Tag: nc500

Limits

It is day 876,352 of having Covid. 

Really, in actual fact, it is day 5 of testing positive. My life hasn’t changed apart from missing one day of work and allowing myself to watch as much tv as possible until my body needs sleep. Today has been a busy day considering that on Saturday I slept for over 20 hours. I woke up and no longer felt the fatigue in my bones. So I grabbed the laptop and started ploughing through the to-do list for our next big trip. 

To be fair it is a small list at this point, but two hours in and one of the days on the trip had transformed completely. Out of the 14 mornings while we are away, most of them start before 7:30am. In fact, most start at 6am. Paint me shocked. Tell the girl from 10 years ago who’s days usually started at lunchtime. Mr W has definitely had an impact. 

The plans I looked at today were busy enough to have us doing three big hikes starting at 6am. There’s maybe one day when we need to start at 5am to drive for two hours to witness the sunrise and I don’t mind it as a one off, but there are certain limitations when it comes to the body. Hell, in January, after a fortnight of deep research and planning for this trip, my limit light was blinking and my brain shut down! So, doing an endless fortnight of 14 hour days of photography, walking, driving and battling all the elements is going to be exhausting. So, when I found myself cutting parts out of the day in question, I was pleasantly surprised at how calm I was. When it comes to travelling I rarely know my limits. I will be up and ready for a long day and I will never go back to a hotel without completing an itinerary. It’s how I’m built. 

Or at least how I thought I was built. Today’s cut, pastes and deletes were owed to something new I found to do near Ben Nevis, a place which opens a lot later than the rest of Scotland. This caused a shift in the day’s plans and meant taking two things off the agenda. It made me choose between events rather than force myself to do everything. In light of these changes, I realised that we would be too late to another event and with a quick ‘delete’ and an ‘Oh well’ I made the necessary adjustments. This is not me!

Also, I know how frustrating it might be for me to sound so vague, but I really want my first experience of telling you about our trip to Scotland to sound fresh, so keeping details back as much as possible is really important. Stay tuned!

It’s not that I haven’t had limits before, I have, I’ve dragged my arse across Australia feeling tired up to my eyeballs. I’ve forced my feet up and down the avenues of New York because the itinerary calls for it. My limits are screaming at me like warning bells and I hear them, I just pretend I don’t.

It’s only since travelling in this country and the changes that lockdown brought about that the voice inside my head with all warnings about limits has started to make sense. In our personal lives we’ve even started to block out weekends so we can be at home, together, with nothing else to do. Inevitably, when I get a message asking if I’m free on those blocked out days, I will feel awful about saying we aren’t available because I’m a 1000% committed people pleaser. Being a people pleaser has ultimately stopped me looking after myself in situations and in turn neglecting Mr W. His limits are often dictated by my own. And that is not fair. Saying no to people is a crushing feeling. Especially as I never have. There’s a mass of guilt that swarms over me everytime I do. And that in particular is something I have to work on.

It just so happens that the weekend just past was blocked out. We needed to do this so we could spend some much needed time in the house we pay a mortgage for because June saw us come and go like passengers at a railway station. And then we got covid and were home anyway. Maybe fete stepped in and missed the memo.

During lockdown we found it hard at first to sit still, but as the weeks dragged on we found comfort in these walls. And as the world began to open up, we found ourselves dreading going backwards into the fray of events. It’s a complicated feeling. It isn’t the events that are the problem. It’s the sheer number of them. It’s knowing your limits. There came a time where we’d be seeing people for brunch on a Saturday morning, after a heavy night out the Friday, running a quick errand before seeing family on the Saturday afternoon and then heading out that night. Repeating ourselves on Sunday. Time flew and it felt difficult to enjoy it. How could we be in the moment, when we were thinking of where we had to race off to next?

When lockdown ended in July 2020, I particularly found it difficult to return to normal. To hug again, close the window and enter the crowds. An afternoon with friends was beautiful and yet saw me sleeping after the exposure to filled hours. Since we’ve put a curb on our weekends, we feel lighter and have to remind ourselves that doing things on other weekends shouldn’t be classed as ‘busy’ but ‘enjoyable’ instead. Yes, we still get rather busy, but it isn’t work, it is socialising. It’s freedom. It’s life. 

For the first time in my life, I’m appreciating the limits before they appear. I realise now that the fear of limiting your life, your time, yourself is very real. Push just a bit harder. Strive for more. You can do it. However there is a very large part of life that calls for boundaries and the ability to say no. It is self preservation. It is knowing that no matter how hard you try, keeping the pace is not always possible. Saying no every once in a while has to be a good thing. Choosing to stop instead of being forced to stop is always going to be win-win. Lockdown taught us that. And for that I am grateful.  

