From Royal Castles to Royal Navy

Life in the UniMog had fallen into a very comfortable routine. We were sleeping well in our ridiculously comfortable bed, the design of our living quarters was working perfectly and all our equipment seemed to be doing what it should – from cooking to showering to the composting toilet and the water and electrical systems. Our test run in Scotland was proving a great success.

The only element we knew we needed to work on was the whole ‘living outdoors’ thing. We rarely sat outside and had so far only cooked outside once in two months. Being able to live outdoors is a fundamental part of why we travel and we needed to get the balance back.

James kept saying that as soon as the weather was better we would be outside more, but we had had amazingly warm and sunny days for most of our time here and still we were choosing to cook, sit and spend all our evenings indoors.

I felt that the problem lay elsewhere. With the UniMog being kitted out with everything we needed, we couldn’t justify spending a fortune on campsites every night. We didn’t need their toilets or their showers, we didn’t need electrical hook-up. We would be spending anywhere from £30-£50 a night to not use anything they offered. So instead we parked up in laybys, car parks or on open land for free or used aires for around £10 a night.

But it’s hard to enjoy sitting or eating outside when you’re right next to a road or in a town centre car park, it’s just not the same. We were beginning to realise that we needed to put more thought into this – balancing an improved camping environment against our desire not to waste money.

For now, though, we were happily parked up in a car park at the gates of Balmoral and, after a good night’s sleep, were champing at the bit to go and have a look around.

We had initially been in two minds whether to come here because standard tickets only give access to the gardens and an exhibition room. To get inside the castle itself you have to pay £110 each and book up to 2 years in advance. But in the end we decided it would be fun to see the place even if just from the outside – and we were glad we did.

We walked through the entrance gate and wandered up the ‘garden path’ towards the castle itself

Pretty impressive for a summer holiday cottage!

The huge front lawn looked immaculate as we walked across it to the kitchen garden

The gates were decorated with the crests of King George and Queen Mary with a more recent addition of the crests of King Charles and Camilla.

These gardens are where food and flowers are grown for the castle and we heard on our audio guides that Charles is making changes to create a more sustainable and organic operation

Nearby we found a cottage that had been built for one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting but became a family hide-out

Behind the cottage was a hidden lake and eventually we came to the River Dee

Backtracking to the castle, the formal gardens were impressive with a sunken garden

And a maze with some very intricate mosaics

From there we went to the exhibition room where no photos were allowed but that wasn’t an issue as there was only a small display about the history of the gardens which was interesting but not photogenic

We had spent a couple of hours on our explorations so far but had only scratched the surface of this huge estate. I had heard that there was a large pyramid somewhere, built by Queen Victoria in memorial of Prince Albert, and I was keen to see it.

So we headed off into the wider estate in search of more history.

It was a long walk through the village of Balmoral and into the forests. The last mile or so was very steep and we were quite hot but finally we came across a pyramid

Our excitement was short lived as we discovered that this was actually the memorial to Princess Beatrice

A quick check on Google told us that Prince Albert’s pyramid was still some distance away.

On we trudged up steeper and steeper trails until finally we made it

Queen Victoria’s inscription was very touching

And the view across the estate was spectacular

Just as we started off on the long walk back to the Mog the heavens opened and we got drenched. James was not amused

Balmoral is in a beautiful part of Scotland. Rural but remote, full of picturesque towns and villages and clearly very affluent. The nearest village to us was Braemer and it had three interesting features – a castle of its own, a historic hotel with a whiskey bar and a chocolate shop. So after we got back to BigMog and refuelled with pizza and cheese straws, we headed straight for it.

It was indeed a gorgeous village

We parked up in a small car park

Then popped into an outdoor shop to buy new laces for my boots before going straight to the chocolate shop

The lovely owner was very friendly and helpful and allowed James to try a sample of their gin truffle before selling me my own body weight in some of the best chocolate I have tasted

It was getting late and we made an executive decision to give the whiskey bar a miss – neither of us are huge fans of the stuff and we thought we had probably done justice to one of Scotland’s biggest exports already. Plus the hotel looked rather posh and the people going in and out clearly didn’t live in a truck!

