Driving Roads - Scotland

[rosso321]

1379.5 KMS of Ted-seeking, Moll-gapping, cake-eating silliness..

Portavogie to Killarney, Killarney to Galway, Galway to Dublin and Dublin back to the Vogue. We were tempted to do a run to Portrush as a starting point but never bothered.

Over Overs few days I take it some driving.

 

[toyotagt]

what car would you use jay?? id love to go some where like that in the GT...

 

[Jay]

I usually play the role of support car to my mate in his M3 which is good fun.

Hoping to get the 5E roadworthy again but it looks like MOT might be an issue, she's a bit rusty lol.

Failing that the auto will be my fallback position. She soaks up the miles.

 

[toyotagt]

how do u find the auto as a dialy, and on motorway on petrol? id like an auto for tippin around... does it be revving very high at say 100km?

 

[Jay]

Auto is great for cruising, the blast around Ireland was great fun last year, kept up happily with the one series BMW and the Range Rover over all sorts of roads.

MPG is a little worse than the manual, expect 330kms to the tank or thereabouts. Easiest thing to drive too.

 

[toyotagt]

if u expect 330km from auto, what would u expect from a manual?

id love a road trip in mine, to france of spain for 2 or 3 weeks be nice.. haha...

 

[Jay]

Well the 5e was giving me 450 clicks..

Once you hit the continent you suddenly realise the possibilities - just look at the map, so much to see and do. I don't think I'd come back for months!

 

[Jay]

Just revisiting this as we were planning the route last night:

Day 1 : Troon>Applecross (240miles)
Day 2: Applecross>Wick (160 miles)
Day 3: Wick>Inverness (relaxing 100 miles)
Day 4: Inverness>Edinburgh (160 miles)
Day 5: Edinburgh>Cairnryan (125 mile run for the boat)

Does that sound do-able to our Scottish brethren?

 

[turboloon]

yeah that is doabale but seriously ye need to get on the roads beside breamar/royal deeside,these are always highly recomnded in the bikers magazines..and the scenary is ace

 

[Jay]

Aye, I can't help but notice we are missing the east coast in favour of some Nessie spotting lol :

Will see how things pan out, if the weather is bad we might not make it that far north and change the plans accordingly.

 

[WallaceGlanza]

The A9 down from inverness to perth is crap - it would be ok if it wasn't so busy or if you're making a late night/early morning run and only have a few things to overtake in one go! But at normal times you'll be stuck behind lorrys and buses for ages (Admittedly I have pulled off my most impressive overtake ever there but you need to know where to do it, plus there are a lot of accidents on the A9 and hence unmarked 5-0, they even use to patrol in impreza's and goad the unsuspecting into races!) Anyway...

The old military road would be a good fun detour option - it's just been featured in evo magazine where they consider it to be the best continuous stretch of drivers road in the UK, so high praise indeed. You can start on that road from Inverness and avoid the A9 almost entirely - head across to Nairn then down or cut off the A9 through Carrbridge then onto Grantown on spey, head all the way down to Blairgowrie (via two ski "resorts") then head onto Perth from there.

 

[Jay]

Great info, I daresay I'll be coming back to this thread from the roadside for reference lol.

The Scottish police usually only stop the tail car (we've had a few encounters before) so I'll just have to work out how I'm outrunning the mate's M3..

 

[SupaStu]

I would miss the A9 road, accident central, from personal experience... bad drivers and badly designed road.

 

[WallaceGlanza]

I would miss the A9 road, accident central, from personal experience... bad drivers and badly designed road.

Yup, won't be so bad when it's finally dual carriageway all the way but at the moment it's bloody dangerous. The small sections of dual carriageway turn into the wacky races with everyone trying to overtake everything in site, and the overtaking lanes are crap - too short even for powerful motors.

People get so impatient on it and pull off ridiculous "attempts" at overtaking.

 

[Rory]

Disagree to a point.
I usually find the people that moan about the A9 are the numptys behind the wheel!

But saying its badly designed is a bit OTT. Its been around alot longer than any of us, and you cant exactly just push mountains off to one side to lay a stretch of tarmac..

Personally if your not in a hurry, the A9 is fine.

I would miss the A9 road, accident central, from personal experience... bad drivers and badly designed road.

 

[SupaStu]

Sure, my bro had the misfortune of numptys overtaking on a blind corner with mountain on one side, and the end result was head on and needed medivac choppers to get the bodies out. The amount of crashes on that road is a joke, and its always on the news for the same thing.

Just be wary of the duelling lanes, and people running out of road to pull in when you are heading towards them. Apart from that enjoy the view!

 

[mark1991]

As said above the roads around breamar at 10/10!

 

[turboloon]

cheers mark and the scenary is stunning

 

[Jay]

Looks like the weather has knocked this one on the head unfortunately.. Cheers for all the input though folks, will keep this one prepped for next year probably.