Photo by Dave Watson

Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com

Planning the NC500 cont.

Well here we are, I have covid.

I ‘the ultra liable to get sick’ have managed for two and a half years to keep completely healthy and bam it’s got me!

So far it’s been body aches, night sweats and shivers, a running tap of a nose and loss of appetite. Oh, and the sore skin! Omgosh. My skin feels burned. 

But other than that I am lucky. Either without the jabs, now or back in 2020, or with a stronger strain perhaps, things could have been so different. 

I’m counting my lucky stars for sure. 

Sleeping hasbeen the main course of action. Yesterday I saw sunlight for 4 broken hours. Crazy. Today the aches are subsiding, the temperature is just hot hot hot and I’m not so tired. Ever the optimist, ha, I’m thinking this all means good. I’ve taken solace that I havent lost my sense of taste, albeit I’m not hungry but I’m guzzling down tea like never before and it does taste like tea so yippee!

You may have noticed my last few posts were rather abstract. With my fuzzy head I delved into my archive of writings and dug out what I could. It was that or mash my forehead on the keyboard and pray for something good to come out of it. I will let you decide if the route I chose was the best. 

So Scotland, there have been several updates to the plans which is great. It’s finally getting somewhere! We are no longer stuck in a rut and movement is being made.

Most of the hotels have now gotten back to me regarding the recycling emails I sent out, so that is a big weight off of my chest. I’ve compiled all the info (nerd) so I know how to plan for our sustainable rubbish collections as we go along. 

After trying to fit a whiskey distillery into our trip, Mr W decided it wasn’t worth all the detouring and squeezing of our timelines. So that is a rather big adjustment I don’t have to make. I don’t drink whiskey at all, Mr W would give it a go, but ultimately it is something you are told time and time again to do when you head to the highlands, so into the plans it went. Unfortunately the time we have in Skye was planned around one particular distillery, and when it came to booking, they are under refurbishment. There is SO much we want to do on the Isle of Skye that adjusting became such a nightmare. It was doable, by my standards at least, but it did mean another day of getting up at an ungodly hour. And quite frankly, if my stomach and gag reflex around whiskey is anything like it is around brandy, we could have been in a bit of a pickle. That pickle being a mound of pukey puke puke! So that’s another item… not ticked, but deleted off the to-do list. Which in a way has given us more time to wander around Portree harbour and we actually get time for a hot meal. I mean, hello!

Speaking of which, I finally remembered to call a restaurant to book us in for dinner the night before we arrive in Inverness. It is in a tiny town at the very top of the Cairngorms, and one of the last times we’ll eat hot food off of a plate. Sounds dramatic, but it is true. 

I’ve had a brief look into geocaching and nothing jumped out at me when I looked at the list. This may be something I come back to at a later date. Maybe. Probably one sleepless night. This is a possible ‘to be continued’ moment. 

I’ve also tried paying off our final accommodations and yet they are all pay on arrival, so that’s a note made on the itinerary. 

All rather boring stuff I’m afraid. I’ve even tried to book the very last thing on my list and the website is being refurbished, so I can’t! Ha! You cannot make it up.

Right now, I’m checking out locations on our route that can help us get some family tartan. That would be the only souvenir I plan to get on this whole trip, so I want to make sure that I pre-order it and that I don’t have to travel too far off of our route to get it. I have a few that I’ve found and will check them out soon.

All very thrilling stuff as I’m sure you can determine for yourself. For now, my head is getting fuzzy, my temperature is spiking and my final cup of tea of the day is calling. 

Well done to the people who have beaten me and still not caught covid. Thank you to the jabs for making sure I’m not suffering too badly. And praise the tea-god for they are all so powerful!

Planning for the NC500

It has been a while since I’ve given an update on the big trip coming up for us in late summer. As of midnight tonight, our mega busy month of June will be over and it is just as well as Mr W has caught covid. So this weekend of planned ‘time-out’ truly will be a stay at home event. No plans. No house stuff. Not even sharing a bed or a sofa at the moment with the fella so it is truly a time-out event. He actually seems okay at the moment which is a huge relief. So yes, June has been a tad mad. A weekend away in Norfolk. A long weekend in Northumberland. Family parties. Errands galore. Life. And finding time to run this house. But hey, we made it through!

And here we start the countdown to Scotland! The NC500 is calling and I cannot believe we are so close. The house is starting to look like a doomsdayers shelter with boxes piling high for all the food and supplies we are taking. The itinerary I have (so far) is crazy long and it is still not finished. 

