Stockport via train. Pete’s flight was due to arrive at Inverness airport at 2PM. We arrived at Inverness airport at 3PM (oops) and waited for Pete in the car park.
After a couple of minutes waiting in the cark park, with a nary a Peter in sight, Luc decided to call him. The good news was that Pete’s plane had landed and he was in Inverness. The bad news was that he was currently on a bus to city centre, as apparently that was where we had agreed to meet him (Double oops)
Pete said he was waiting for us at a Morrison’s in the city centre, so off we duly went to meet him. Thankfully, the store was quite easy to find and it even had a petrol station, meaning we could not only pick up some much needed food supplies but we could also refuel the car at the same time.
It was good to see Pete and I gave him a manly hug. His flight had apparently been a bit bumpy, but he’d made it safely and that was all that mattered. His journey had taken a luxurious 2 hours in comparison to our 7.
My first impressions of Inverness were that it was a nice city with a mixture of both modern and classical architecture. I would get a chance to have a better look at it the next day. We knew that we had to buy some shopping as the cottage was over 45 minutes out of town and in the middle of nowhere. Pete was adamant that we do a full shop but there just wasn’t room in the car for us to take that much shopping back on top of everything else already in there. We decided to get what we could now and then come back the next day to get the rest and also see more of the City.
I was relatively happy with this outcome as I fancied seeing Inverness in more detail anyway and coming back for some shopping was as good an excuse as any. We picked up some essentials while in the shop. Bread, Milk, Juice, Irn Bru etc.
Irn Bru is of course Scotland’s favourite soft drink and in fact it even outsells Coke. It’s an orangey fizzy drink that is excellent when one is trying to kick a hangover. We decided we had to get some, one because we were in Scotland and two because it’s delicious. We ventured into the fizzy drinks aisle to find that the Irn Bru was not only in plentiful supply but also took up almost a quarter of the entire aisle! The Scots love their Bru and no mistake. The last time I had seen that much orange in one place was when I went to see the 2014 Scottish Cup Final and looked over at the Dundee United supporters with all their tangerine shirts and flags.
Adam found some Scotch Meat Pies and put them in the basket. Pete was also looking at picking up some Haggis but I was reluctant to buy so much Scottish stuff in one go. I don’t know why but I’ve always been a bit embarrassed to come across as a tourist when travelling. There’s no reason to feel this way of course, I mean I AM a tourist and part of the reason for going to a new place is to do the touristy things that have made that place famous in the first place. I didn’t mind coming off a bit touristy but I didn’t want to go the whole hog. I just wasn’t ready yet.
Once we’d stocked up and refuelled the car, it was team to find the cottage. We input the postcode and the Tom Tom™ and it found the destination quickly and without complaint. Pete offered to drive but after stretching my legs and seeing that we only had 45 minutes or so to go, I decided I would finish what I’d started and drive us the rest of the way.
After 10 minutes or so our journey to the cottage met a road block, literally. A road that we needed to follow was closed, meaning that we were going to need to find a new route. I turned to a side road to the right and passed a little newsagent that will return to our narrative later on. It was at this point that the road quality started to deteriorate.
The previous roads had been narrow but had also been actual roads. While passing through the mountains on the way in to Inverness, I had noticed what could quite possibly be the most reasoned and honest road sign I had ever seen. It had stated “Frustration costs lives, please allow overtaking!”. It might as well have said “Listen you daft baw bag, this lid wants to overtake you so just let him for God’s sake before the idiot motors past you and collides with an oncoming salt truck, ay?”
The roads we were on now were even narrower than that one in the mountains, although they did at least have designated areas where you could pull in to let oncoming traffic pass. We headed left down a side road and it became patently obvious very quickly that that road was made for monstrous 4x4’s and not Toyota Yaris’s.
This is not to say that Japanese cars aren’t sturdy. I remember driving to Northampton in my old Nissan Micra and taking a wrong turn that left us driving up a hill that even a Jeep would struggle with. I’ll never forget a group of ramblers passing by and viewing is with bemused surprise as we desperately tried to stack rocks in the massive holes in the ground enough for the Micra to pass. Turning around was not an option at this point. Amazingly, I managed to get the car out of there and as we passed the ramblers on the way down they greeted our arrival back to civilisation with rapturous applause.
