Plockton to Newton Stewart

So today was a travel day: Plockton to Newton Stewart - 280 miles and not the fastest roads, but the scenery more than made up for it.  

We got up, packed up the last bits from our Plockton house - which was a small cottage in 'the square' of what used to be stables.  It wasn't at all luxurious, not really comfortable (all soft furnishings eg pillows etc had been taken due to covid) but it met our needs and we weren't there much anyway.  Our hosts (and next door neighbours) were friendly enough and it wasn't actually that expensive.  It certainly had character - shame the double bed was old and its mattress almost dead - Matt and I were constantly rolling into each other, we ended up turning it upside down and around to see if that would help, it did a bit but we still didn't have great nights sleep there.

Near Invergarry

Asleep in the back

Anyway, we packed up in the glorious sunshine, lovely lovely sunny day today and headed due south through the stunning Scottish landscape.  Matt drove to Invergarry, I then drove to Rannock Moor, he then drove to Ayr and then I did the last leg to Newton Stewart.  It took 7.5 hours.  We stopped for lunch at Tyndrum again - but at a different eatery - TJ's Diner which did good food although the service was awful.  We stopped for photos at various places, but generally it was just a driving day.

Tom fell asleep in the van which is quite unheard of these days - I guess all these late nights have caught up on him!

The sat nav, unfortunately brought us on unmarked roads for the last 20 miles of the trip, they were single track roads along boggy terrain - a bit like Bowland.  Luckily we didn't meet many cars coming the other way, but my they were twisty, I barely got out of 4th gear and was more than often below that!  20 miles of roads like that feels a long long way.  Anyway, we got here unscathed.  

The house is very comfortable - definitely an old person's house - lots of doilies, fussy pictures, very frilly bedroom covers.  Lovely fluffy carpet and rugs which is great on my aching feet!  It is on the riverbank (River Cree) and we have a balcony overlooking it which is nice.   We went straight out to the town in the search of food and found a co-op so bought some meatballs, pasta and sauce and came home to cook it.  Will do a bigger shop tomorrow when we are refreshed.