Granted there are minor things left to be done now, a few payments, adjustments mainly to the Isle of Skye section and a couple of reservations to be made. Otherwise it’s the behind the scenes stuff. I need to get my organising head on and tackle all the food boxes. I really do not want to spend my days digging through boxes of food to find a meal. So I want our car to be like a pantry, all food that will be eaten in the car, will be in one or two boxes in the rear footwells. This goes for the travel water bottles, drinks, kettle etc. Food in the back of the car will be for meals in the evenings and mornings, so ideally easy to grab as we arrive at hotels along with our essentials such as clothing and toiletries. 

We need an easy system for our clothing so we don’t have to haul our luggage out every night. We have 12 hotels in 14 days, that’s a lot of hauling! 

It feels like the car is basically going to be a home on wheels for 15 days without the bed. 

I’d also like to sort out some kind of bin system for while we are between hotels so we’re not mixing up recyclables with rubbish. Today, I spent some time contacting all of our hotels and I have to say it’s been an unexpected surprise. I’ve heard back from 8 or so, so far, and they have all been super friendly and understanding of our mission to be sustainable while on our trip. A few have said they pick through the bins from the guest rooms themselves and divide up the rubbish. Where I commend this, I couldn’t necessarily let someone do this on our behalf. So I’m aiming to use sustainable brown paper bags to put our recyclable waste into and our hopefully very minimal rubbish will be binned in the hotel as provided. If I manage to find the time, I want to find some recycling points along the route too. It just takes the pressure off of us emptying the car at the end of the day. This gives our sustainable mission every opportunity to be fulfilled and definitely makes all the planning worthwhile. 

In the ‘Sustainability on a budget’ and ‘Out of body experience’ blogs from April and May (links below), I spoke about how we had been testing out the idea of tinned food and it’s proved quite successful. All tins but the ravioli and meatballs were really tasty, packed with the protein we’ll need and give us a much needed break from oatmeal and noodles. It’s also saving us a tonne of money. Usually when we go away we can spend anything between £10 on a budget sandwich or £40 for a meal out. These tins and a few crackers are going to cost between £0.90-£2.00 for each of us and where we’ll be in the car constantly or walking it is the most logical way of eating. There are also very few restaurants on the West side of the highlands so this really is a win-win situation. 

Recyclable. Tick. 

Budget friendly. Tick.

Longlife storage. Tick. 

Tasty. Tick.

Sustainability on a budget
Out of body experience number 342

Something I’ve realised from our Northumberland trip is how much space we will be working with in our car. Four of us squeezed into the car for a four day trip. Which is insane, as the two of us need to fit all of our stuff for 15 days! That’s food, luggage, photography equipment and blogging necessities. Next on my to-do list is finding a laundrette so we can take a week’s worth of clothing to cut down on the space our luggage takes up. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of possibilities to wear the same trousers for a few days in a row or I’m sure Mr W could do the ol’ underwear flip, but the fact remains, we need to wash our clothes. So far I’ve found one laundrette and it’s on a really busy day for us that we’ll be in that area. I’m sure I’ll find one. My initial search was made when I was fighting to stay awake, one eye open and drained by hayfever. There’s a good chance my brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity!

Little triumphs like the bladder bags and kettle have arrived since I last wrote about this trip. And they have been trialled and tested. They’re not too shabby to be fair and I’m convinced after our water intake in Northumberland that our two 5 litre bottles, that we use for our main water supply on a day to day basis, will save our bacon when it comes to hydration and budget. They will be the only plastic bottles on our trip and the fact that we have been using them for over 2 years makes me really happy. Eco-warrior or eco-geek? 

Mr W also found a bargain the other day that he is rather proud of. A pair of work out leggings? Like the gym ones? I have no idea what they are called. But basically they’ll be worn under his trousers and act like thermal/longjohn type things. He’s very pleased with himself. 

He also *drum roll* bought our first fully capable drone and I’m sure once covid has left this household we’ll be doing lots of test flights. It is a smaller model which means we don’t have to apply for a special incense but we do have to register it. I am really excited about this part of the planning as all you ever see with Scotand are aerial shots and I want to see it from land and air. So I am raring to go!

There is one more thing I’m tempted to add into this trip and that is geocaching. I don’t want it to add any locations to our already bursting itinerary but if there are any geocaches in the places we’ll be going that will certainly make things more interesting. Solving some puzzles along the way will make the long walks just that bit more entertaining I think and it’s also so great to be a part of the journey of others by writing in those little logbooks. This will be one of the last things I look into but I hope we can join in wherever possible. Mr W introduced me to it back in 2013 and I really enjoyed the problem solving part of it all. So as long as it’s fun I don’t see the harm in adding it to this powerhouse of a trip.

