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  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 6

    Applecross to Gairloch

    June 1, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    We woke up early, still feeling the effects of Ben Nevis and after a quick shower and some brekkie we were back on the road again. The Applecross pensiula is absolutely spectacular and we had regular stop offs to enjoy the views and pick up some smoked trout and salmon pate from the Applecross Smokehouse (which was set up in in a chaps back garden).

    For lunch, we stopped off at the Torridon Countryside Centre for a lovely walk (the centre was shut) alongside Loch Torridon and said hello to the friendly red deer. We then had a sandwich and a cuppa back at the van before heading back on the road again towards Gairloch. Just outside Gairloch we made a quick detour off the NC500 to visit Redpoint and its gorgeous sandy beaches. The guide book boasted an 'exquisite' beach and we definitely visited the wrong one but it was still nice all the same.

    Our campsite for the evening was just outside Gairloch right on the beach. It's enormous in comparison to the sites we have stayed on so far and whilst it was tricky to find a spot (you get given a map where the electric points are and its just a free for all) we ended up a stones throw from the beach. The campsite has a cafe so feeling lazy we got a burger and some pizza for dinner.

    Campsite: Sands Caravan Park
    Number of nights: 1
    Price: £24    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 5

    Fort William to Applecross

    May 31, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We set the alarm for 8am this morning however we were a bit slow getting up. This wasn’t like the morning after Machu Picchu in your 20’s this was Ben Nevis in your 30’s and limbs were sore!! After a nice scrambled egg and salmon brekkie we were on our way to Glenfinnan viaduct for this mornings entertainment.

    The Glenfinnan viaduct is the one that’s featured in Harry Potter when you see the Hogwarts Express on its way from Platform 9 3/4 to the school of magic itself. We opted not to ride the train as it would have wiped out a whole day but instead head to the viewpoint to watch the real life Hogwarts Express pass over. We arrived in good time and found a nice spot to watch it pass by tooting his horn.

    Back on the road we had a 2 and a bit hour drive to our next destination which was Applecross. Applecross is our first stop actually on the NC500 and is one which is sometimes missed due to its single track winding roads to get here. After reading a few blogs on whether we would make it in a camper we decided to give it a crack and we were so glad we did. Apart from the odd reverse along a shear drop single track to let a car past who clearly wasn’t going to give way we witnessed some incredible views including one we stopped at to enjoy a very windy cuppa!

    After finally making it to Applecross we set up camp, showered and headed out to the Applecross Inn for a nice pub dinner. Blake opted for cod and squat lobster (serious food envy when it came out) and I went for posh fish and chips which was just chunks of battered monkfish instead of cod. We also tried some local tipples with a local Applecross IPA and Blake sampled some of Skye’s finest gins.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 4

    Ben Nevis

    May 30, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Today we tackled the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis! We got up early, had a good hearty breakfast of porridge for energy and headed off to the Ben Nevis Visitor Centre to make sure we got a parking spot as we did not have a plan B prepared. It was already pretty full when we arrived just after 8am so we definitely made the right choice getting their early. After rustling up some sandwiches, snacks and purchasing the ever important compass, we started the ascent just after 9am.

    The first half of the trek is not actually that bad. Whilst it's steep, the path is pretty good so you can just slowly make your way up. Around the half way mark however, the path gets steeper and the luscious views of greenery and lochs turn into rock. But again, totally managable and we kept plodding onwards, zig zagging our way up. As we got closer to the top, you could feel the temperature drop and we started to pass patches of snow. We weren't expecting however for the final stretch to the summit, to be trudging through thick cloud and snow a foot deep in places. During this final push, we really did debate whether it was worth pushing on to the top however when we made it to the top and the clouds lifted, we were surrounded by amazing panormaic views. After the obligatory photo at the top, we tucked into our sandwiches before making our way back down.

