Zone Three - Bonnie Scotland

After a very lovely five days camping back in Llangollen, North Wales with our sister in law, nieces and nephew we did a 250 miles trip (Willow's biggest in one day) trip from Wales to England to Scotland, followed two days later by a 70 mile trip taking in two ferries to arrive at our current host in Tarbert, Argyll on Kintyre.

In many ways we have all been holding out for the Scottish leg of our journey. It marks the end of our planned WWOOFing adventure and a change of pace as we only have three hosts booked in three months. When I was organising these hosts, nearly a year ago I left lots of time inbetween each host to ensure we had lots of flexibility incase we wanted to stay longer in places or take more time off. As it happens we are feeling ready for a break from WWOOFing, or certainly larger gaps inbetween hosts and are very keen to spend some time covering some of our other plans for this year.

A side objective of the adventure was always to spend time living with less, consuming less, spending less and trying to live closer to the land. We have fishing rods and an air rifle with us in the van, along with various foraging guides so we are hoping to make do with very basic rations stocked up each week in the van supplemented with what we can pick up along the way. Here in Scotland relaxed rules about wild camping and parking to stay along the roadside mean we will be able to ensure the van has sufficient fuel for Willow and food and water for us and head off for adventures, stopping whenever the mood - or a beautiful view takes us.

We have a long list of things we want to see; Golden eagles, seals, whales, dolphins, otters, leaping salmon, the northern lights, the Loch Ness monster!!!

We are really enjoying our current host - who I blog about in more detail once we have finished here and have already fallen in love with Scotland to the point of checking out all sorts of things with regard to maybe settling here one day. We have our final three months of our year planned out now and will be heading back in a far more southerly direction for the colder winter months of mid December, January and February, returning to an indoor location which we're looking forward to as a fitting end to our first chapter of this year, before deciding what happens next.

with family in Llangollen from L-R Ady, Dragon, Cousin J, Cousin L, SIL J, Nic, Star, Cousin M

saying goodbye at the campsite with Willow in the background. Star not being patient!

At the viewpoint

on our second ferry that day - rough, rainy, windy and so much fun!

Tarbert, Argyll

a genuine Scottish thistle