One thing that hasn’t worked well, and this is me being totally transparent because you have to be honest about these things, is the ponchos we bought on ebay. They can be used as a ground sheet, strung up to make a temporary shelter or worn to keep dry while walking. They have a hood with a drawstring and are ENORMOUS. Absolutely perfect for covering our backpacks and most of our bodies should we get caught out, which is most likely going to happen, on one of our big walks. Unfortunately, while walking in Kielder this past weekend, nature called and demanded the ponchos be worn. After a 25 minute walk my clothes underneath became a little soggy. My chest, arms and the top of my back were damp on our return to the car and this does not bode well when considering we may be walking in rain for over four hours if we are very unlucky. It’s not so much back to the drawing board on this but a fail-safe backup may be needed. I’m thinking, extremely sturdy umbrellas AND ponchos. This is all to avoid paying the extortionate amounts of money for completely waterproof coats and trousers and using what we have instead. Something we cannot risk, me particularly, is sitting in damp clothes. Especially on my chest. I get ill really easily with colds and chest infections and it may stop the trip in its tracks. So we plan, plan, plan to stop this happening!

My what a lot to do in such a short amount of time. I’ll spend more time as we move closer to the departure date detailing some of the tips I have for the hurdles we’ve come up against and any other purchases we make to help us out. 

For now, night night!

Slow and steady, what’s that?

Nearly 9 years ago I was hired for my dream job. It involved itinerary planning for UK and European travel. As I had been creating itineraries for myself for over 7 years prior to this I had the skills needed to get a good head start. The job gave me the opportunity to expand on this and introduced me to places I’d not yet been to. At times I felt I could walk around cities like Rome and Paris blind and still know what was around me. It was methodical. Fast paced. Very detailed and specific work. Since leaving the job behind and coming to terms with living with anxiety, I’ve come to accept my need for itineraries when travelling. It means there are no hidden surprises and I can relax along the way. I won’t get lost because I’ve mapped out the route. I’ll have the postcode for the hidden car parks. Hotels are booked in advance so I can keep an eye on the budget. Food stops and supplies are planned so I don’t get stuck with a manky sandwich and a half rotten apple (this happened to Mr W, not me!). 

In the last couple of years Framework Travel has highlighted these skills to other people. I’ve created a huge number of New York itineraries for clients as well as trips to Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and London. In a strange way, by creating an itinerary I’m travelling in my mind’s eye. I’m walking the cobbled streets of Rome and watching the sun set over the Seine in Paris. It’s actually amazing to hear back how much my planning can help other people. 

Everything I’ve ever planned has been fast paced. 18 hour days in New York. A 72 hour itinerary in Paris squeezed into 1 day. 6 days in Italy to see 3 cities. Every single detail is researched and cut and pasted together with minute details slotted in. 

And then there’s Scotland. 

When I used to plan a weeks trip in London for 30 American students it would roughly be 6-7 pages long. This would include transfers, hotel details and addresses for places like the Tower of London and The British Museum. With our NC500 trip, the itinerary for 16 days is currently at 30 pages. THIRTY. The transfers are: car. But there are 14 hotels all with different check in details. And addresses for places to visit are more grid reference based than actual postcodes. It is so strange. And exciting! 

There will be places we visit on this big tour that have no ‘specific location’. It’s more a stream, or in some cases, a trickle of information found in the depths of the internet. Park at ‘such n such’  layby, 200 metres from ‘this’ pub, walk west for 1 mile, veer left at the fork in the path… and it goes on. We may not be able to rely on our phones due to phone reception and the weather is going to change from one minute to the next. And for the first time in my life, I can’t plan everything. There will be moments technology will fail us. There will be times the weather will test us, this is no beach holiday (although, ha, there are a few we will visit, dressed in jumpers and hiking boots). The food will be dried and revived by hot water from our car kettle. And there will be one, maybe two, occasions where my face will be scrubbed up for a nice meal on an actual plate. This is not going to be a vacation to relax. This is going to be a journey to explore, find and return back to basics. Well, as basic as it can get with an itinerary. 

So far it has taken 5 months of planning, researching and slotting this trip together and the more it builds the more my excitement grows and my anxiety weakens. For the first time I don’t know what to expect and that’s the exciting part. This isn’t the Colosseum in Rome, where you can stand and nod that all knowing yes, it matches the image you’ve transferred from the internet, magazines and tv shows to your travel bank in your brain. Scotland is rural. It changes every day. Different sunlights, seasons and vegetation. But it’s something bigger than what you see. That’s why since our first hiking trip in 2020, my travel mind has changed so vastly. It’s the effect hiking has on you. The setting out to new pastures, the long slogs up hills, the speedy trails down the other side and the beautiful end point. Even if it’s not beautiful, you have reached your destination and made yourself proud! No car, no taxi, just you and your feet. 

