Day 16 - Sat, 08 Sep:
350 km of riding today as we made our way deeper into the north of Scotland.
We had a great night’s sleep in the “hobbit pod” at the Hoddom Castle Caravan Park. Our pod looks much cooler with motorcycles parked next to it!
A tiny home for sure. A small deck and porch.
We stayed in Pod 2...
...with keys for the pod bay door (ha-ha), a shared kitchen, and shared bathrooms.
Inside the pod are sleeping accommodations for four folks.
Hoddom Castle provides a unique backdrop to this camping experience.
It looks like much of the castle is in need of restoring. Perhaps visitors will be allowed inside in the future.
A nice bridge with a pathway underneath takes you to the golf course. Of course, there’s golf - it’s Scotland!
A few days earlier we bought some packages of Lego mini figures. We felt the packages and knew they contained the Lego brick costumes but had no idea that we got both the guy and girl until we opened them this morning! Woot!
This is one of the few places we would have liked to stay for another night, unfortunately we’ve got a schedule to keep. Moving on to Glasgow, Scotland!
Fellow Glasgow Residents is a mural at the Ingram Street Car Park created by Australia artist Sam Bates a.k.a. Smug.
The four seasons are represented in this mural. Close-up of the detail involved in painting the bee and dandelions.
Imagine this parking lot without Sam Bates’ mural. It would be just a boring dirt parking lot.
Incredible detail and photorealistic quality.
I don’t know what King Pong Ping Pong is, but I want to find out!
A vinyl sticker that caught my camera eye.
Inside the TRONGATE 103 is an exhibit...
...called the
Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre. Unfortunately, it was a late afternoon showing and this would have put us too far behind schedule. The darned schedule!
An interesting barber shop called Safe Hands with its famous skull and scissor mural.
Who is this man wearing a cone head?!
The World’s Most Economical Taxi by artist Rogue-One.
Some random graffiti by an unknown artist.
Honey... I Shrunk the Kids is another great mural by artist Smug (Sam Bates).
Rogue-One and Art Pistol created this mural titled
Wind Power.
Wind Power is in two parts. This close-up of this section is "downwind" the previous mural.
Glasgow’s Gordon Lane is home to the...
Glasgow Panda by artist Klingatron.
Buchanan Street had a lot of shopping and sculptures such as this one.
Princess Square Shopping Centre is hard to miss with its famous Art Nouveau, Peacock made from metalwork, built by Shepley Engineering in 1990,…
… and its glowing colors beckoning you to come inside for a closer look.
Princess Square Shopping Centre from the fourth floor.
Beautiful hard wood accents throughout.
All Saints clothing store with its unique design of glass walls and thousands of old sewing machines.
The equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington was created by Italian artist Carlo Marochetti and erected in 1844. Ok, why does it have a traffic cone on its head?
It is believed that climbing the statue to place a cone on the head of the duke started in the 1980s and it’s been a part of the city ever since. It’s iconic and I don’t think the city would be the same without it.
How can you turn down a sign like this for ice-cream? Even if it is a bit chilly.
Definitely one of my favorite cities of this trip.
After leaving Glasgow we were making good time until a police officer, at the side of the highway, motioned for us to pull over. Both Chantil and I pulled over along with a vintage VW travel van. It turns out the travel van was speeding - not us! The police officer motioned for us to continue along our merry way. Not sure how a gutless VW van was speeding but we’re glad it wasn’t us.
Balloch Castle and Park offered a short walk and some rest from riding the mules.
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park was nice but very foggy with misty rain.
Tarbet Isle lies on Loch Lomond. Locals refer to it as 'Honeymoon Island'. If newlyweds spend a week on the island without killing each other, it was deemed a sign that the marriage would be successful!
A map of Scotland at one of the rest areas.
North of Trossachs National Park you climb into the West Scottish Highlands.
Glencoe Mountain Resort was our first experience trying haggis. This double burger has a beef patty and a haggis patty. It wasn’t bad actually! I guess enough flavoring will make any sheep parts taste good.
I thought this flag was kinda cool looking until I researched it and realized it’s from Harry Potter? Still cool looking - just not as cool.
We’re both glad the weather lifted enough to enjoy…
… this beautiful valley pass. I’ve heard the views get even better as one continues north.
As we continued North along the A828, the evergreen trees started to return.
The Ballachulish Bridge crosses the narrows between Loch Leven and Loch Linnhe.
The second oldest operational cruise ship in the world, MV Astoria, cruises through the Loch Linnhe near Fort William.
We covered a lot of ground today. I was hoping to make it to Isle of Skye, but we would soon run out of daylight.
We found a secluded dirt lot and pitched our tent in the woods next to a beautiful view of Loch Garry.
*Image from
WillCopestakeMedia.com
Side note: In Glencoe, we first noticed hikers with netting over their heads making them look like post-apocalyptic scarecrows. “Are the bugs here really that bad?”, we wondered. The answer – A RESOUNDING YES! THEY ARE THAT BAD!! Flying insects called Highland Midges are ruthless here! So far, they haven’t been more than just super obnoxious. I hope they don’t bite because I hear they are worse than mosquitoes.
Goodnight Scotland. I’ll dream of Scottish Highlands without midges. Until tomorrow…
