The travel bug
Some things never change.
1.Occasionally weeks go past before I write a new blog entry.
2. I love exploring Scotland to find new places and experiences for our holidays.
One of my acid tests of any holiday is what is the journey like – and we all know how a delayed flight or similar can ruin the enjoyment of the first few days of a holiday, or indeed, if on the way home, turn the pleasure of the experience too quickly into a distant memory.
It was while flying to Barra in October that we came up with the concept of Great Scottish Journeys. Yes, the flight was delayed – by a couple of hours due to fog, but somehow, especialy once we were skimming just above the clouds, watching the highest peaks poking through into the blue like some ethereal landscape, we both thought the same: this journey was already a highlight of the experience.
It’s the same feeling get when I catch a ferry to one of the islands. Maybe its because catching a ferry from my home island was always associated with the anticipation of new adventures, or the pleasure of going home.
Driving these days in much of the world is increasingly a tiresome chore. In a previous career I had to drive regularly from Glasgow to Aberdeen and Invernes, adn occasionally to many other key towns in Scotland. Of course such trips were sometimes a chore…but then you would catch a snowy peak or glassy loch in your side window, and then think wow – my colleagues are currently on the M25/M61/M4…..am I the lucky one or what! My favourite trip was to Fort William, which of course meant going through Glencoe. For those of you who don’t know it, it is truly awe-inspiring, and to some extent part of it’s appeal to me is that it’s a main route through the Highlands. Too easy for the business traveller to moan about the tourist traffic or the lack of places to grab a coffee. Try it for yourself!
Robert Kidd is a founding director with his wife