    Now if you thought treking up through deep snow is tough, getting back down again came with its own challenges. There were a number of techniques being adopted by fellow hikers from running to sliding down on bums. We decided to dig our heels in and hope for the best although I definitely fell over on my bum at one point whilst wondering why I didn't pack a spare pair of socks! Once we were out of the snow, it did get easier however the rock is quite slippery so you really had to take your time to avoid rolling an ankle. As we made our descent, it just kept getting warmer! We honestly couldn't have picked a better day to do it! I had visions of getting to the top, not being able to see a thing and having to find our way back down relying solely on my compass skills but instead we were met with breathtaking views for miles!

    They say the average time to climb Ben Nevis is around 4 hours up and 3 down. We got to the top in just over 3 hours and it probably took us around 3 hours to get back down. We'll take that!

    It was then back to the campsite for a much needed shower and some salmon, new potatoes and veg courtesy of our in van chef, Mr Thatcher before climbing into bed before most of the children on the campsite. We are going to sleep well tonight!

    Campsite: Ben Nevis Holiday Park
    Number of nights: 2
    Price: £30 per night    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 3

    Loch Lomond to Fort William

    May 29, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    We were staying in a little village called Luss on the edge of Loch Lomand and we read there was a nice heritage trail walk so we packed up the van and headed off to find the start. The heritage trail combines 3 shorter walks starting with the faerie trail where there were cute little faerie houses dotted around in the trees and woodland area. We then passed along a quarry trail which took us along a stream back up to the main road and finally a river path which ended at a little cafe and tat shop on the loch. It was about time for a coffee and a cake and what a cake it was. Combining my two favourites biscoff and cheesecake!!

    We jumped back in the van and headed off towards Fort William where we would be staying for two nights so we could tackle Ben Nevis. On the way to Fort William we stopped off at a very picturesque spot for lunch and a brew and a visitor centre in Glencoe where I found a cracking postcard featuring a “heilan’ coo”. Before heading to the campsite we decided to do a reccy of the Ben Nevis start point which sets off from the visitor centre. We bought ourselves a little map and asked how long it would roughly take to complete which was 4 up, 3 down.

    We finally made it to the campsite where we set up for the night with a great view of Ben Nevis himself just incase we weren’t sure what we were letting ourselves in for. We rustled up a nice big pasta and gnocchi dinner to carb load before tomorrow’s hike!    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 2

    Edinburgh to Loch Lomond

    May 28, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    After a very lovely few nights in our 4 star hotel, today we pick up our campervan which will be our home for the next 14 nights. We couldn't pick the van up until the afternoon, and not wanting to miss out on the sun that had finally made an appearance, we headed up to Calton Hill to catch some final panoramic views of Edinburgh and get up close and personal with the National Monument, which commemorates the Scottish serviceman who died in the Napoleonic Wars. We then headed back to the hotel to grab our suitcases and jumped into an uber to McRent to collect the van. It was quite a distance from the city however the chattiest uber driver kept us entertained for the entire 45 minute journey.

    After a quick tour of the van, a brand new Fiat Ducato called Cliff with only 400 miles on the clock, and the necessary paperwork signed, we headed off to Aldi to stock up on a few supplies before making our way to our first destination Loch Lomond. When arriving at Aldi however, it dawned on me that they McRent had forgotten to give us all of our bedding so we had to make a quick detour back to the depot to pick it up. A couple of hours later we were pulling into an idyllic campsite, right on the edge of Loch Lomond itself. After making ourselves at home in the van, we did what all good campers do and cracked open a beer and the monopoly cards.

    Campsite: Luss Caravan Park
    Number of nights: 1
    Price: £32    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeNorth Coast 500
    Day 1

    Edinburgh

    May 27, 2021 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Before we picked up the van we had 3 nights in Edinburgh to explore the city. We stayed at the Kimpton Hotel in Charlotte Square and whilst we didn't get a free upgrade after dropping some subtle honeymoon hints, the room was still lush. We arrived at the hotel just in time for the 'social hour' which involves zero socialising and lots of free wine - my kind of social hour! The hotel is huge and has a couple of restaurants so for dinner on the first night we ate at BABA which does amazing middle eastern small plates which were delicious along with a couple of tasty cocktails.