There was no need for such desperate measures in this instance. We pottered along as best we could until we came across a giant puddle in the road that was about 3 feet deep. Thankfully there was enough room to turn around and we made our way back to the main road. After travelling a bit further down the road, we eventually found “Diversion” signs that led us back onto our desired route. The Tom Tom was then able to pick up the rest of the journey for us, at least until the very end.
As we carried on driving down the windy bends, the road started to open up and we started seeing cottages and houses in the surrounding fields. This suggested we were starting to get to where we needed to be. We also passed the Whitebridge Hotel, which the map that Pete had printed off told us was only 5 minutes away from the cottage. On we toddled along the road and suddenly the GPS asked us to take a right turn. We promptly did, expecting to find the cottage waiting for us but instead we found a closed gate and a nearby caravan housing a tattooed Londoner.
After a quick conversation with our new southern chum, the lads came to the conclusion that we’d taken a wrong turn. Thus began a torturous half an hour or so where we tried to work out where it was we were actually supposed to go. We’d been given the vague direction of “turning right at a reddish brown sign” which is about as helpful as someone telling you that Mali is “Somewhat south of Europe”
Thankfully, after what seemed like an age, we spotted a sign that vaguely matched the description and found the cottage just as night was starting to set in. The cleaner and her husband were just leaving as we arrived. We were promptly given the keys and entered the cottage.
The cottage had two floors. The first floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms would be Pete’s while the other would be both mine and Adam’s. Downstairs to the ground floor led the kitchen/living room and the third bedroom where Luc would reside. There was a set of doors that led the way out to a spacious garden, where at the bottom Loch Knockie awaited.
The few of the Loch was absolutely staggering and well worth the price of the cottage alone. Pete quickly made his way down to the dock at the bottom of the garden to inspect the rowing boat like he was an excited child on Christmas morning. The boat itself was half full of water from the previous nights rain. We tipped the water out as best we could and then turned the boat over on land should the rain decide to fall again.
With no other option for dinner, we drove down to The Whitebridge and had our tea there. I had a delicious Venison Pie and a pint of Ale called “Nessie”, that was flavoursome with a mild kick.
We returned to the cottage and began the plan for day 2, which I will cover in the next chapter.
After a couple of minutes waiting in the cark park, with a nary a Peter in sight, Luc decided to call him. The good news was that Pete’s plane had landed and he was in Inverness. The bad news was that he was currently on a bus to city centre, as apparently that was where we had agreed to meet him (Double oops)
Pete said he was waiting for us at a Morrison’s in the city centre, so off we duly went to meet him. Thankfully, the store was quite easy to find and it even had a petrol station, meaning we could not only pick up some much needed food supplies but we could also refuel the car at the same time.
It was good to see Pete and I gave him a manly hug. His flight had apparently been a bit bumpy, but he’d made it safely and that was all that mattered. His journey had taken a luxurious 2 hours in comparison to our 7.
My first impressions of Inverness were that it was a nice city with a mixture of both modern and classical architecture. I would get a chance to have a better look at it the next day. We knew that we had to buy some shopping as the cottage was over 45 minutes out of town and in the middle of nowhere. Pete was adamant that we do a full shop but there just wasn’t room in the car for us to take that much shopping back on top of everything else already in there. We decided to get what we could now and then come back the next day to get the rest and also see more of the City.
I was relatively happy with this outcome as I fancied seeing Inverness in more detail anyway and coming back for some shopping was as good an excuse as any. We picked up some essentials while in the shop. Bread, Milk, Juice, Irn Bru etc.
Irn Bru is of course Scotland’s favourite soft drink and in fact it even outsells Coke. It’s an orangey fizzy drink that is excellent when one is trying to kick a hangover. We decided we had to get some, one because we were in Scotland and two because it’s delicious. We ventured into the fizzy drinks aisle to find that the Irn Bru was not only in plentiful supply but also took up almost a quarter of the entire aisle! The Scots love their Bru and no mistake. The last time I had seen that much orange in one place was when I went to see the 2014 Scottish Cup Final and looked over at the Dundee United supporters with all their tangerine shirts and flags.
