Norfolk Jim
Trying to retire but there's always one last job..
Lifetime VIP Member
My view on the situation on campsites in Scotland following our last 2 weeks there.................sorry for long post but it might help others!
Firstly we were shocked at how busy everywhere was even with schools back - normally on walks in the remote Highlands you hardly see anyone which is bliss. Not this time; it was more like being in the Lakes pre COVID. We normally go for 2 weeks in early May and 2 weeks late September; obviously May didn't go ahead so we decided we'd book into 3 sites and see where to go from there. All site confirmed facilities were open. We decided 2 nights each at the first 3 sites simply to cut down on daily driving.
First site - Tyndrum By The Way site - £22 /night with EHU. Having left Norwich at 5 am we arrived here about 2.30 pm quite up-beat as site appeared quiet. Set up, checked facilities and went for a walk. By 5.00pm site was absolutely heaving with walkers off West Highland Way. No respect for the sign saying 'Max 3 persons on toilets at any one time' and hardly any using the sanitiser on the wall outside. At one point I went to enter and found 9 in there so left and waited till later. Hardly a mask in sight! The next morning we and it seemed the other campervans waited till walkers disappeared and things were a little normal.............I did mention it to the staff and they said they'd tried police it but got so much abuse the only thing they could have done was shut it!
Second site was Sands Caravan and Camping site Gairloch - £20/night without EHU - forgot how long it takes to get here from Tyndrum - 6 hours! This site was already busy by the time we arrived late afternoon but there's plenty of space here if you don't need EHU. Again signs limiting number of people in toilet bocks and masks to be worn but no way of knowing how many folk in there before you enter! Generally people did respect this and you'll always get those who think it doesn't apply to them so ignore. Oddly showers never seemed busy? Either smelly folk on site or have their own on board lol! Or swim in sea. We did have a laugh watching some show off kno6 get his Porsche stuck in sand and have to get owner on his tractor to tow him out. Poor chap must have been embarrassing with around 30 folk watching
. 2 decent nights spent here.
Third booked site - Port a Bhaigh, Altandhu - £22/night without EHU. Only couple of hours to get here so did Stac Polliadh first. Arrived about 2.30 and site was pretty full but managed to find a spot away from the front. Those that know this site know the facilities are good but for those needing Wi-Fi you get it near the toilets so you know what I'm going to say................... slowly but surely every camper/motorhome on the road pulled in up until around 8 pm. The site was absolutely heaving with any tiny space taken by a tent. Vans were even being parked on the car park for the night; talk about cramming them in. What happened next left me dumb founded! We were doing some cooking outside at the rear when I heard a door slam shut and the chap next to us in a VW start shouting. Some old guy in his Hymer motorhome had got out and shut the other chaps door and was trying to manoeuvre his big white between us! We both explained the 7m fire safety rule and told him to respect this. Now the toilets - signs saying only 3 in toilets at any one time and keep distance - that's all well and good but again you have to enter and see how many are in to start with! Then it seems Wi-Fi prevails over social distancing as everyman and his dog were outside the entrance (some sitting on deck chairs) trying to get Wi-Fi signal leaving only a small gap of at time less than 1.0m to pass through. Some were even inside in the lobby!!!!! Again no policing and it seemed they wanted to get as many in the site as they could - I'd love to see their planning permission and insurance to see how many pitches they are allowed! Oddly again showers never seemed busy unless we were simply early at 7.00am?
After this we decided the coast was simply to busy so headed in land across to the east away from NC500 and ended up on nice site near the golf course in Dornoch for 2 nights - plenty of space and £20/night for no EHU. Facilities fine and never busy and had a nice tour around the Black Isle. Then off into Cairngorms to a nice site in Grantown-on-Spey for the night - posh site, not that busy and hardly saw anyone in facilities; wardens do police this site and ensure everyone is ok. Nice treat - mobile fish & chip bar goes every Tuesday.
We'd visited Edinburgh once before but only for a short time so over evening meal toyed with idea of finding site on outskirts and spending the next day in the city before traveling home. So we set off early with brief stops to look around the wonderful royal cairns on Balmoral estate and a walk round Braemar (their site was full all week). After that I simply drove stopping at Queensferry services on M90 to search sites. I use a fantastic app called Archies Campings which searches area giving details of all sites around including type, number of pitches, website, contact number and driving directions. First site I found was a Caravan & Motorhome site near Cramond (only 15 mins drive away) - spaces ok for 2 nights £56 for members or £80 non!!!! We made decision to join there and then as we'd recover this joining fee after 2 more nights on club site and after all this is in Edinburgh so expected costs to be higher. V Posh site and they used wrist band system which just about worked. Pot with sterilising solution out side in which 3 blue and 2 red bands. Non in pot not entry. Blue was toilet and basins only and red was showers as well - didn't really work but was never busy......found no red bands in pot but no-one on shower block lol. There's local bus service just up road to get into city or from 9.30 am there's minibus into city every half-hour till 12.00 and return every half hour from 4.30pm - return £6 - was excellent and all v safe.
Well that's it - basically we couldn't believe how busy the middle & north west was and nothing like we expected and they way in which people behaved relating to social distancing etc was somewhat bizarre! Note we called all sites and never simply turned up like we used to.
One last thing - we never holiday abroad and love Scotland for it's scenery, remoteness and friendly people. Never once did we see anything other than welcoming behaviour from local people. On one site in north west my wife was washing up and a rather well spoken chap with English accent started to chat to her saying his first time there and how nice it was. She simply agreed but said how busy it was. He asked where we were from so she said Norfolk and he said he now lived in Aberdeen and went on to say well of course it's the 'staycation' so everyone from the south was up there. His next comment stumped my wife - he said 'of course we'd normally be abroad on holiday now so would avoid all this'!
