jatink129

Just a few queries I made earlier, that I'd still like answered (Please.)

1. We're arriving at 8:30am on a Saturday (the 21st) so I'm not especially worried about traffic then (should I be?). By the time we eat and get out of the airport, it'll easily be about 9:30-10:00am.

On the way back, we're actually done by about 4:30pm at the Glennfiddich distillery. The flight is at 8:30pm. So we've given ourselves about 2 hours to get there and about 60 minutes to check in. (The trip itself is about an hour, via Google maps).
Is that good enough?

2. So I've cut out Stirling, Balloch and Loch Lomond
How much am I be missing out on?
Any other suggestions or tweaks that I should make?[/QUOTE]

3. Jenbel could you elaborate on this statement? "Much as I love Loch Tay, I'd have to question going there. It's not a great road, and while the area is beautiful it might be better to push on and spend more time not driving at one of your other places."

I have cut out the other three and decided to choose this over Lomond. Bad move?

4. Could you all please take a look at this thread? Need some suggestions for photographic locations and trying to figure out where a couple of shots were taken from.

Thank you.

jatink129

Well unfortunately, since we're going on to the Glenfidditch distillery, it would be a huge waste driving backwards to get onto the A9.

Jenbel

No, I love Loch Tay and that area. I just thought with everything else you were doing, trying to find some way to reduce the amount of travel would be good.

ABZ is a fairly small airport, which can get busy, but 60 mins should be ample to check in - I think it took me 10 mins last time to get from check in to departure lounge! In my head, the drive takes longer, but I think I did Huntly - Aberdeen airport in an hour last time I was up around there - it was at the end of a very long week of a lot of driving. Traffic should be ok on a Saturday morning.

I think your photo of Loch Tay could be from the western end, someplace along the north shore (possibly around Killin or the chalets). I can't imagine why else you can't see any big mountains in the photo! If it was at the eastern end, I think you'd see Cranogs (or remains of Cranogs - bronze age fortified houses built on lochs - there is a cranog centre on Loch Tay explaining more - but there are a fair few remains along the eastern end)

HIDDY

Must admit like Loch Ness I'm not a great admirer of Loch Tay either however there are far worse places to drive through.

Missing out on Loch Lomond and Balloch is no big deal. Loch Lomond is beautiful but best experienced on foot from the east shore especially the northern part which doesn't have the road on it.

jatink129

Well, problem solved. This itinerary is much more relaxed with lesser driving.
What do you think?

I'm not as worried about leaving the airport on Saturday morning as much as I'm worried about getting TO it on Monday evening. Which is why I've left us a wider cushion in case something goes wrong.

Ever see a few people when at the airport, that are rushing towards their gate? And you wonder why can't people get to the airport on time?
Well, that's us.
Trying to remedy that this time around.

I'll keep that in mind. What about the other ones?

Jenbel

It's the standard picture of Dunotter - haven't been there, but it looks like it's taken from the cliff above the castle.

And no idea for Eilean Donan, I can't recall ever being there.

I think the route looks more sensible now it's cut down. It's still a lot of driving - but staying clear of the central belt does make it a bit less hectic. But as someone who has to drive all over Scotland for their job, I know how tired I am at the end of one day on an itinerary like this, never mind 3 days! But days 1 and 3 probably have the easiest driving.

jatink129

Thanks. Hope these places are accessible by car.

It's down to about 3-4 hours of driving a day. Still a lot, but better than before. Also now we're not rushing from one place to another, so we can drive more leisurely, stop whenever we want to.

Speaking of which...Do these roads have a shoulder in case we want to stop?

And are there any driving traps that we should be aware of? I remember, the last time when I was there, we were driving in Oxford, and we (apparently) entered the bus lane for a second. But it was enough. Got a ticket.

Anything like that, we should be aware of? And how well does the GPS (sat nav?) work out there?

jatink129

Also looking for recommendations to good pubs to try out along the way. Don't want to drive too much out of the way though.

Jenbel

Speed cameras. Lots of speed cameras on the A90 and the A96 in particular. Grey boxes at the side of the road, with a yellow flashed back, and white distance markings on the road.

No, many of these roads are fairly narrow, and don't have a shoulder (very rarely a feature of UK roads anyway). There may be laybys and field entrances you can pull into, but you'll have to get creative. The road along the side of Loch Ness has frequent lay bys and pull ins. Any single track road with passing places obviously has lots of passing places, but the convention there is to park in such a way as to use as little of them as possible - they are not parking bays, but passing places to allow cars meeting in opposite directions to get by each other (single track is as it says - the width of one vehicle with passing places for one car to sit in while the vehicle going in the opposite direction goes by. They are a bit of an art to drive - I don't see much along your route, but give way to anything bigger, or anything which has a reverse uphill to get back to the last space or whoever is furthest from the space if you have overshot).

Sat navs usually fine - there are so few roads they are a bit pointless but will be helpful for around Aberdeen.

Be aware drink driving is much more frowned on in the UK than in the US and the limit is lower. No 'must go to' pubs along that route, but I'm not the biggest pub visitor anyway. If you make it to Pitlochry, the Moulin Inn in Moulin - about 2 miles outside and close to Edradour distillery is a microbrewery that also does good food.

