Today started, unsurprisingly early, with the kids beating down the door to head back out into the mountain bike tracks. Whilst Andy and I enjoyed our morning coffee, we could hear shouting as the kids went up and down the jump track, Oliver giving Elizabeth pointers on how to tackle the biggest, steepest jump. Once we were up and ready we went out on the trails. The boys went to explore the blue whilst the girls stayed on the green. We started on a blue but El...

Another scenic drive took us away from the highlands, down more single track roads with steep ascents and descents, past more lochs, and eventually to the east coast and the Cromarty Firth. The last time Andy and I had been here was 9 years ago when we cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats. Two things stayed in our minds to this day: firstly seeing dolphins from the ferry and secondly having the most amazing smoked salmon and cream cheese jacket potato known...

I’m starting to wonder if fairies come from Skye. Having seen the fairy pools yesterday, today we saw the fairy flag and the fairy glen. Maybe it’s because the Isle of Skye is so magically beautiful. Every direction you travel, you see lochs, mountains and sea. The landscape has a jagged beauty that isn’t matched in many places and today more so as we were finally blessed with some snippets of sunshine. It still rained, obviously, but that’s only becaus...

Remember those holidays when you used to get someone else to rub suncream on your back after you’ve pinned the kids down to slather them with factor 50… well this holiday is almost the same, only with Avon so Soft and an extra helping of jungle formula for good measure. Even with the smothering of bug spray, the battle against the midges is real. This morning more so than ever. We free camped in a forest and woke up to the beautiful sight of the sun rising ...

Half way through our trip and it feels like the whole journey has been building up to this moment. Today we got to see the Hogwarts Express traverse the Glenfinnan Viaduct and the kids were beyond excited. The day started early as some investigative work told us that the viaduct viewpoint gets busy. We knew the train went over at 1045, and that it would be 30min walk to the viewpoint so we got up and hit the road first thing, leaving coffee and breakfast for wh...