One of the more enlightening aspects of this planning stage is how much slower it is. As I mentioned, there aren’t websites based on some of the walks and it’s just the ‘word of mouth’ I can track down online. I’ve stumbled upon some snags here and there where my fast-paced style does not suit the lifestyle of the Scottish businesses. When trying to reach someone about some axe-throwing, it took two emails and a phone call. Spread out over 3 weeks. In London, you’d have an answer within an hour. It’s not that Scotland doesn’t want the business or tourists, but they seem to take it all at a slower pace. I may have realised to avoid stumbling, I just needed to slow down. Take it steady.

This trip is so much more than the end destination, hell it needs to be with over 500 miles to cover, it’s about the journey. Yes, there will be an itinerary. We still need hotel information and addresses, but when it comes to activities and the driving, it’s more about looking around than ahead. I’m starting to wonder whether my anxieties will be left at home. And whether my mind can finally have its deep breath. Slow and steady. 

Sustainability on a budget

Covid changed a lot. That is a fact. It disrupted every single life around the world. It’ll be a saga that is told for decades to come. 

I have touched upon how life changed for us in previous blogs, check out ‘Changes to how we saw the world’ and ‘A hop, skip and a fracture’ to learn more. It has changed how we view money, travel and single use purchases. It’s surprising to think that they all go hand in hand. So with that in mind, welcome to,

Sustainability on a budget! 

*play the riotous jingle from our sponsors (there are no sponsors)*

Our biggest trip this year will be 16 days travelling from Essex, up to Inverness, over the top of Scotland, following the NC500, pausing in the Isle of Skye and heading down to the Lake District. It’s a lot of mileage to consider and plan ahead for. It’s a lot of everything. 

Food. 

Accommodation

Rubbish. 

Luggage.

We knew early on that we didn’t want this trip to cost the earth. So, from the moment I started planning the route, our stops were allocated due to low cost accommodation. Luckily enough the NC500 takes you through so many small and remote places that a cheap bed for the night wasn’t too hard to come by. There are places I’ve booked in the Isle of Skye and Fort William that have cost almost double our £40-£50 a night budget, but this is to be expected in the more ‘touristy’ areas. Fort William itself has many shops, the popular ‘Harry Potter’ steam railway and is the gateway to Ben Nevis, the Uk’s highest mountain. So it is understandable that our hotel here is costing £80 for the night. It’s an understanding I’ve talked myself round to. Especially as it’s a room with bunk beds! Although it does have a private bathroom, which the diva that lives in me is so grateful for. Other hotels where cheaper do have shared bathrooms and as someone who doesn’t pee in public bathrooms, I’m definitely going all out for this trip! If I remember correctly there are 2-3 hotels on the trip where we won’t share a bed but the room will be private. For the sake of one night, we will survive the separation. Ha! I think after our full days of driving, hiking and exploring, we’ll want nothing more than our own bed, covers and comfort. All hail a return to separate marital beds. I’ve found that when trying to save money, it’s easier to look for hotels that don’t include breakfast, in fact there are only 3 hotels on our entire trip that offer breakfast to be included. One of those hotels is in the Lake District and was booked using a voucher and is our only luxury accommodation on the trip. When it comes to the accommodations we have booked it’s not easy to see how they are sustainable. When one thinks of sustainability it’s often of eco-hotels and the like. However in regards to sustainability and our hotels, it is more of a need to sustain a budget. This budget is important to us, because it means for the first time, travelling in the UK can cost as little as travelling abroad. Too often have we booked a trip to Spain for a week because it is almost one third of the price of a week in Cornwall. This is one of the huge changes covid has brought about. Our need to stay in the UK, but not pay out of the proverbial arse to do so. So far our budget for 16 days in the UK, is at £1086. 92. We have more food to buy, so this amount will increase, but it does include the more expensive items such as the bladder bags and portable kettle. Something that is really important to us this year is stretching the almighty pound coin. It was important when we started planning the trip in December 2021, and we find now in May 2022 it is even more crucial. The cost of living has increased enormously. So if we can minimise the output in terms of vacationing in the UK and learn more about living sustainably in the process I’d call that a win-win situation. 