NSFU

... but no fixed speed cameras in the Highland region, yet, though I guess that might change with the single police force. Mobile camera locations are published weekly, if you care to check, at http://www.nscp.co.uk/news

Gardyloo

I'm certainly no one to talk, since I did the following drive in around 50 hours (two overnights in Inverness) last month: http://goo.gl/maps/lfk7I

I had some places I wanted to re-visit after many years and had very little time, so carpe diem and all that. Here's a trip report I filed on Fodors. I didn't take any pictures of LH or UA business class seats or meals (delicious feasts all ) so inappropriate for filing on FT.

Some comments on comments in this thread. First, the most I paid for petrol was (I think) around £1.45/l (in Lairg) - cheaper in the west.

Second, the roadwork on the Kessock Bridge (A9 out of Inverness to the north) is a giant PITA. Traffic backed up for miles.

If part of the OP's mission is to see distilleries, believe me, there's no shortage. I was stunned by the sheer number of signposts pointing to distilleries - from East Lothian up to the Olympus of Whisky, the Glenmorangie distillery on the Dornoch Firth. (Children welcome. Uh...) So there's absolutely NO need to travel great distances to injure brain cells.

As to the pictures, I think the Eilean Donan shot is from the car park. The Dunnottar picture is the standard one, so must be convenient to the car park there too. The Loch Tay image is anybody's guess - it's a very big loch.

As to the OP's route, well, maybe I'm biased by my own recent temporary insanity, but it looks very trafficky to me. If it were me I'd head north, using some other road than the A96 if possible - maybe out to Plockton (near the Skye Bridge - Hamish MacDuff's beat) then back via the northwest coast. Plenty of landscape variety, good photo ops, not terribly hard driving. But just my HO.

HIDDY

Yes we got caught up in that as well in May...however nowhere near as bad as you seem to have got it. We left Inverness around mid afternoon so it might be best to avoid peak traffic times.

Getting petrol isn't a problem the most we paid was £1.39 on Skye. I agree about getting off the beaten track. Try and stay off the main trunk roads and explore a bit more. The B roads are usually avoided by lorries and the tour buses. My wife loved the smaller roads and found the driving a lot more relaxing.

jatink129

So I'm confused.
What's a fixed speed camera?

Oh and...if there aren't any shoulders, how does one stop the car if one decided to stop for a breather or take a photograph?

And we don't drink and drive.

jatink129

Phenomenal photographs over at Fodors.
Which reminds me...I sent you a PM when you posted those photos in that other thread. Did you ever get it?

Thankfully we're not going to be on A9, so phew!
How bad are the traffic jams otherwise on the other roads? Over the weekend? I'd imagine that by mid-September, the tourists would have lessened in number...

Unfortunately, the roads are not of my choosing. We're already driving a lot and these seem to be the most direct routes and it's important to get to each destination around a specific time.
We want to catch the sunset on Loch Tay and Eilean Donan and then spend the night there. And this route seems to be the only way to do that.

P.S- Replied in that other thread as well.

Jenbel

It's a grey or grey and yellow box, on a pole, at the side of the road which contains a camera which takes photos of anyone doing over the speed limit. Particularly common around road junctions which are known to be accident black spots on the A90 and A96.
They're fixed because they stay in the same spot for months or years on end.

You find a lay-by (White P on a blue background) or any other spot on the road which lets you pull off safely - field entrances, drive or forest entrances etc. On smaller roads there may be unofficial lay-bys - no blue P but it's obviously big enough to get a car or van off onto - usually non-tarmacked but dirt/gravel. Some places you can use the grass verges, but watch for ditches. However, you may need to park and then walk back to the point you wanted to stop at if there is nothing suitable near by.

Cool. No worries there then. Not all your compatriots feel the same though, so we have to give the warning.

One variant you may want to consider of your route. Instead of turning right onto the A9, and then turning left at Ballinluig onto the A827, go over the A9 onto the A822 (signed towards Crieff). A few miles down the road, you'll see a sign for Rumbling Bridge - which is a fab old bridge over a waterfall on the Braan. Not easy to photograph, but there is a car park just above the bridge and you can walk down onto the bridge to try and photograph the falls. Then go back onto the A822 and carry on towards Aberfeldy - this is more of a hill road than the A822 which goes up through the valley, and the view across the Tay valley as you come down into Aberfeldy is lovely. Downside is you miss Grandtully - another set of rapids on the Tay, but more importantly, a very good spot for buying chocolates with a great coffee shop with lovely home baking. The difference between the two routes is probably 20 -30 minutes - you'll want to stop more on the Freuchie road.

The pub/hotel in Fortingall - just outside Aberfeldy is really rather nice. The yew tree in the churchyard is said to be over 2000 years old - it claims to be one of the oldest living things in Europe, and there's a rumour/myth that Pontius Pilate came from Fortingall - in which case he might have played around it as a boy. Yews had a lot of mystical properties and are often associated with old churchyards in the UK. (In the same way, you'll often see Rowan/Mountain Ash planted around old buildings in the Scottish Highlands. Rowans were great protection from Scottish fairies - which were not nice, benevolent creatures, and so you planted one near your house to gain protection from it).