One of my father in laws better ideas was a family touring holiday of Scotland. He wanted to go up the west coast to the Isle of Skye across to Inverness and down via Edinburgh for the festival and the tattoo. The main trouble to this was he did not have a driving licence for a car only a motor bike. That’s where I fitted in, I could hire a camper van, we could go as a family and we would split all the costs. We did some enquiring about for a mini bus or a camper van and came up with a company the rented Volkswagen camper vans in Ormskirk. You know the ones, they have a concertina roof made of canvas and a side sliding door. The engine is mounted in the back and it sounds like a sewing machine when it is running. Yes we hired it and made plans for the route. We booked bed and breakfasts all the way round, Ken even planned which garages we would fill up at to make sure that we would not run out of fuel at any time. On this trip would be Heather and I, Ken and Lou my in laws and the Heather’s younger brother Kenneth and youngest sister Morag.
I collected the camper on the Friday night and went back to Kens house to load it up. There was boxes food, boxes of cooking utensils that had been for camping and six suit cases. We weren’t leaving until Saturday morning but it all had to be packed the night before my father in law insisted. I said I needed the van empty really to check the tyre pressures before we set off but Ken said it would be all right. I insisted that we empty the van as I wanted to make sure that it was safe for us all, he stormed off and went to the pub. I unloaded the van and went off to the garage. I checked the oil and tyre pressures including the spare, no need to check the water as it was an air cooled engine, two of the tyres on the van were quite soft so I pumped them up. I filled up with petrol and got a receipt which was what I had been told to do. I then got back and loaded the van up again, Ken was still not back so we all went for a pint before settling down for a good nights sleep. Ken had cooled off and was the jovial man who was going off on his holidays tomorrow.
Saturday morning arrived and we all piled into the campervan and set off to the M6. It was a bit of a climb up Parbold hill to get to the M6 at Standish so we went up to Preston and got on at junction 32. This made it a lot easier for the van. We cruised up at a steady sixty miles an hour, past the lake district turn off and over the top of Shap. The road then was down hill most of the way to Carlisle, Ken said we can stop at the services in Tebay and have some breakfast. This we did and it was nice to stretch our legs. We weren’t going to fill up on the motorway because the petrol was always dearer. After thirty minutes we set off again north towards the Scottish border. The scenery was fantastic and we saw lots and lots of lambs in the fields as we got nearer to Carlisle.
The next planned stop was Gretna Green for lunch and to fill up with petrol. This we did and had a look round the village where the old smithy is. The next leg of the journey was up to Prestwick where we were booked in for the first nights bed and breakfast. The hotel was quite close to the airport and we could see all the planes going off to America from the front window. Heather and I went off in the van after dropping everyone else off at the hotel. She wanted to visit her best friend from her childhood when her dad had been based at Troon barracks just down the road. Liz and her husband Robert lived in Stevenston, a little town on the coast of Aryshire. She had come up to see them while we had been courting but this would be my first time of meeting them. It was the start of a lifelong friend ship for us all. Robert was a tall dark haired man who spoke with a broad Glaswegian accent and at times I found it hard to follow his speech. Liz was a small lady with a strong will and a loving nature she knew how to look after herself and could swear like a trooper if she wanted. They were really suited to each other. After spending a couple of hours with Liz and Robert we went back to the hotel for a good meal and a couple of pints before bed.
Sunday morning and we had breakfast, settled the bill and set off north, we went around the outskirts of Glasgow and headed towards Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. I was amazed with the beauty of the scenery as we travelled the winding roads. We stopped in Aberfoyle for a comfort break and had a look around the village. As it was Sunday not a lot was open even though it was a tourist area. We drove on up to Loch Katrine and went on to Callander where “Dr Finlay’s Casebook was filmed. Lunch was cooked on the butane gas stove in the camper, we were parked on the main car park in the middle of Callander. The plan was to get to the Bridge of Lochay Hotel at Killin for the next night. It was fun driving with six of us in the camper and all the twisty roads. We could not even do twenty miles an hour at times. From Callander the drive up to Lochearnhead and on to Killin has some spectacular scenery with views up the mountains and down into the lochs. When we got to The Bridge of Lochay our rooms overlooked the river and the falls, it really was a pleasant hotel and the food was fantastic. Tomorrows journey was going to be really fantastic over Glen Coe and on the road to the isles to Mallaig.
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