Celebrations in St Andrews

We celebrated Sara and John’s anniversary long and hard with our family. Their ceremony in St Salvator’s was lovely - Sara’s speech was spot on. 

We had lots of delicious food with a hog roast, seafood extravaganza and cheese board and caught up with a bunch of great people. 

Thanks guys for a great party. 

NC500

We’ve always wanted to do the NC500 which is the loop of roads round the very top of Scotland past Inverness. I’ve never been further north than Inverness before. We spent a week doing this before Sara and John’s celebrations. 

After consulting my AI buddy, we decided to travel anti clockwise round the loop to avoid cyclists and build up to the gorgeous remote west side. In terms of where to visit, it’s pretty straight forward with clear NC500 brown signs all the way round and then each key site is clearly signposted as you drive along. 

One of the highlights of our whole trip was visiting the Mey Highland Games in John O Groats. As we walked up to the games, the stewards stopped the traffic to let us cross the road which we thought was super service. Then as we stood by the entrance a convoy of cars drove by us. As we looked into the second one I thought I could see someone that looked like King Charles. I said to the steward that he looks like the King. The steward (or as I subsequently realised - security!) smiled. I asked if it was the King and he nodded! The King was arriving as he is the Chieftain for the games and was attending the last hour to watch and give out awards. It was super fun. We went in, watched tossing the caber, country dancing, tug of war and the pipe band playing. I could not convince either kid to do a parent and child race. We could have done it in front of the King! It was super seeing the King at arms reach. 

This highlight was followed swiftly by our other highlight - seeing puffins at the nearby Stacks. Special. 

Smoo caves in the North West was super. The guy called Ferguson is amazing. He has been digging these caves for 30 years. Such a passion. 

As we continued travelling round we saw lots of impressive sights including: Dornoch beach, Dunrobin haunted castle, Whaligoe steps, Kylesku bridge, Ardvreck castle, Corrieshalloch gorge and Gairloch. 

Scotland 2026 road trip

We decided to book our housekeeper in for the summer holidays to look after the turnovers and head off in the van to tour round Scotland. The catalyst was Sara and John celebrating 11 years of marriage back in St Andrews in mid-August. 

We started with a couple of nights in Abergavenny with some of Olive’s school friends. It was a super chilled time, spending a couple of days off the grid - no shopping, just eating the food we had packed in a rush, no ticketed attractions, just chilling in a field with a nearby river to play in. 

We spent a few days working up North, stopping with Pop briefly in Birmingham and wending our way up to Scotland. 

We stopped at a Steiner-esque Playpark called Lilidorei. It was a fantasy playground with massive slides and little fairytale buildings dotted round. It reminded us a lot of Efteling in Holland. 

As we entered Scotland we upgraded  our stove to a two ring stove with a big calor gas bottle and obviously spent ages sourcing the bottle! And of course, as soon as we crossed the border the heavens opened!