Scotland – Week Six

Our last few days in Scotland didn’t go quite to plan.

Saturday 31st January 2026 – 18 miles

We woke up this morning and decided to head up the mountain into the thick cloud!

We have been on the chairlift before, but we chose to take the crazies with us so we could take them sledging with us. 

Mia sat so well, while Blue couldn’t contain his excitement heading up the mountain! We let them have some early morning fun on the sledging slope, Blue had so much fun, Mia wasn’t so keen. We decided against a walk while we were up this time due to the thick cloud, we could barely see a thing up there (hence no more photos). Instead we grabbed a hot chocolate to warm through after sledging. 

Rich refused to take Blue back on the chairlift so the boys walked down while us girls enjoyed a relaxed ride.

We got back to the lorry in time for lunch and to check the map for our next spot. 

We set off down the A82 to Bridge of Orchy, where we turned off for a drive down to the car park at Eas Urchaidh, also known as the Falls of Orchy. 

We had a lovely chilled afternoon and planned our walks for tomorrow.

Sunday 1st February – 0 miles

Such a beautiful and quiet place to spend time, a few cars coming and going to visit the falls and a couple of motorhomes. 

Rich wanted to do a mountain walk, which I wasn’t feeling up to, so him and Blue set off for a snowy capped peak while Mia and I chose to take the forestry tracks to see what we could find. 

First stop was the falls. We continued on along through the forest, surrounded by stunning views of trees and mountains (see photo at top of page). 

We were about ready for a break when we stubbled across some derelict buildings in the forest and just had to explore. 

We spent nearly an hour here just looking in awe and wonder, I’d love to know what was here all those years ago, one of the buildings had a fireplace still intact, presumably the house. It was set completely tucked into the forest with a beautiful stream running through the middle, I could imagine this would be a stunning place to live. If I ever had to settle in one place, this would be perfect!

Tough Decisions

Now for what we’ve not been talking about. Milo, our gorgeous elderly Cavalier has been slowly deteriorating throughout our trip, he is 14 and doing so well for his age. He began struggling with his back legs and has chosen to stay in bed much more than normal, this last few days has seen him getting worse and we knew we were starting to lose him. The kindest thing we could do now would be to allow him to go peacefully. 

As it is a Sunday our options were fairly limited, we spent the afternoon looking for a vet on our route and feeling sad. 

Monday 2nd – 38 miles

We rang a vets in Alexandria first thing and had a chat, they could only fit us in today if we could get there in less than an hour, we were too far away to get there, so we accepted an appointment for tomorrow at 12.30.

We needed to figure out where we could stay between here and Alexandria for tonight. Ardgarten Visitor Centre was going to be the best option for us. We decided to set off early so we could stop at the Green Welly Stop in Tyndrum to get some washing done, this then gave us the afternoon to get settled and spend some quality time with Milo.

Tuesday 3rd – 149 miles

We knew today would be just the hardest, we set of to Alexandria and found some on street  parking close to the vet. The vet gave Milo a check over and agreed that we were making the right decision for him and gave us our time with him to say goodbye.

The rest of the day was all a bit of a blur, the vets were amazing to us, they arranged Milo’s cremation so quickly and he was ready to collect by late afternoon. 

We were so touched at how beautifully he was given back to us and the kindness of the vets and the cremation company. His paw and nose prints made us cry again.

We decided to make the journey back to Cumbria, ending our trip in Scotland on a sad and quiet note. 

Thank you for following along with our winter roadtrip around Scotland, it really is just the most beautiful country to explore, and we still have so much more of it to explore even after years of trips there.

Our last days were sad and emotional, but we carry away with us the wonderful memories of Milo and all of the fabulous adventures he has had over the years. 

Kate

xx