Instead we settled inside the Mog, spending a happy evening eating chocolate, drinking Outer Hebridean gin and watching movies on the laptop – about as contended as it is possible to be.

The next day we started off by visiting the old church opposite our car park which is now an exhibition hall

We then walked out of the village towards Braemer Castle passing a curious sculpture on the way

We stopped at Kirk cemetery for a quick look around

Before finally making it to the castle itself

It was closed that day but we had known that before we set off and were happy to just visit it from the outside.

We had left Braemer well before lunchtime and were heading west towards the Cairngorms. It was a good two hour drive and by the time we had made a stop for a quick roadside lunch we realised that it would be half past three before we arrived. The funicular up to the top of the mountain finished at 4:30pm so we decided to divert to Aviemore and press on to the Cairngorms the following day.

We found a retail park with a large car park in the middle of the town and amused ourselves buying some cute socks for my hyper mobile toes

Then wandered around Aviemore itself which turned out to be another pretty town although this one a bit more geared towards tourists.

The retail park was no place for an overnight stay though so we drove a little way out of town towards the mountains and found the perfect spot on the roadside with beautiful views and a very modest charge for overnight camping

When we finally made it to the funicular the next morning it was great fun

The views as we went up were spectacular

There wasn’t much to do in the visitor’s centre and the new mountain management plan meant that tourists weren’t allowed to exit the centre onto the mountain itself which seemed odd.

But there were two outdoor viewing balconies and we battled against the wind to get out onto the top one. The clouds were dense and low so we couldn’t see much and it was very, very cold

After half an hour or so, and some surprisingly tasty soup, we noticed that the clouds were starting to dissipate so went back to the balcony and were able to enjoy the breathtaking views after all

Our park-up place the night before had been so convenient that we drove back there that afternoon and left the Mog safely tucked in whilst we walked through the forest to the Green Loch – An Lochan Uaine.

It was a lovely and easy walk through the trees

And when we arrived the loch itself was indeed very green

Loch Morlich, an hour’s walk further back, however, turned out to be bleak and windswept so we didn’t hang around

Walking these forest trails had motivated James to get out on his bike so he got up early the next day, assembled his bike and set off back along the trails on two wheels

I did my usual training, had my breakfast and was just finishing my shower when he arrived back with a huge grin on his face and mud spattered all over himself, his bike and his rucksack. Aviemore and the Cairngorms were proving to be a big success!

By late morning he was cleaned up, the bike dismantled and put away and we were heading off to Blair Castle in Pitlochry

The lady at the gatehouse selling the tickets fell in love with the UniMog as soon as we pulled up. I jumped out to buy the tickets from her and was sidetracked for half an hour whilst she asked everything about it and gushed over him. James sat in the driver’s seat patiently smiling.

She also told us that a bagpipe player did a 15 minute serenade every hour on the hour and if we hurried we would catch the next show. We dutifully parked quickly and dashed to the front of the castle to wait

As he squawked out a few notes, fumbled with his pipes, squawked a bit more and fiddled about again we looked at each other in amusement. I love listening to good bagpipe music – this, sadly, was not it

Eventually he got going and things improved a little. He marched around the courtyard, played a few pieces off in the distance then marched back again

By the time he had finished and disappeared back through the main entrance door James’ face said it all – he whispered ‘free at last’ and, grabbing my hand, lead the way enthusiastically away from the scene of the crime and into the main entrance hall

It was amazing with the impressive armoury arranged around the walls

And the even more impressive collection of family portraits adorning the staircase

The whole place was sumptuous

With tapestries

Ornate ceilings

And original furniture beautifully arranged

The great hall was our last stop with its high ceilings and huge windows

By now the rain had started again so we hid in the Mog for a while whilst the worst of it passed then headed to the walled garden

This garden had been left to be taken over by nature until the middle of the 20^th Century when renovation works started. The family tried to recreate its former glory staying true, as far as they could, to its historic layout including the Chinese bridge

This statue of Hercules has been keeping watch over the gardens for two centuries

When we had finished we drove towards Pitlochry and found a lovely place for the night on the side of a quiet road with fabulous views.

Pitlochry itself is famous for being full of quaint buildings and good cafes and we intended to take full advantage of that.

