Winter in Scotland
After 4 months of travelling around Scotland we’re finally embracing spring and our focus is firmly on the next adventure.
Reflecting on our Scottish travels, we significantly underestimated how long it would take to explore this wonderful country. We thought we could box-tick our way around and didn’t allow for distractions and new discoveries; the desire to stay longer in places and our own need to slow down our pace and start to capitalise on this newfound freedom.
We drove away from our home of 20 years on 2nd Dec 2024 and spent the first couple of weeks on The Isle of Arran. Although Arran was a place we were familiar with, we also had to get our heads around this new lifestyle and come to terms with what we had done and how life would unfold for us now. Arran is a stunning little island and the perfect place to review the enormity of our recent decision
We stayed on the Island for just under two weeks, hiking, wild swimming and exploring some of the remarkable history that is on offer. Our return to the mainland was delayed by poor weather, impacting ferry travel. Not only did this serve as a reminder of the realities of Island Life; we became acutely aware, for the first time in our life, that these sort of problems no longer presented an issue for us. It didn’t matter if we were delayed, we had no where else to be!
We continued to and still do to have these realisations, these moments where events bring home the difference that being ‘time rich’ has made to our lives.
We continued our journey through Scotland throughout the winter, Exploring the wonderful coastlines of Argyll and Bute, including the Kintyre peninsula. Wew hid from Storm Éowyn in the dramatic Glen Etive. Before heading across to the Isle of Mull.
Mull is a beautiful island with much to offer. In late January it was also very quite adding to the inner peace that we were starting to experience. We spent most of our time along the southern part of the Island. In particular, Lochbuie, was a real highlight, a wonderfully quiet settlement on the shores of a sealoch.
It was on Mull that we headed across to the far side of the Island and took a short ferry across to Iona. We spent the day walking around this charming island before heading back to Mull.
Eventually, the weather turned on us, we had been lucky considering it was winter. We parked up near Tobermory to ride out heavy rain and to consider our options.
The forecast for the next few weeks into early February looked promising, and on a whim, we decided to head to the Outer Hebrides. Neither of us had been to the Islands before and did not know what to expect. So we reached out on our Social Media channels for some tips. We where overwhelmed with the response. The possibilities seemed endless, so we booked a one way ticket to the Islands. We didnt want to put any time pressure on our travels so we opted to book ferrys as and when we needed them.
We travelled from the South to the North of the Outer Hebrides, visiting Vatersay, Barra, Eriskay, South and North Uist before crossing to Harris and Lewis. I won’t go into too much detail as I’ll cover these places more thoroughly in other posts.
Suffice it to say that we were blown away by all of these places. We spent 5 – 6 weeks exploring the islands, getting a feel for the varied landscapes, the nuances of life specific to the Hebrides.
We found incredible beaches, coastlines, history and much more. A few paragraphs here will not do justice to the Islands and as mentioned above, we’ll spend some time writing about our experiences in other posts.
Eventually, we headed off the Outer Hebrides towards Ullapool to continue our trip around Scotland. We spent time exploring the incredible scenery of Assynt and Sutherland, driving to the Northernmost point of the British mainland at Dunnet Head. We began our journey south following the east cost down into the Cairngorms before eventually closing down our 4 road trip back where we started in North Ayrshire.
Over the winter period, we travelled approximately 3200 miles, took 12 CalMac ferries around the islands and used four campsites throughout. We have a lot to share from our winter experiences and will publish much more on these pages.