Scotland – Week Two

Week two saw the heaviest snow of our Scotland trip!

Saturday 3rd January 2026 – 0 miles

Today the snow just kept coming, we were still next to Loch Maree, awaiting the roads to be treated with the hope to head off tomorrow. 

We were quite grateful for the time to stop and enjoy the snow, living full-time on the road, moving each day, although our normal, can still become tiring sometimes.

We made the most of the log burner, playing in the snow with the dogs and began to consider and plan our next move. 

Over the years of visiting Scotland in winter I have learnt to plan routes carefully, thinking about gritter movements, checking traffic cameras for road conditions and using local Facebook groups and pages for information on the smaller roads. Highland Council have their own gritters which operate outside of the main trunk roads covered by Traffic Scotland. We don’t just rely on Google Maps for navigation, we also use Eurowag Navi, a navigation app which we can input our height, weight, length and width to prevent us from making any silly mistakes on the road. 

Sunday 4th – 66 miles

We waited to set off this morning until the gritter had been passed, the roads were still pretty covered with barely any vehicles out, so we took a slow and steady drive. 

We stopped of in Gairloch, hoping to visit the farm shop, which was unfortunately closed, so grabbed some supplies in the Co-op instead. Next stop was to get some diesel, for our main tank as well as for our heating in Laide. 

We still weren’t sure how far we would make it today, from this point there was no road cameras to check and the Facebook groups were pretty quiet. The drive however was absolutely stunning, deer grazing near the road, goats rustling in the bushes and the snow made everything so pretty (I was enjoying the views so much, I forgot to try and capture photos of the wildlife).

Our hope was to get to a park up near Fainmore near a weather station, it is only used for walkers and has some stunning views, but on arrival we couldn’t access due to where the plough had pushed all of the snow to the entrance. We pulled over across the road from Corrieshalloch Gorge to look at the map and reconsider our options (this is the stressful part, when plans don’t work). We agreed that our safest option for a good nights sleep was to head to Ullapool. 

Latheron Lane car park is a big car park which allows overnight stays, this can be really useful for ferry trips, we wouldn’t normally choose to stay in town, but with more heavy snow coming down and daylight disappearing, we had to get to a park up. 

Monday 5th – 30 miles

We had another heavy dumping of snow through the night, a local suggested it was the most snow Ullapool had seen in years. We went for an early morning walk around town to see how the roads were looking, there was a lorry stuck in the snow and plenty of shopkeepers out with shovels trying to clear paths to their shops. 

We need to make a decision, we were hoping to head north along the west coast from here, but local groups suggested the roads up there were impassable, as we drive our home around with us we didn’t like the idea of the risk. 

We came up with a new plan to head east for a few days. There is a fantastic park up with a stunning walk at Black Water Falls, it is one we have used in the past, so we got packed up, cleared the snow from the roof and set off. 

We arrived at our park up with a few hours of daylight left so took the opportunity for a good walk in the snow.

Words can’t describe how stunning our walk was, so much untouched snow! The dogs had the best time bounding through and diving in the snow. It was quite possibly the most tiring 2 mile walk we’ve ever done, trudging through thick snow can be tough.

We got back to the lorry and lit the fire, there is nothing better than warming through to a log burner in this weather. 

Tuesday 6th – 0 miles

We wanted to stay put and enjoy the snow in such a stunning place while it was here!! 

Throughout the day, between playing in the snow and getting warm again, I was keeping a close eye on road conditions to see when we could start heading north! 

Wednesday 7th – 61 miles

A bit of early morning admin, emptying our bin and clearing snow from the roof (again!).

The gritters in the yard next to the park up had been to clear the snow in the car park so it seemed an ideal time to make tracks. We set off to Ullapool again to see how the roads were looking and to do a stock up in Tesco, this would be our last proper supermarket for a while. 

With the roads looking to be well ploughed and gritted we started our journey up the north west. Again we took a slow and steady drive, enjoying the views along the way, we’d hoped to stop in a few laybys, but none were clear until we got to Quinag Viewpoint. We grabbed a glass of pop and the drone to enjoy for a short while.

We were amazed at how little traffic was around, the roads were in great condition considering, maybe it’s the norm for people to stay home in this weather up here.

We were just a few miles from Kylesku Bridge, which seemed like a sensible spot for the night. 

Thursday 8th – 9 miles

We discovered we were getting low on water and we were about ready to get some washing done, I got on to park4night and searchforsites to see if there was anything close where we could manage both. Scourie Caravan Park seemed to be the only place that we could manage to do both, so we decided we’d head there and have two nights. It’s not often we choose to stay on campsites as we are completely self sufficient, but we had to remind ourselves that we are on holiday after all and it’s ok to spoil ourselves! 

We arrived to the super friendly Vicky who welcomed us and pointed us in the direction of our pitch and showed us where we could find everything. We were pitched on a hardstanding on the campsite overlooking the sea, it was stunning. 

Friday 9th – 0 miles

Today we’ll get some washing done in the onsite launderette before heading out for a walk.

We went out to the headland for a walk and did just a couple of miles. The snow along the coast was starting to disappear but the view of the hills inland were still covered.

If you zoom in you might just find our lorry!!

We had an enjoyable day hanging out in Scourie and got plenty of jobs done while we were here.

What an awesome experience this week has been in the snow, it’s not often the UK gets to experience so much for so long! Our lack of driving throughout the week has been to protect our home, but also because we love this west coast of Scotland so much and wanted to have extra time here.

I’ll drop week 3 of our trip soon.

Kate

xx