We left the campsite in the Cairngorms National Park early and drove across the park. The weather was still atrocious but it reminded me a little of Dartmoor, lots of heather and bracken and other low-growing bushes. We stopped and I got out in the drizzle to take the below photo - other than the tree, it could have been Dartmoor!
We were aiming for a place called Carrbridge, where there was an old bridge I wanted to see. But we took our time and got there at about 10am. There was a great big parking area nearby so we left the car there, put up our hoods and went to have a look. This bridge was built in 1717 apparently to allow funeral processions to access Duthil Church when the river was in spate (which it was when we were there). I can tell you now, I would not want to cross it, never mind crossing with a coffin and when the river was gushing! It would have been terrifying, it wasn't very wide at all, one misstep and you'd be in the river! I assume it was smoothly paved (or at least a little smoother than it is currently) back in the day and that that layer has degraded over time.
We stopped off at a cafe for a cup of tea and a coffee, and funnily enough, the owner was an Aussie! Honestly, Aussies are everywhere!
From there we drove north to Inverness, where we stopped at M&S to get lunch. Inverness was also where we started the North Coast 500 route around Scotland. This route takes you a little over 500 miles around the top of the country, through some of the most beautiful parts of the coastline. There were a lot of people doing the NC500 in May/June when we were there, mostly motorhomes and motorbikes, and we were lucky that we had a relatively small car as we could go on the roads that some of the motorhomes couldn't access.
But first, lunch. We picked up food at Inverness than went looking for somewhere to eat it. Josh seems to have a knack for finding nice places for lunch, and we were soon bumping down a single-track road towards a lighthouse. After eating, we got out of the car to have a look around. It had, thankfully, stopped raining for now and so we could explore the lighthouse and surroundings for a bit.
The next place I wanted to go to was Dunrobin Castle. We got there and parked, and the castle was closing soon so there wasn't time to go have a look around. Plus the weather - oh it was atrocious. And the car park was all mud and Josh's shoes were not good enough in the mud and he was getting wet feet. We started walking around to see if we could get a good photo of the castle from the side, then decided that the ground was just too waterlogged and it wasn't worth it. So I took one quick photo and we went back to the car.
That night, we headed out for a wild camping site that we knew about for our first wild camp. Honestly I don't think we could have chosen a worse night for it - it was cold, raining, windy and everything else. We tucked the tent down next to the car to shelter it from the wind, cooked an early curry dinner to eat in the car. Then it was an early night in the tent, as we huddled in there and tried to stay warm. Thankfully, we had enough layers and bedding so it wasn't too bad, but it was one of the worst nights of camping that I have experienced (only topped off by one we experienced a couple of weeks later...).
The photo below is of the tent in our spot in the morning light of the next day.... of course it was a much nicer day that day... Where was the sunshine yesterday?!