    For our first day in the city we joined a free walking tour, our favourite way to get to know a new place. Our tour guide Kenny was great and knew so much about the history of the city. He was a little rusty due to it being his first tour in a long time due to covid but that just added to the experience waiting for him to remember what he was going to talk about next. The tour took us along the Royal Mile, St Giles Church, Greyfriars Churchyard (or Kirkyard as the Scots like to call them) to see the famous Greyfriars Bobby's grave and Edinburgh Castle.

    After the tour we headed back to one of the streets we passed full of lots of independent shops and cafes which was apparently JK Rowling's inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books for a mooch around and in search of some lunch. We then spent the afternoon exploring Edinburgh Castle (which came with a bonus sighting of DS Arnott himself - Mother of God!)

    Our second day in Edinburgh started with a walk up to Arthur's Seat via the Royal Mile where we stopped at St Giles Church which we had passed on the walking tour the day before to have a look inside. The church had the most beautiful stained glass windows I have ever seen so it was definitely worth a stop. As we continued along Royal Mile, we also passed the Queen's residence where she stays when she is in Edinburgh, Holyrood Castle. Turns out we Will and Kate had stayed there only a couple of days earlier! At the top of Arthur's Seat we were rewarded with 360 degree views of Edinburgh which are pretty amazing.

    It was then time for lunch so we headed back to the Royal Mile in search of something to eat and stumbled across a very pink cafe called Laila with some free seats outside where we could soak up the sunshine. Alongside some very bizarre drinks worthy of such a pink cafe such as unicorn coffee (which was blue in colour and covered in sprinkles, needless to say we skipped that), they also did some delicous pittas. For the rest of the afternoon, we slowly made our way back to the hotel via the Scott Monument and a seat in Princes Street Gardens for a spot of people watching. For dinner we headed to Bodega in Leith for tacos and frozen margaritas which were amazing!    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeThailand
    Day 20

    Bangkok

    December 21, 2018 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    So travelling in first class on the train was not quite as luxurious as we would have hoped. The bed was incredibly hard and my back was very sore which may have also had something to do with my fall down the stairs (I have developed a rather beautiful bruise now). It therefore wasn't the best nights sleep so after arriving at our hotel in Bangkok before 8am and not being able to check in until 2pm we weren't in the mood for a day of hardcore sightseeing. We therefore decided to check out a new mall to which we could catch a free shuttle boat from the hotel. Now a shopping mall may not seem particularly exciting but this one was insane! The whole bottom floor was kitted out like an old Thai market with a small lake and all kinds of elaborate decor! It's also a great place to escape the Bangkok humidity creating a popular hub for locals. There was so much to see in the mall across 8 floors that we had no problem killing time until we could check in. For the last couple of nights of our holiday we treated ourselves to a fancy hotel with a jacuzzi bath in our room!

    For dinner we headed to an Italian restaurant on the river. It was a complete tourist trap but there was a good armosphere with the hustle and bustle of people. The restaurant also had an all night happy hour with 2 for 1 cocktails and a girl singing which wasn't bad so after eating we hung around for a few hours.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeThailand
    Day 19

    Day 3 - Chiang Mai

    December 20, 2018 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    It's our final day in Chiang Mai before we take the overnight train down to Bangkok. For our last day we booked ourselves into Siam Home Cooking Class. We were picked up in a tuk-tuk and taken to a local's food market just outside of the Old City where we met Nancy our cooking teacher. Here she showed us all of the traditional Thai ingredients including the fresh fish counter. The fresh fish counter was nothing like the one in Asda and instead there were numerous buckets of fish swimmimg around. You could literally pick which one you wanted and they fished it out and chopped it up in front of you!