One of the biggest budget saving hacks I can share with you, is to make your money work harder for you. Something I’ve been doing for years is using our Tesco clubcard points to book our hotels. It is possible to triple up your points in order to do this. It’s easy to do online and I’ve found plenty of hotels that take the vouchers. It means for every £5 of vouchers you potentially have £15 towards a hotel booking. It takes some getting used to as taxes and vat aren’t covered by vouchers, but ultimately it gives you a huge saving! For instance, the hotel I have booked in Fort William cost £85 for the night. I used a £60 voucher and paid £25 cash. However the vouchers I used were originally worth £20. So that means I’m paying £45 for the room, which means a saving of £40! BUT, if you really want to push the thinking, you did nothing but buy your food shop to gain these points, they take time to build, but don’t waste them on your food shop. Boost them! Even a small amount can be boosted and buy you a great dinner at a restaurant along the way. We’ve exhausted our vouchers as of January this year, however by the time we head to Scotland we may have enough for a cheeky pub meal. Not a pot noodle in sight! All in all, we have used £195 of vouchers for this trip, which has cost us £65, that is an enormous saving of £130. Not too shabby eh. And honestly we haven’t compromised on hotels. They are budget, but you do your research. Clean, not a shed and towels included. On this trip, I’ll be happy for a bed and 10 hours out of the car! It may seem complicated, but I assure you it’s easy and it’ll make the trip you take that bit better when you’ve chopped a budget clean in half. 

Mr W and I have spoken for hours on the best way of tackling a budget when it comes to the food for this trip. To add a challenge into the mix, we want to buy food that we can take with us, that won’t spoil and has recyclable, and therefore sustainable, packaging. 

As discussed in ‘Out of body experience number 342’ we’ve decided to take tinned food such as curries and stews to give us the much needed protein and vegetables we need to consume to keep our energy levels up. The best part being that the tin can and paper label are all recyclable. Along with these food items, we have stocked up on packet soups and breakfast oats. All with sustainable packaging. We hope that every few days we’ll be able to buy loose fruit too. To suit eating these packaged foods on the road, we’ve bought a small kettle that can run off of the car’s electric supply. We are lucky to have a hybrid SUV that will turn into a car/kitchen for the trip. We’ve invested in large, lightweight soup mugs for our car meals, have reusable cutlery and have kept two 5 litre bottles to reuse on the trip for water. These water ‘reserves’ will help us fill our bladder backpacks for our long hikes and our metal water bottles for the shorter ones. It would be easy to buy a huge stock of 500ml water bottles to take on the trip, but we’ve become accustomed to using our metal and 5L bottles in order to use less plastic and save a lot of money! In fact, the only other drinks we’ll be taking on our trip are a small variety of canned drinks when water just won’t cut it. Again, I like to think that the sugary treats will taste better when I know the can will be recycled. I plan to send out emails to our accommodations and ask of their recycling methods, as this is important to us and also in regards to our eating habits on the trip. It may come to me finding recycle points in some of the larger towns, so our efforts to be as sustainable as possible does not fall at the second hurdle of the mixed hotel rubbish bin. 

Something I’ve found really useful, and I’ll admit really enjoyable about this food challenge, is the need to organise the food properly. After a long day of hiking and driving, we will find the need to grab food quickly and therefore easily. Therein comes the large ziplock bags. I have not bought these bags rather been sent them as packaging for clothing purchases. When something like these cannot be recycled, it feels good to use it again and again to prevent it becoming a single use item. In the past these bags have been used to hold dirty washing and toiletries. I have quite the collection! Therefore these will be introduced into the food organisation plan for this trip and make for easy grab bags for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

They will also come in exceptionally handy again for dirty clothes. With the amount of walking and possibly rain we’ll encounter, there will be a great need to separate clean and dirty items. As we plan to take all of our food, the space in the car will be limited when it comes to clothing. So the plan is to pack smart and also to stop at least once at a laundrette. It isn’t ideal. But it means our budget is more sustainable food wise and the food is in sustainable packaging. The only packaging problem I have right now is the milk. It’s impossible to take regular milk on the trip as we won’t have a way of keeping it cool. But this is why I thought of the single serving milks you’ll often find in hotel rooms. The tiny ones that Mr W needs 3 of for his coffee. These are readily available to bulk buy online and I’m happy to have found last night that the actual pot is recyclable. However the lid is not. So if you have any suggestions (other than creamer) I’d love to hear them!

A huge problem we’ve been dealing with at home recently is the amount of bottles we recycle from the bathroom. I’ve been trying out some shampoo bars and Mr W has gone on step further and has a 2-1 shampoo/conditioner bar. So far there have been no complaints, although I’d like to try others due to the after effects and the health of my hair, but there are so many companies that offer these bars with sustainable packaging that I’m sure we’ll find the right ones soon! Team those up with shower gel and soap bars and I’m confident for the environment friendly squeaky clean travellers making their way along the NC500.

However, it is here I will share with you the guilty pleasure I have found in the past. And that is… hotel toiletries! We have a fair few half used hotel toiletry bottles from our travels, which we knew would be thrown out and wasted, that we have bought home and put in a box to use at other times. Now is that time. It is not desirable, considering the implications of plastic and its often found unrecyclable properties. However, I like to think as this was going to end up in the bin when we used it the first time, we are not wasting the rest of the product and moving towards a more sustainable practice of soap bars in the future. Speaking of which, we plan to keep these in mesh bags so the product dries quicker and therefore doesn’t melt away on the side of a sink and we don’t find our money literally washing away down the drain. 

