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Scotland scenery road trip from and to the Midlands

Scotland scenery road trip from and to the Midlands

Old Oct 13, 2014, 6:44 pm
  #46  
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OK back in Derby now

Summarising.

10 Oct. Forgot to wake up, missed breakfast, left Birmingham at about midday. Was doing a fair lick and looked like I'd get there in 4h30, then there was a crash on the A74(M) and a rolling roadblock between Lockerbie and Moffat Sat Nav found the Hilton OK. Went out to see the Clyde Arc. Glasgow city centre is hilarious. Hotel bar full of English tourists with ugly attitudes. Staff not phased and carried on being courteous long after I would have thrown them out.

11 Oct. Forgot to wake up again. Left about 11am, Sat Nav pointed to Balloch for starters. Had two false starts, ended up going back to the Hilton to work out how to increase the volume on the voice commands. Stopped in Arrochar and Inverary, then Sat Nav sent me back towards Arrochar but kept telling me to turn right into the Loch, it added "caution, restricted access" which was a fair point given I was not in a boat. Nice man in a snood told me the right way to Oban. Got there about 6pm. Stayed at BW The Queens, not as frightening as Jenbel intimated. Got upgraded to a big room.

12 Oct. Picked up some Swiss hitchhikers, took them to Fort William, carried on to the A86, picked up the A9 stopping in Blair Atholl which was nice. Sat Nav could not find the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh, I felt like punching it, people at the side of the road bemused that I was swearing at the car. Kept sending me down the tram tracks too. Upgraded to a room with a view of the castle.

13 Oct. Had my first haggis for breakfast.Thought I'd be coming back down the A1 but random Sat Nav sent me as far as County Durham on the A68. Beautiful road and got Jedburgh as a bonus destination.

Only thing I would have changed would be I'd do the trip in reverse because all the parking spots to see Loch Lomond were on the other side of the road with some pretty hairy right turns.

Had amazing weather right up until 40 miles shy of Sheffield

Thanks once again for everyone's suggestions
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 7:07 am
  #47  
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I remember Loch Fyne when it was a hut on the side of the Loch. That was a number of years ago.
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 8:05 am
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What Sat Nav were you using?

I am planning on getting a Vodafone SIM when I arrive in London so I can use Google Maps to navigate on my Nexus 5 phone. I have already downloaded much of Scotland for offline navigation in case I am without a signal. (Just type "OK Maps" into the search bar and your phone will prompt you to pan/zoom to the area you want to save.)
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 8:08 am
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I like CityMaps2Go for offline maps - have used it in all sorts of countries now.

I don't do the actual navigation, though - not a fan of satnavs.
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 12:17 pm
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Originally Posted by tev9999
What Sat Nav were you using?

I am planning on getting a Vodafone SIM when I arrive in London so I can use Google Maps to navigate on my Nexus 5 phone. I have already downloaded much of Scotland for offline navigation in case I am without a signal. (Just type "OK Maps" into the search bar and your phone will prompt you to pan/zoom to the area you want to save.)
I am using the Sat Nav in the dashboard of the Mercedes Benz. It has it's good points. It is great at knowing traffic conditions and recalculating routes. Horrible for telling you to turn off when there is no street to turn into. Also on a motorway it says "move over to the left" without actually saying leave the motorway. "Move over to the left" is something it regularly says anyway when not leaving a road.

Not too disappointed. Saved me a lot of map reading, just caused a few frustrations.

I am roaming on Vodafone and it is awful. Best I can get in most areas with coverage is Edge or GPRS, momentarily got 3G in Edinburgh, no LTE at all and for most of the trip (including now) I have had no data coverage at all.
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 12:25 pm
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Pretty much all networks are awful north of the central belt, I'm afraid...
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Old Oct 14, 2014, 6:22 pm
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Scotland scenery road trip from and to the Midlands

I'm not expecting great data, but my research looks like Vodafone has the most slow coverage. I also have a paper map, and no appointments to worry about being on time for.
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Old Oct 15, 2014, 2:32 am
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"I'm not expecting great data" Think of it as none outside the cities.
If you are planning to use a device that needs data roaming to get maps then forget it - it just won't work outside the cities.
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Old Oct 15, 2014, 8:36 am
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Originally Posted by tev9999
What Sat Nav were you using?

I am planning on getting a Vodafone SIM when I arrive in London so I can use Google Maps to navigate on my Nexus 5 phone. I have already downloaded much of Scotland for offline navigation in case I am without a signal. (Just type "OK Maps" into the search bar and your phone will prompt you to pan/zoom to the area you want to save.)
Google Maps for Android can cache maps, but it can't provide navigation without a data connection.
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Old Oct 15, 2014, 11:38 am
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Navigation is no big deal. I'm guessing it would be pretty tough to get lost between say, Inverness and Fort William.
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Old Oct 15, 2014, 5:34 pm
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Originally Posted by tev9999
Navigation is no big deal. I'm guessing it would be pretty tough to get lost between say, Inverness and Fort William.
Yes not really needed in the areas where reception is poor. Road signs in Scotland are pretty good anyway.

I just bought a Nokia 630 which comes with a built in GPS and downloadable maps for free. No need for a connection to use it either which is a bonus. The Argentine road map works every bit as well as the popular Satnav systems.
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Old Oct 17, 2014, 10:14 am
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Originally Posted by tev9999
I'm not expecting great data, but my research looks like Vodafone has the most slow coverage. I also have a paper map, and no appointments to worry about being on time for.
In addition to roaming on vodafone, I had a second iPhone with a 3 (three.co.uk) SIM in it and that was much better, reasonable coverage in most places and a minimum of 3G, not 2 or 2.5G anywhere. It's only an iPhone 4 so I don't know if I would otherwise have got LTE
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Old Oct 17, 2014, 2:20 pm
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Have a look at their coverage map and you can see in the dark blue what 3G coverage you might have got:
http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Coverage

In rural Scotland you are wiser not to expect much ... hence all the comments from those of us that live and frequent the areas outside the Central Belt

I live with an O2 mast at the edge of the farm, but it does not push out data, so although I get an excellent phone signal for voice I get only GPRS speed data.

If you want to see how much 4G coverage there is in the whole country just click on the pink 4G bit on the left then scan around the map for a game of spot the "pink" coverage.
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Old Oct 17, 2014, 2:31 pm
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In the early days of mobiles when I was away stravaiging in the Falloch hills I had to climb a couple of hundred feet above the glen floor before I could get a signal. Always worked better at night as well I noticed just when the midges came out.....twas a bugger when no-one answered.
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Old Oct 18, 2014, 5:13 pm
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Scotland scenery road trip from and to the Midlands

I ended up with a 3 SIM since that was the first store I stumbled into (Chinatown). Data sucks around Leicester Square, but I think that is die to the billon people overloading the network.
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