Adam found some Scotch Meat Pies and put them in the basket. Pete was also looking at picking up some Haggis but I was reluctant to buy so much Scottish stuff in one go. I don’t know why but I’ve always been a bit embarrassed to come across as a tourist when travelling. There’s no reason to feel this way of course, I mean I AM a tourist and part of the reason for going to a new place is to do the touristy things that have made that place famous in the first place. I didn’t mind coming off a bit touristy but I didn’t want to go the whole hog. I just wasn’t ready yet.
Once we’d stocked up and refuelled the car, it was team to find the cottage. We input the postcode and the Tom Tom™ and it found the destination quickly and without complaint. Pete offered to drive but after stretching my legs and seeing that we only had 45 minutes or so to go, I decided I would finish what I’d started and drive us the rest of the way.
After 10 minutes or so our journey to the cottage met a road block, literally. A road that we needed to follow was closed, meaning that we were going to need to find a new route. I turned to a side road to the right and passed a little newsagent that will return to our narrative later on. It was at this point that the road quality started to deteriorate.
The previous roads had been narrow but had also been actual roads. While passing through the mountains on the way in to Inverness, I had noticed what could quite possibly be the most reasoned and honest road sign I had ever seen. It had stated “Frustration costs lives, please allow overtaking!”. It might as well have said “Listen you daft baw bag, this lid wants to overtake you so just let him for God’s sake before the idiot motors past you and collides with an oncoming salt truck, ay?”
The roads we were on now were even narrower than that one in the mountains, although they did at least have designated areas where you could pull in to let oncoming traffic pass. We headed left down a side road and it became patently obvious very quickly that that road was made for monstrous 4x4’s and not Toyota Yaris’s.
This is not to say that Japanese cars aren’t sturdy. I remember driving to Northampton in my old Nissan Micra and taking a wrong turn that left us driving up a hill that even a Jeep would struggle with. I’ll never forget a group of ramblers passing by and viewing is with bemused surprise as we desperately tried to stack rocks in the massive holes in the ground enough for the Micra to pass. Turning around was not an option at this point. Amazingly, I managed to get the car out of there and as we passed the ramblers on the way down they greeted our arrival back to civilisation with rapturous applause.
There was no need for such desperate measures in this instance. We pottered along as best we could until we came across a giant puddle in the road that was about 3 feet deep. Thankfully there was enough room to turn around and we made our way back to the main road. After travelling a bit further down the road, we eventually found “Diversion” signs that led us back onto our desired route. The Tom Tom was then able to pick up the rest of the journey for us, at least until the very end.
As we carried on driving down the windy bends, the road started to open up and we started seeing cottages and houses in the surrounding fields. This suggested we were starting to get to where we needed to be. We also passed the Whitebridge Hotel, which the map that Pete had printed off told us was only 5 minutes away from the cottage. On we toddled along the road and suddenly the GPS asked us to take a right turn. We promptly did, expecting to find the cottage waiting for us but instead we found a closed gate and a nearby caravan housing a tattooed Londoner.
After a quick conversation with our new southern chum, the lads came to the conclusion that we’d taken a wrong turn. Thus began a torturous half an hour or so where we tried to work out where it was we were actually supposed to go. We’d been given the vague direction of “turning right at a reddish brown sign” which is about as helpful as someone telling you that Mali is “Somewhat south of Europe”
Thankfully, after what seemed like an age, we spotted a sign that vaguely matched the description and found the cottage just as night was starting to set in. The cleaner and her husband were just leaving as we arrived. We were promptly given the keys and entered the cottage.
The cottage had two floors. The first floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms would be Pete’s while the other would be both mine and Adam’s. Downstairs to the ground floor led the kitchen/living room and the third bedroom where Luc would reside. There was a set of doors that led the way out to a spacious garden, where at the bottom Loch Knockie awaited.
The few of the Loch was absolutely staggering and well worth the price of the cottage alone. Pete quickly made his way down to the dock at the bottom of the garden to inspect the rowing boat like he was an excited child on Christmas morning. The boat itself was half full of water from the previous nights rain. We tipped the water out as best we could and then turned the boat over on land should the rain decide to fall again.
With no other option for dinner, we drove down to The Whitebridge and had our tea there. I had a delicious Venison Pie and a pint of Ale called “Nessie”, that was flavoursome with a mild kick.
We returned to the cottage and began the plan for day 2, which I will cover in the next chapter.