The planning of any holiday can be hard. Learning about a new place, what it has to offer and what works where and when on an itinerary. Adding all of the above into the mix has genuinely been so interesting. I have enjoyed the challenge. I find the closer we get to the trip I am more thankful for the new practices we’ve developed than the experience itself. Sustainable travel is as hard as you make it. And what is sustainable travel really? Is it leaving only footprints? Is it wearing your pants for 4 days in a row? Front, back, inside out and back to front again. Or is it finding sustainable practices that give your mind a cleaner view? That makes your conscience smile. Hiking. New experiences. New places. Morning sprints into the coldest of seas. Driving for 3 hours watching the mountains grow closer and then further away in the rear-view mirror. Maybe it’s the rewards of hiking the path of a waterfall that feels so rewarding. Maybe it’s the gratification our souls need after the last few years of struggling. It’s the rewards of giving something back. Keeping the air cleaner and the seas free from plastic. It’s stopping on a dirt road in the rain, sitting in the boot of our car, tailgate up and watching the world go by. The world that has sustained us. 

Travel needs to be more than jetting off and spending money. It needs to be more than the rubbish we produce and buy. It needs to be a way of sustaining the soul. 

Auto-travel-mode. Planning the NC500.

A quick one today giving an update on the NC500 in a little under 5 months. Time is flying!

So, I spent the better part of 2 weeks in January mapping out our trip. We’ll be doing the trip anti-clockwise, which means joining the circuit in Inverness. There are a few reasons we chose to do it this way. 

  • When we spent two days in Edinburgh last year, it rained the entire day we were in the city centre. This meant our plan to climb Arthur’s seat was cancelled. We both don’t mind a bit of rain, but it had brought along a thick mist which meant we wouldn’t have a view of anything but from the top! Ironically, it was the only thing we both card most about on the actual day. So we plan to stop in Edinburgh really early on our way up to the Cairngorms and finally head up this major tourist hotspot. 
  • We’ve been given a lovely two night stay and have chosen the Lake District to do this in. It also means we’ll be staying in a lovely hotel for our 4th wedding anniversary and as we have really crunched the budget for this trip accommodation wise, it means on our anniversary we can really relax and unwind in complete and utter comfort!
  • Both of the above reasons, don’t rely too much on starting in Inverness and ending in the Lake District, however when you look at how the scenery changes from the East to West coast of the Scottish Highlands you will see how much more mountainous and rugged it gets. For us, we decided we wanted to start slowly with the sloping coastal roads of Inverness, Wick and John O’Groats before heading up and over and then down the dramatic landscape of the West. 

Where my research has taken the trip is down through Ullapool and then onto the Isle of Skye, which in itself looks absolutely phenomenal! I predict that we’ll be heading back to Scotland within a few short years because of how much there is to see and do! We managed to collate our research early on and had three word documents on what we wanted to see and do. 

Planning this all out, meant laying it all out in a kind of mapped loop, the amount of stops was unbelievable and it became apparent very quickly that our 16 day trip would not be long enough. So we made the hard decisions on what to take out and it has left us with another two week trip for sure in the future. 

Something you ought to know about how I travel. Once I’m there I don’t know when to stop. I go into auto-travel-mode. My body is tired. My mind is wired. And I should stop. But the thing is I am my freest when I travel. Seeing, doing, exploring. I was probably a bird in my former life. Never stopping. Always moving. In my nest, I’m still and calm. And then I’m in flight. Soaring and not letting my tired wings rule my heart. 

In the beginning process of planning this trip, Mr W, shared his concerns of us jamming too much in and wondering if we may have to ‘delete’ stuff as we go along. The concerns over the roads and how long it takes to get from point A to B are real! The roads are winding, often single-laned and there are cattle to barter with for space. The plan itself accounts for almost 30/40% more time on the road between locations to allow for this. And as we have said all along, this trip’s main aim is to drive the NC500. To be a part of that growing crowd that experiences Scotlands now not so hidden gem. Not what we see and do. That’s not to say that we won’t be seeing and doing a lot of stuff, because boy will we! 