Enroute we stopped in at Queens View, apparently the best view in Scotland

Queen Victoria had visited and claimed it was rather disappointing as there were too many clouds – we were rather more fortunate

When we arrived in Pitlochry it lived up to its reputation admirably

We discovered it had a big dam, one of many built in the Tummel Valley where water cascades down through a series of reservoirs and power stations and generates power multiple times as it flows.

There was a fascinating exhibition by SSE in the visitor’s centre which detailed the history of sustainable power in Scotland

We spent an hour or more absorbed in the detail before walking out to see the dam itself

It had been a bit of a hike there and back so we felt justified in claiming a table at Hetties café and gorging ourselves on chicken sandwiches, mint aero cheesecake and thick, stodgy milkshakes. It was one of the best lunches we had ever had and we waddled back to the Mog happy but with our arteries putting in a formal complaint.

The next day I instigated a new rule for myself of no more than 300 calories a day on junk food which I have stuck to (more or less!) ever since…

Continuing our tour of picturesque villages we headed for Glamis, another quiet and pretty place with another very famous castle – Glamis castle was the family home of the Queen Mother who turns out to have been Scottish, who knew?

We decided to visit the castle the following day so parked up in a wonderful church car park which welcomed motorhomes

BigMog looked very sweet in amongst the bushes – he’s definitely getting better at playing hide and seek

We spent a happy afternoon wandering around the village chatting to the locals

Our first stop was the Gin Bothy

We poked around in the exhibition rooms and looked in the shop to see what was on offer

James noticed that they did gin tastings so we sought out the manager and booked ourselves in for the following afternoon.

The lady serving in the shop was very helpful and friendly and answered almost all our questions until the very end when she looked at us sheepishly and said she didn’t know the answer as it was her first day. When we told her we would never have guessed as she was so knowledgable she beamed at us

Having succeeded in our gin mission we went across the road to the Glamis Art Gallery and got talking to the two artists who ran the place. By the time we got back to the Mog we felt very at home and almost like locals ourselves.

The driveway from the street up to Glamis Castle is 1.2 miles long. We decided to walk and as we approached we saw the castle peeking out from behind the trees

It was a magnificent view and as we got closer it only got better

We had booked onto a tour around the castle but our guide was new and didn’t have much depth of knowledge so it fell a bit flat – and no photos were allowed. But parts of the castle were very old and atmospheric with some fun ghost stories.

That afternoon was our gin tasting and we turned out to be the only guests there which was great

The lady from the shop was our tasting tutor and she admitted that we were only the second group she had done. But she was very informative and enthusiastic and the gin was amazing. We spent over an hour in the shop afterwards and tasted almost every variety they had. The pure London gin was a stand out winner and we went back to the Mog clutching a large bottle along with some cheese straws and big grins on our rather drunken faces

We had loved this part of Scotland, it had been full of beautiful villages, packed with history and yet still very green. Our next stop was to take us far away from all the peace and quiet and back into the urban jungle – we were heading to Dundee.

Dundee is the UNESCO City of Design but apart from that, as with Aberdeen, we were hazy on what to expect. The first thing we learnt about it, as we were setting our sat nav, was that it had a Low Emission Zone that prevented us from entering the centre and we had to make some quick changes to our plans.

Fortunately nothing major and we managed to successfully find a Screwfix, Lidl, Halfords and Boots on retail parks outside of the zone.

Having done all our chores we went straight to the University Botanical Gardens. They were huge and beautifully maintained

With areas dedicated to Europe, the Americas and Australasia

As well as a very interesting walled garden showing the evolution of plant life

We had been to a few botanical gardens recently and this one was far and away the best

Trying to get from the gardens to our chosen park up place was interesting. The sat nav said we were only 1.2 miles away but there was a weak bridge in the way that we were too heavy to cross. So yet again I had to do a bit of emergency re-routing on the fly and we ended up making a 7 mile detour but at least keeping Dundee and the Mog all in one piece

We had found an abandoned Riverside Pavillion with an old car park which was an ideal spot to stay for a few days whilst we explored the city. It was just over a mile from the main attractions which meant we could walk there in under half an hour whilst keeping our step count nice and healthy.