    After the market it was back on the tuk tuk and off to the cooking school. When we arrived we were able to choose 7 dishes from a menu to create which included a soup, stir fried noodles, curry, dessert, salad, stir fry and deep fried.

    We started off with the soup, tofu coconut milk soup for me and wonton soup for Simon. Nancy showed us how to chop the ingredients and then put them together to make the soup. We then sat down to enjoy our dishes which were delcious. Turns out my tolerance to spice has significantly improved whilst we have been away. I put 2 green chillis in mine and found it quite mild!

    We were then back up to make our stir fry, tofu and cashew nut for me and sweet and sour chicken for Simon. It was at this point we both really regretted eating breakfast. I was already full and had another 5 courses to get through! They weren't small portions either.

    Before the next course we got to have a little break and a walk around the neighbouring lake to 'help digestion' as Nancy put it. After a couple of laps (it was a small lake) we started on the salad course. I went for a green mango salad and Simon made a sweetcorn salad. My salad was very sweet and not because of the mango as you may think but the lashings of palm sugar that went into it. Salt and sugar appear to be key ingredients in Thai cooking, with 1 - 2 spoonfuls going into every dish! As we were finishing up our salad we were joined by another couple (up until now we had our very own private tour).

    Next up was the deep fried and noodle course. I opted for the vegetable spring rolls and Simon for the fried wontons. Turns out Si is a complete pro at constructing the wontons and I also smashed the spring rolls! Both of which were delicious! Unfortunately I wasn't able to try any of Si's dishes as they all contained meat and fish sauce (even the salad had fish sauce).

    After popping our fried goodies on the table for later we started on the noodle dishes. I opted for the traditional pad thai and Si for Pad C-eaw. Despite loving Pad Thai, this was actually my least favourite dish. It just didnt have much flavour. Si wasn't a fan of his either (he is still traumitised from all of the stir fries he ate in South America) and it contained large noodles which were a bit slimy.

    After polishing off the noodle dishes, spring rolls and wontons we moved on to the curry course and making our own curry paste with a pestle and mortar. I quickly discovered that the most effective method of making the paste was to simply bash the crap out of it, much to Si's amusement! It was actually pretty easy and smelt delcious! I reckon its something I may even be able to do at home. For the curry course I made a Khao soi which is a traditional dish for Northern Thailand and Si made a massaman curry (one of our favourites). This was by far my favourite course but I was so unbelievably full by this point I couldn't eat much. It was quite good that we were joined by another couple as we got to see a few other dishes being made.

    We then finished off with a dessert of sticky rice with mango and banana and coconut milk. Im a big fan of sticky rice and mango which on the face of it sounds really healthy but again was full of sugar.

    We thoroughly enjoyed our cooking class and Nancy was lovely! We will have to cook up a Thai feast when we get home.

    Feeling completely and utterly full we headed back to our hotel to grab our bags before heading to the train station. We were a couple of hours early but so was our train so we were able to sit in our first class carriage instead of on the platform. We were greeted by a very grumpy lady thrusting menus in our face and asking if we wanted to order food. When we asked if we could also buy food from the food cart she snatched them out of our hand and stormed off! Rude! Fortunately we have stocked up on lots of snacks as the food is supposedly terrible and we ate a 7 course lunch!

    A lady came around 7pm to convert our cabin into sleep mode so after a couple of episodes of netflix we downloaded, we tucked in to get some sleep. We will let you know how that was tomorrow.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeThailand
    Day 18

    Doi Ithannon

    December 19, 2018 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Another day trip today, this time to explore some of Doi Inthanon National Park, the highest mountain in Thailand. It was another early start which involved a spectacular fall down the stairs in the hotel by yours truly.

