Scotland – Week Three

Week three saw us battle stormy weather and a journey south, through the Highlands.

Saturday 10th January 2026 – 15 miles

Today was a short journey north to Kinlochbervie, we stayed here back in September and enjoyed paddleboarding in Loch Clash, seeing seals and enjoying boggy walks. 

It was a little different on arrival this time, the whole aire was like a skating rink where the snow had changed to ice. The aire here has access to drinking water, electric hook up, bins and waste disposal. A short walk to the local Spar shop to pay £15 for electric or £10 for non-electric is a good deal for the facilities and location. 

We had chosen this aire due to the forecast high winds, the rocky hill provides protection (very much needed). We settled down with a leg of lamb cooking on the fire and a hot chocolate to keep us toasty. 

Sunday 11th –  15 miles

This morning we looked over the map to decide which route we would take, along with the stormy weather which was on it’s way from the west and due to batter the coast. We settled on a route we’d not done before, to head south east along the A838, our potential park up was only 15 miles down the road, so we set off to see how it looked.

We arrived at the Reay Estate to a small car park at the bottom of Loch Stack, with a river flowing next to us and stunning views all around, we parked with the hope the wind direction would be ok and set out for a walk on the estate. 

We saw the estate manager just as we started walking and politely asked if it was ok to spend the night, he was so friendly, telling us of course we could. It’s so lovely when people are welcoming. Anyway we tootled on and saw our first deer on the estate (see photo at top), and continued to see so many deer all along our walk. The estate was just stunning, we were in awe of the place! (See below).

After our walk, the weather started to gear up, so we settled in for a cosy evening.

Monday 12th – 119 miles

Ok the wind beat us on this one, at 2am we woke to the lorry doing some serious rocking, we weren’t going to get back off to sleep so the kettle went on. 

We head outside to let the dogs have a wee to find the river next to us had risen to almost level with our park up (much much higher than the the photo above from yesterday!) with snow melting and running down to the rivers there was some expected flooding so we made the hasty decision to set off from our park up in the dark.

The A838 in the dark, with a lot of water and gale force winds, makes for an interesting drive in a lorry!! We made the initial 31 mile trip to Lairg in a little over an hour, took a little pit stop to consider where we should aim for. 

We were starting to run low on dog food and other supplies, so figured we should pop to Inverness and get restocked on everything before heading to a park up. 

We checked the apps and google maps and finally decided to head to a Forestry Scotland spot over between Nairn and Elgin, these are super handy park ups, cheap to stay and sheltered in this crazy weather. 

Tuesday 13th – 37 miles

We had such a calm and quiet night in the forest, a much needed rest from the night before. Feeling refreshed we decided on an early morning walk into the Culbin Forest. The main attraction here is the tower, which we wanted to head to early before others arrived. 

Culbin Forest is great for exploring, although we found a lack of wildlife present, maybe it’s different in spring/summer. On our 5 mile walk we also discovered a rooftop of a buried house, it is said that in the 1600s a sand storm took over and buried homes, farms and a church, it was an interesting place to take a break.

After our walk, we packed up and took the beautiful drive down to Aviemore, our route took us over the tops and down via Carrbridge. We went for a little wander around the shops in Aviemore before deciding to head up Cairngorm to stay at the motorhome stopover, which during winter is completely free to stay at.

Wednesday 14th – 2 miles 

It was still snowy and beautiful up at Cairngorm and blustery too, so we decided to attempt a walk down to An Lochan Uaine (the green loch), we have walked there before from Allt Mor. With lots of snow and drifts, we were expecting a challenging walk for this one. 

We started out walking away from the motorhome parking, along to a very frozen Lochan na Beinne and onward through lots of snow and ice.

We had followed a route created by someone else on our walking app, I think it is possibly a summer route!! We had already come down quite a way, I was struggling to stay upright in the drifts and tiring fast. We reached the point where we should be taking a very steep track down next to a waterfall, with the conditions, if we got down we wouldn’t make it back up. 

We took a break, sat and had a drink and considered our options. I was already starting to struggle, but we also had to get back to the lorry (at the top). So we made the decision to take separate routes, I took the steep route down while Rich took the hill back up to the Lorry. I managed to get down to our planned destination with only a few slips along the way, An Lochan Uaine, I love this Loch, it is especially beautiful when it shines in all of it’s beautiful green glory, this time it was frozen solid!

I continued on to Glenmore after a well earned rest, I finally got some signal and called Rich to tell him where to meet me, he drove down to me and we decided we would stay down in the Hayfield Car Park for the night as the wind was due to rise again for the night and to be honest we were both shattered from our walk. It was a fire on and chill kind of evening!

Thursday 15th – 64 miles

Neither of us were keen to stick around the Cairngorm area for long, we have done it so many times and weather was due to worsen in the east. We also felt like we couldn’t make the most of our time in the west, so we made the decision to start heading back that way.

We popped into Aldi at Aviemore to stock the fridge back up before heading off and found a jet wash at Contin which was so needed with all of the snow, slush and grit we gained over the last couple of weeks!

We continued on and landed back at Black Water, we really like this spot and it has been such a handy park up for us. 

Friday 16th – 23 miles

We got up, had some brekkie and went for a less snowy walk along Black Water, such a difference from when we were last here!!

We wanted to get to our next spot, only a short 23 mile drive, so got packed up at set off straight from our walk. 

An Teallach Viewpoint is a place we used a couple of years back, and tried to stop at last week with the snow but couldn’t get in. We love the views here, such a stunning place, especially when there is still snow all around.

We made the most of the open space and cooked our roast beef out on the fire!

It’s been a real interesting weather week, with left over snow and ice and the crazy gale force winds we’ve had. Sometimes our park ups are dictated by weather, and that’s ok, our priority is always to protect our home and make sure the dogs are happy and safe. 

Thanks for reading along, week four with be with you next week. 

Kate

xx