A Reunion Before Returning to England – Ben Nevis to Kendal

Zagan the motorhome is back in England after his whirlwind tour of Scotland, and has gone a bit overboard on Englishness, parking for the night overlooking the wicket at Kendal Cricket Club (N54.33285, W2.73964).  

We woke in the car park by Ben Nevis to a sound we hadn’t heard in a long time, ice being scraped off a windscreen. A young couple had also stayed the night in the car park in their panel van, I thought they must have better insulation that us if their windscreen had frozen, Jay pointed out they probably didn’t have any heating. Checking our thermometer it got down to around -3.5°C in the night and was still well below freezing at 9am – brrr! As they geared up with backpacks, ropes and helmets to no doubt climb Ben Nevis, I nipped headed for a lovely hot shower – you can’t beat a motorhome if, like me, you enjoy your home comforts.

Driving away from the car park, we turned onto a side road where a set of traffic lights controlled the flow of vehicles over a single track bridge. After a couple of minutes the lights hadn’t changed to green for us, so we assumed we hadn’t triggered the sensor, so we backed up a bit and rolled forward again, but it stayed red. We tried again until we spotted a pedestrian crossing button on the traffic light – there was no crossing, so I climbed out and pressed the button, the light went green, we cheered, then it went red again. There wasn’t enough time for me to get back into Zagan and us to get rolling, so this time I left Zagan’s door open and step up, pressed the button from arms length and legged it. We made it this time, just, but it had taken us about 5 mins to work it out!

It was at this point that we realised that my side window was frozen shut. Condensation from the window had gathered in the well at the bottom and frozen overnight blocking the channel that the window slides across into. For the first few miles as we drove past the scenery of Fort William and Loch Linnhe, I was too busy trying to dig the ice out with a pencil so I could take some photos. Sadly, the pencil snapped and fearing I might damage part of the van, I had to wait for it to warm up before I could start snapping out of the window.

The Glen Coe pass and beyond did not disappoint. A beautiful mixture of autumn colours and a hard frost made every angle look like something from a calendar. Lay-bys were filled with cars, their drivers lugging tripods and cameras along the roadside to capture the perfect picture. Unable to stop, I took loads of photos as we drove and whittled them down to just these few below to give you a flavour of what we saw.

All too soon, we were dropping back down from the frost covered winter wonderland and picking up the road towards Loch Lomond, the snow covered Trossachs guiding us south.

The road down the top half of Loch Lomond was tight. Squeaky bum tight in places. Fortunately they were mainly quiet, apart from when we met a logging truck on a bend. With a rock face on one edge of the road and a stone wall on the other, brakes were applied and we both came to a halt before creeping past each other, the truck then had to reverse back to make it around the bend as he’d gone so close to the rock face. After that we decided we needed a rest, so we stopped at a parking area on the edge of the Loch.

After a spot of lunch, a look at the loch and a chat about the permit scheme with one of the park wardens who was gritting the car park, it was time to set off again. At the end of Loch Lomond the road became a dual carriageway and we cheered. Then it turned to motorway, more cheers. The single track roads were OK, the narrow roads tiring and both were slow going. Now we could eat up the miles and make some progress towards home. I don’t know about you, but once you’re on the way home, I just want to get there. This can be a problem when we’re on a long term trip and the turnaround point is several months away from home!

We’d arranged a reunion with fellow motorhomer and early retirees Alex and Kathryn who live in Motherwell. We first met them at the aire in San Sebastian almost exactly 4 years ago, joined them for a few drinks in Pamplona and crossed paths in France in April last year. We dropped them a line to see if they would be about for a brew as we were passing and before we know it, we’re in a free parking place by Bothwell castle for the night and joining them for dinner.

It was great to catch up with them as we are kindred spirits, and it’s always nice to know we aren’t the only ones feeling a certain way about life both on and off the road. After dinner Alex acted as tour guide and took us to the real landmark for the area – the Tunnocks Bakery.

Another frost was predicted overnight, so as we tucked ourselves in we joked that at least it would be too cold for any Neds to want to park up and play their music loudly. How wrong we were. We had one lot playing tunes for a while, some more arrived after 11pm and beeped tunes on their car horns to each other. Just as we were falling asleep a car started up near us and someone thumped on the side of Zagan, before the car sped off. The music and car horns were fine, these things didn’t involve us, but when someone bangs on your van they are acknowledging you are there, a bit like when an actor in a movie turns and speaks to the camera. Parked alone, it unsettled us. There was a time that we wouldn’t have been too bothered us too much, in fact we’ve had late night banging on the door before in Italy, but this time it didn’t feel right. A restless night followed as several cars drove into the car park, parked up nearby, and hung around. We could guess what most of them were up to, but one of them must have opened and closed the car doors about 20 times – we have no idea what was going on there.

This morning we welcomed the sound of the dog walkers returning, excited barks brightened our tired eyes as we watched all shapes and size of pooch legging it around in the nearby frosty grass. We were pleased to leave, which is quite sad, as it was just the action of one person who made us feel unwelcome. After all the talk of Tunnock’s the night before, we made a point of stopping off at a Tesco to stock up on some of their treats. The tea cake, snowball and caramel wafer are all seen in our local shops, but Kathryn mentioned a Caramel Log, something we’d never heard of, so a pack was bought to try, and of course they are delicious.

The fast, wide M74 motorway carried us out of Scotland, turning into the M6 at the border. An hour or so of vast open moorlands and we turned off for Kendal. Parking up in the cricket club we really just wanted to sleep, but as rain was forecast for the afternoon, we wrapped up and headed out for a look around.

It turns out this weekend is the Kendal Mountain Festival. Banners adorned the town hall and several venues have talks, films and music, there’s even a 10k trail run on Saturday. Sadly we need to make tracks back home tomorrow, so we’ll miss all the fun, but we picked up a brochure and might pop up here next year if we’re about.

There’s another cold night forecast, but we’re snug and warm in the van. There are a couple of other campers in the cricket club car park, and we’ve seen several folks turn up to the club house – possibly to watch the football tonight. It looks like we’re in for a nice quiet night to catch up on our beauty sleep.

Ju x