Our first stop was the V&A, dedicated to design. The building itself was a tribute to creative design and the most interesting exhibition was all about its own construction

From there it was a short walk to the HMS Unicorn, a 200 year old 46-gun Royal Navy warship

It looked odd and it wasn’t until we started reading through the exhibition inside that we realised that was because it had a protective roof over the deck

Inside the ship there were four levels. The top level had a low ceiling but we could at least walk around upright

On each level down the ceiling got lower and lower creating a powerful feeling of claustrophobia

Until the final level which required getting down on hands and knees. James explored briefly but nothing was going to persuade me to go down there

This ship had never seen front line action, it had spent most of its life as a training vessel, including training wayward boys to give them some life skills and keep them out of the poor house. It was then converted into a museum in the 1960s

It was a fascinating insight into life on board a navy ship in the 1800s as well as documenting a changing society. But the thought of living on a ship like this sent shivers down my spine.

Even the captain’s cabin was small and cramped

Although there were some recruitment adverts laid out on the table, the reading of which was eye-opening – it was good to hear that Captain Lord Cochrane wasn’t drowned but who can run 3 miles carrying a hundred weight of pewter??

As we wandered along the waterfront it was clear that Dundee is proud of its history of innovation and design and is reinventing itself as a modern and artistic city. Fountains and sculptures are appearing everywhere and much of the front is pedestrianised

There were plenty of old buildings and churches scattered around

And some of the smaller streets off the main area were very pretty and clean

However, as soon as we tried to move from the waterfront into the rest of the city to seek out some lunch we found it has not yet transformed itself into a pedestrian-friendly place. It was almost impossible to walk anywhere without having our way blocked by busy dual carriageways and traffic coming at us from all angles. I suspect it will be very different in 10 years time but for now it is not an easy place to get around.

It is, however one of the most fascinating cities we have visited. It is packed full of museums, exhibitions, art galleries and historical monuments. We spent three days there and couldn’t get enough of it.

Probably the best place was Discovery Point, an extensive museum dedicated to the Antarctic expedition ship the RRS Discovery

We arrived at the museum at around 2pm expecting to read a couple of information boards then wander around the ship itself. It closed at 5pm so we thought we had plenty of time.

The exhibition was all about Captain Scott and Ernest Shakleton’s explorations to the Antarctic as well as the RRS Discovery’s expeditions further afield. It was all absolutely fascinating

We got thrown out at closing time having barely got half way through the exhibition and getting nowhere near the ship itself! Fortunately our tickets were an annual pass so we returned the next morning, finished the museum and finally made it to the ship

The masts were an impressive sight, disappearing up into the clouds

Once inside the ship it was clear that the hundred years between the build of HMS Unicorn and this one had made a huge difference. Each deck was spacious and comfortable and the ceilings were high

We saw the sleeping quarters

As well as the back of house areas

At one point James found some bricks and thought he’d make sure he hadn’t lost his touch!

In total we calculated we had spent somewhere between 5 and 6 hours here

After our marathon visit we decided on a change of pace and went to the McManus Art Gallery

This place was also full of the creative history of Dundee throughout the ages but, I have to admit, I think we were both getting a little tired by this stage. There was, however, one room that was a little less intense – an art installation consisting of whale bones with vibrating strings attached

Something to do with a commentary on the human impact on whales but I’m no art expert so I won’t try any more explanation!

Our final stop of the day was the Howff cemetery

It was very atmospheric and slightly creepy, all overgrown with tombstones so old that the dates had entirely worn away

We got back to the Mog late and exhausted after two action-packed days.

On our final day in the city we spent a wonderful morning at the Verdant Jute Mill

We now know more about the history and manufacture of jute than we ever thought possible

The building itself was magnificent with high, vaulted ceilings and steel girders

By the middle of the afternoon we had become jute experts, collected our laundry, bought two new water bottles and a crate of beer and were ready for a rest.

Which was lucky because our next stop was going to be about as relaxing and peaceful as you can get. We were heading to the home of a couple who bought a piece of beautiful but overgrown land next to the river near Perth and are busy converting it into an eco-paradise of sustainable living. We had been introduced to them through friends and had absolutely no idea what to expect. When we arrived later that evening we realised we had found a little piece of heaven…