    Our day started off with a 2 hour hike along the Kiw Mae Pan Trail which gave us breathtaking views of the national park. At points we were above the clouds which was pretty magical. To walk through the park, you have to pay a local guide who accompanies you on the trek. Our guide was Mr Chicken who wore the most spectualar blue glittery disco pants! Our main tour guide (not Mr Chicken) was a fountain of knowledge, telling us all about the National Park, Thailand and the local hill tribes. I can't remember his name but he was lots of fun and was happy for us to take our time taking pictures which was great! We also completely lucked out on our group. Everyone was really friendly and didn't stop chatting throughout the whole hike, including a girl who used to live down the road from us in Bedminster!

    At the end of the walk we jumped back in the minibus to the highest point in Thailand. You were unable to see any views from here so it was more of a photo op than anything else, of which our guide was very obliging. It was then off to see the King and Queen Pagoda's which were built for the King and Queen of Thailand's 60th birthdays.

    Lunch was served in a hill tribe village of the Karen people. When you think of the Karen people you think of the long necks where women wear numerous hooped necklaces which gives them their name. There are however 4 different types of Karen people and the long necks are the newest of the tribes, moving over from Burma in the last 5 years purely for the tourist trade. The village we visited was more traditional which was really nice. There was also loads of cute little piglets and baby chicks running around too!

    After lunch we checked out the Wachiratham Waterfall beforw heading back to Chiang Mai. After a long day we were pretty pooped so found a nice vegetarian restaurant for dinner before heading back to the hotel.    Read more

  • Simon and BlakeThailand
    Day 17

    Pai

    December 18, 2018 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Unfortunately we couldn’t book on to the group Pai trip as it was fully booked so we decided to go for the slightly more expensive option of hiring a driver for the day. We’re glad it worked out that way in the end though as it would have been super rushed and more limited to what we could see having joined the group tour.

    Pai is about a 3 hour drive from Chiang Mai so we had to be up and ready for 7am to be picked up by our driver Leena. The road to Pai is notoriously windy and it didn’t take long once we left the city for that to become apparent. Blake bought some motion sickness bands before we left so she got them on pretty sharpish as we started almost rally driving the corners.

    About halfway into the trip we stoped at a road side cafe which didn’t have anything that we would class as breakfasty so I went for stir fried rice with chicken and Blake went for a fried egg with steamed rice. Back on the road it was about another hour until we reached out first stop Memorial Bridge. This was another WWII bridge crossing the river Pai however was not the original wooden construction as when the Japanese left after the war they burnt the bridge down. The next stop was Love Pai, Love Strawberry. Nothing other than a strawberry farm tourist trap on the way into the town where everything was heart and strawberry shaped, although I did get a super yummy fresh shake! Next stop, Coffee in Love. Another tourist spot serving coffee with some nice views and a random house people seemed to be taking pictures of. We later found out it was a 3 bedroom villa you could actually rent out.

    Leena mentioned lunch but having recently had breakfast and an enormous shake we decided to press on and see Wat Numhoo, Yun Lai viewpoint and Mo Paeng waterfall. Wat Numhoo is a collection of temples, one surrounded by a nice pond with hundreds of huge fish. Yun Lai was a little Chinese themed look out point over Pai which for 50p served up a pot of Chinese tea. And Mo Paeng waterfall was well, another waterfall. All touristed out we decided to head to Pai village for lunch. I found a nice restaurant called Om Garden which was full of raging hippies but served yummy food. We then had a walk around the shops for half hour or so.

    Back in the car we headed to Wat Ya That Mae which is a giant white Buddha high up on the hillside looking over Pai. There were a lot of steps to climb which made for very sweaty photos at the top but again gave a great view and was a pretty awesome statue. The last stop on the way back was Pai’s version of the Grand Canyon, Pai Canyon. I was pretty over it all by then so I let blake walk around with the camera whilst I sat and took it all in. Next up was the gruelling 3 hour drive back all in one go which I managed to sleep most of like always.

    For dinner I satisfied my pizza craving with a delicious meat and slamon feast with an egg in the middle for good measure.    Read more

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