I remember the trip Mr W and I took to New York, his first, my fourth. It was monumental before we even arrived in the city due to the fact it is, and was, my favourite place in the entire world. I was hoping to show him everything that was so great about the city and see him coming away from it loving it as much as me. I’m not saying it was a dealbreaker in our relationship, but a small part of me was so nervous that my boyfriend wouldn’t want to return and I would have a giant NY shaped hole in my heart. Turns out I left NY as his fiancee and with him loving the city too! Win, win. During a walk on the highline, Mr W asked me what the plans for the rest of the day were, and when told he remarked there was no way we could manage it all with the amount of hours left in our day. I remember stopping, sitting, looking down at W17th Street and crying. He didn’t understand me. I want to keep going. I want to see everything. I don’t want to stop. And my now fiance was unhappy with how I did things. Crushed! 

It’s only now I realise how much I do cram into these trips. And how hard it must be for someone who loves me to keep going for my sake but feel exhausted at the same time. Their inner voice is screaming for them to stop, while mine is screaming keep going! I think my voice is just so scared that another chance may not come up. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. It’s the fear of not going back. Not having another chance. Missing something. Having unfinished business.

We’ve done a lot of travelling since that life changing trip to New York and we have grown as a couple and our travel habits have vastly changed. This is enormously down to the 2020/2021 lockdowns and how we now view city breaks vs hiking trips. I know one day we will get back to the city breaks and stomping those pavements but for now the mountain roads are calling!

The more I see online and each little researching moment I have throws more and more at this trip, and most of it doesn’t stick due to timing but then some does. The days will be early, which is so out of my comfort zone and there will also be a lot of trust placed in me, eep, but I’m sure we’ll love every minute. Mr W will still have his concerns, as will I, but together we’ll be fine. We compliment each other with our differences. That’s what I hear anyway!

**Update, we continue to try out the canned foods for our roadside dinners, Mr W tried the spaghetti rings and sausages, said it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t sold. I had the chicken curry which was more fiery than I thought it would be. Both of us were pleasantly surprised. The quest continues!**

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Out of body experience number 342

Usually these happen in my sleep when I have the weirdest dreams. But oh no no. Not today. We have a night-time routine, the same as anyone else really. Lock the doors. Check. Close the blinds. Check. Teeth. Cats in. Evening pee. Check. Check. Check. 

Tonight as I did my sweep of the kitchen I could not help but crack myself up! Today I took in a shopping order and we bought some bits to try for our Scotland trip. As mentioned on previous blogs, we are hoping to squeeze the mighty budget of a 16 day trip to it’s suffocating point, and (!) I absolutely want to be as sustainable as possible. It’s become an obsession. 

At first we planned on living off of noodles, the potted kind, as they’re easily recycled however on a road trip Mr W and I got to talking. We do our best talking on the road. It was on a road trip in 2020, where we put the Scotland trip into motion! Don’tcha know! Anywho, we decided that travelling over a 1000 miles and walking upwards of 10-15 miles a day warranted more sustenance for our bodies so we got thinking about what else we could consume that was nutritious. As the evenings stay lighter and the days get warmer I have been craving fresh and crunchy salads. Not only is it good for the soul it does fight the PCOS that ravages my body! So win win! Oh the digression tonight is real. So we got to talking about buying some salad etc and whether we could get tinned sweetcorn and tuna to add to these salads on the road so we get a real hit of super healthy tasty foods. And then it hit us, tinned food. Metal cans. Recycling. Check! Paper labels. Recycling. Check! So we had a look online and found an array of foods in a can. Mr W is trying some different fishes in sauces, things like mackerel in a spicy tomato sauce, that he can whack on a salad while I dry heave outside. And I’ve gone all 80s retro and found some stews, and ravioli and currys in a can! I mean we’ll have to eat them cold but honestly how long would they stay warm in Scotland anyway. 

I’m made up! We need to wheedle out the good from the bad, and tonight’s delicacy was spaghetti bolognese for me, poured into a bowl. I’m not an animal. And a lamb stew for Mr W. Both got a thumbs up. So the trial will continue over the coming weeks. I have a feeling it’ll make a big difference to the trip having actual food! So team that up with the odd pot noodle and salad, we’ll be raring to go! 

So, the out of body experience came, when out of the corner of my eye I saw all these cans sitting on the countertop. Often I’ll wonder what would happen if I was getting out of the shower and a burglar was to just be there. The doors are locked, no windows open, I’m just a stupidly imaginative person who must think burglars can just pass through a keyhole. Now I’ve just wondered what if someone broke in, and thought wow, that’s a lot of cans, are these guys doomsdayers? Have they got a secret bunker, and why aren’t the cans inside the bunker? Then the image of this burglar, let’s call him Barry for shizz and giggles, wanders round in the semi dark, checking all the door frames for hidden latches to the secret doomsday bunker. 

Sorry Bazza, we’re doing an experiment, mate. Nothing more nothing less. Closest we’ve got to a secret bunker is… 

Feedback will continue on the cans! Watch this space.