Firstly we were shocked at how busy everywhere was even with schools back - normally on walks in the remote Highlands you hardly see anyone which is bliss. Not this time; it was more like being in the Lakes pre COVID. We normally go for 2 weeks in early May and 2 weeks late September; obviously May didn't go ahead so we decided we'd book into 3 sites and see where to go from there. All site confirmed facilities were open. We decided 2 nights each at the first 3 sites simply to cut down on daily driving.
First site - Tyndrum By The Way site - £22 /night with EHU. Having left Norwich at 5 am we arrived here about 2.30 pm quite up-beat as site appeared quiet. Set up, checked facilities and went for a walk. By 5.00pm site was absolutely heaving with walkers off West Highland Way. No respect for the sign saying 'Max 3 persons on toilets at any one time' and hardly any using the sanitiser on the wall outside. At one point I went to enter and found 9 in there so left and waited till later. Hardly a mask in sight! The next morning we and it seemed the other campervans waited till walkers disappeared and things were a little normal.............I did mention it to the staff and they said they'd tried police it but got so much abuse the only thing they could have done was shut it!
Second site was Sands Caravan and Camping site Gairloch - £20/night without EHU - forgot how long it takes to get here from Tyndrum - 6 hours! This site was already busy by the time we arrived late afternoon but there's plenty of space here if you don't need EHU. Again signs limiting number of people in toilet bocks and masks to be worn but no way of knowing how many folk in there before you enter! Generally people did respect this and you'll always get those who think it doesn't apply to them so ignore. Oddly showers never seemed busy? Either smelly folk on site or have their own on board lol! Or swim in sea. We did have a laugh watching some show off kno6 get his Porsche stuck in sand and have to get owner on his tractor to tow him out. Poor chap must have been embarrassing with around 30 folk watching
. 2 decent nights spent here.Third booked site - Port a Bhaigh, Altandhu - £22/night without EHU. Only couple of hours to get here so did Stac Polliadh first. Arrived about 2.30 and site was pretty full but managed to find a spot away from the front. Those that know this site know the facilities are good but for those needing Wi-Fi you get it near the toilets so you know what I'm going to say................... slowly but surely every camper/motorhome on the road pulled in up until around 8 pm. The site was absolutely heaving with any tiny space taken by a tent. Vans were even being parked on the car park for the night; talk about cramming them in. What happened next left me dumb founded! We were doing some cooking outside at the rear when I heard a door slam shut and the chap next to us in a VW start shouting. Some old guy in his Hymer motorhome had got out and shut the other chaps door and was trying to manoeuvre his big white between us! We both explained the 7m fire safety rule and told him to respect this. Now the toilets - signs saying only 3 in toilets at any one time and keep distance - that's all well and good but again you have to enter and see how many are in to start with! Then it seems Wi-Fi prevails over social distancing as everyman and his dog were outside the entrance (some sitting on deck chairs) trying to get Wi-Fi signal leaving only a small gap of at time less than 1.0m to pass through. Some were even inside in the lobby!!!!! Again no policing and it seemed they wanted to get as many in the site as they could - I'd love to see their planning permission and insurance to see how many pitches they are allowed! Oddly again showers never seemed busy unless we were simply early at 7.00am?
After this we decided the coast was simply to busy so headed in land across to the east away from NC500 and ended up on nice site near the golf course in Dornoch for 2 nights - plenty of space and £20/night for no EHU. Facilities fine and never busy and had a nice tour around the Black Isle. Then off into Cairngorms to a nice site in Grantown-on-Spey for the night - posh site, not that busy and hardly saw anyone in facilities; wardens do police this site and ensure everyone is ok. Nice treat - mobile fish & chip bar goes every Tuesday.
We'd visited Edinburgh once before but only for a short time so over evening meal toyed with idea of finding site on outskirts and spending the next day in the city before traveling home. So we set off early with brief stops to look around the wonderful royal cairns on Balmoral estate and a walk round Braemar (their site was full all week). After that I simply drove stopping at Queensferry services on M90 to search sites. I use a fantastic app called Archies Campings which searches area giving details of all sites around including type, number of pitches, website, contact number and driving directions. First site I found was a Caravan & Motorhome site near Cramond (only 15 mins drive away) - spaces ok for 2 nights £56 for members or £80 non!!!! We made decision to join there and then as we'd recover this joining fee after 2 more nights on club site and after all this is in Edinburgh so expected costs to be higher. V Posh site and they used wrist band system which just about worked. Pot with sterilising solution out side in which 3 blue and 2 red bands. Non in pot not entry. Blue was toilet and basins only and red was showers as well - didn't really work but was never busy......found no red bands in pot but no-one on shower block lol. There's local bus service just up road to get into city or from 9.30 am there's minibus into city every half-hour till 12.00 and return every half hour from 4.30pm - return £6 - was excellent and all v safe.
Well that's it - basically we couldn't believe how busy the middle & north west was and nothing like we expected and they way in which people behaved relating to social distancing etc was somewhat bizarre! Note we called all sites and never simply turned up like we used to.
One last thing - we never holiday abroad and love Scotland for it's scenery, remoteness and friendly people. Never once did we see anything other than welcoming behaviour from local people. On one site in north west my wife was washing up and a rather well spoken chap with English accent started to chat to her saying his first time there and how nice it was. She simply agreed but said how busy it was. He asked where we were from so she said Norfolk and he said he now lived in Aberdeen and went on to say well of course it's the 'staycation' so everyone from the south was up there. His next comment stumped my wife - he said 'of course we'd normally be abroad on holiday now so would avoid all this'!
All taken on my Samsung S10
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