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1st Club tour to bonnie Scotland
October 18th - 22nd, 2002
Oban, Argyll
day 1 , day 2 ,
day 3 ,
day 4, day 5
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day 1 , day 2 ,
day 3 ,
day 4, day 5
day 5 | |
Today our first club tour to bonnie Scotland comes to the end. Only the return journey is left for today.
The weather is as bad as yesterday. The TV forecast says that there is and will be heavy rain in the southern parts of Scotland.
We get up very early and asked Christine Hughes (B&B) to have a small breakfast at 5:30 a.m. Before our breakfast
in our room we packed all the luggage and put most of the item into the car.
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 We pay the bill: GBP 60,- for each, take the reat of our things to the car and have a last look into our room. In the darknes that is still outside we start the engine and off we go. Another time we leave Oban northbound on the A 85. We pass Connel, the Pass of Brander, and Loch Awe with Kilchurn Castle. The ruins dark skyline we can see at the right hand side for short. Behind Dalmally there are less curves and we can increase the speed. |
| We leave Argyll & Bute short before Tyndrum where we catch the A 82 - the main road Glasgow-Fort William. We turn to the right and cross the plateau between Tyndrum and Crianlarich. The day light comes as we arrive at Crianlarich. Crianlarich is a central placed village with a main crossroad an 2 railway stations. Here the West Highland railway line to Oban starts and has a connection with the main line from Glasgow to Ft. William. Beneath the northern part of our todays journey from Oban to Loch Lomond. Then the road falls down to the "Bonnie banks of Loch Lomond". The road becomes very small here because of the missing space between the braes and the loch. Oncoming lorries force us to drive extremely left. Its raining cats and dogs. |
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| This goes on till Tarbert. Then its getting better, theres more space on the road and we can go faster. Until now we are good in time. Behind Alexandria the A 82 becomes motorway like. Short before Dumbarton it hit us. The A 82 is flooded !!! We queue for a short time but then as a car comes uncontrolable from behind with high speed we decide to leave the main road at the exit Dumbarton West. | |
 As we pass trough larger flooded areas trying to go to the east end of the town we can see the warehouses of Teachers and Ballantines Blenders. We are glad to catch the A 82 on the other side of the flood which is still reported on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio Scotland. From now we can continue driving with higher speed. We have all the reasons to do so: Glasgow and Paisley are in front of us and the loss of time is immense. After paying the Clyde Bridge toll we take the next M 8 exit and cross Paisley city to A 77 direction. Here there are lots of traffic lights but no queuing anymore. The M 77 / A 77 is empty, too. The heavy rain together with the remarkable storm makes driving quite difficult. |
There's water on the road to the city, too, but we still can pass. Of course many more drivers had this idea and so we
have to wait lot of times at the traffic lights. slowly our time reserve diminishes and the well-known speach
"We have no time left !" is to be heared in our car.
In Dumbarton we buy a last amount of petrol. We think that the petrol in our car is not enough to take us to the airport.
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 | The opposite direction of the road is closed and queuing cars are to be seen for lost of miles. left: the southern part of our todays journey. At last we catch the airport. The clock says 10:30 a.m., 40 minutes before the plane starts. Quickly we unload the car and return the car key. At the check-in we get to know that the plane is delayed for 1 hour. If we knew this earlier we didn't have to hurry so much. But such is live. We use the time to eat our last reserves of food and drinks. Here at Prestwick we get at least papaer boarding cards, wich are also numbered which means also without seat reservation. We have to wait in a very uncomfortable small room with a lower ceiling. Than the known "airplane run" begins. we have to cross the field between the gate and the plane. Here we get the last poirtion of the scottish weather as the wind brings lots of water into our faces. Is is about 12:20 p.m. as we take off. The flight is as problem-less as the first one. At about 3:15 p.m. local time we are back in Good Old Germany, back to Hahn. As we pass the customs -we only have to show the passports- our luggage still is on the return conveyor belt. |
| We go to the cat and put everything into it. David sits equal to the journey to Prestwick on the left hand side. But this time WITH the steering wheel. He is happy that something happens after pressing the gas pedal now. The journey back to Kornwestheim is broken only for a small rest at a filling station. We arrive in Kornwestheim at 5:50 p.m. | |
| Wir haben unglaublich viel erlebt in diesen 4 Tagen, machmal war es fast etwas zu heftig. We have been able to to something for the club, too and made lots of new contacts. We think we need some time to realize the huge number of impressions. This travel report should be a part of it. We made also 2 video movies about this trip. | |
(C) Single Malt Whisky Club Württemberg e.V. - Jens Burkhardt - Chairman
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