H22A7 Accord Type R
Well, that’s my just back from another Epic week in the highlands of Scotland.
I went to the same cottage as I have been to the last few times, perfectly located just outside the small village of Garve – Gorstan to be precise. This is located between Inverness and Ullapool, just off the A835.
This is the latest I have ever been up to the cottage, being mid November. The weather was fantastic, bright, sunny, yet crystal clear air, lovely crisp mornings, and some very nice frost coverage in the mornings.
Now, for anyone who has never been to Scotland, or does not see the attraction of a holiday in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills, wildlife, and endless stretches of some of road………keep reading and see if I can convince you……..
Anyway, with me living in West Yorkshire, and the family members I went with being in West Lothian, this gives me a nice stop-off point for the night, to break my journey in two. I arrive at my uncles, all in good spirits for our holiday that lies ahead….and notice his new EVO magazine has landed….cool, something to read while we await the trip further north tomorrow.
Now, I am already pretty cheery and excitable as it is – a week off work and some good quality family time awaits, so imagine my delight when I open up the EVO magazine, and find it to be the ECOTY edition (car of the year for those that don’t know). Superb!! But….the first picture catches my eye (page 60)….. I recognize the place…..its the road up to the Quiraing, on the Isle of Skye!! Fantastic – a place I have visited may times in the past, yet never been across to in the Type R!
I quickly start flicking through the rest of the ECOTY pictures – totally oblivious to the feature cars by the way – and find even more landmarks I recognize – Eilean Donan Castle, the Bridge over to the Isle of Skye, even an amazing picture of the Quiraing. Now I love the motion shots of cars that these guys can take but seeing the little page of ‘this and that’ pictures really gives you a little in-sight to the adventure these guys have (page 87). The Isle of Skye ‘Evo Ale’, the McDonalds chips (come on guys, you are in the Highlands! Lol) and the Uig Hotel…….and this gives me an Idea, a nice little welcome edition to my holiday…. I am going to take the ATR to Skye and I am going to have a little EVO-Style road trip too!
So, morning comes, the cars are loaded. Its nice to see my uncle no longer has a boring Civic Diesel ready to go, nope, this time he will be at the petrol station just as much as me, as his new toy – a C36 AMG – is sat on its arse, ready to hit the road (literally!). What is even more of a shock is seeing a bike rack on the arse end of it!! I never thought I would see the day. Luckily for me, my bike fits nicely in the back of the Accord, all nicely wrapped up in a dirty old sleeping bag – well I wouldn’t want to mess my interior now would I?!
So, off we go, on the final leg of the journey, next stop, Garve. The journey is nice and un-eventful. The A9 is not the best of roads, but it gets you there – just watch out for the odd speed camera van, and speed cameras themselves.
A little stop in Dingwall is in order, as I need some of Scotland’s finest beer to get my holiday started upon arrival. Tesco had the beer on offer, so that was even better – I even brought 3 cases home, so that’s my New Year sorted, bonus!
Now I won’t rattle on about everything the holiday involved, as this is a car forum, so I shall stick to the bits that matter…..the roads!
There were 2 main road trips – and by that I mean full days out in the car. After my excitement of the ECOTY spread, I decided that we would take the ATR over to Skye, for its first time in my ownership, and go on the photo shoot mission that the EVO photographers – Chris Rutter & Stuart Collins – have inspired me on.
The 2 main objectives for me were to get to the Quiraing, and get a picture of the car on the same road the guys used for the coverpage of ECOTY. This was the road up behind the Quiraing, not far from the Uig Hotel where the guys stayed. With us passing the Hotel on the way across, we thought we would stop in for some lunch, and of course, get a couple of pictures.
As it turns out, due to the late time of year, the Hotel are not open for Public lunches, but I did manage to have a little chat with the lovely lady on reception, telling her what brought us to the hotel. Next thing I know, she has rounded up all the staff and they are telling us about the cars, how nice the guys were, and that they got to ride out in the Lambo SV and the Lotus Evora. They had not seen a copy of the magazine, so I brought it in for them to have a look. They were chuffed to bits with the picture of their hotel included in the feature. From what I gather, the chef looked after them rather well too; when they had been out doing a photoshoot, someone came back to the hotel to collect a Fish & Chips tea for them – apparently it was the Lotus that was the ‘delivery vehicle’.
The Uig Hotel is on the roadside of the A87 on Skye. You cannot really miss it – just incase anyone else is in the area and fancies a beverage, or room for the night.
We carried on the road, and peeled off up to the Quiraing, confident that we would get some good pictures, as the weather was nice and clear – yes, this is the Scottish highlands in November. The road up to the Quiraing is a single track road, and it is, let’s just say, not the best road surface they have on Skye. My immediate thoughts were for the poor person that had the job of driving the SV up there! The Clio would have been a hoot!
My camera is only an old Fuji FinePix, 2Mega pixel job, nothing fancy in the slightest, so my lens simply cannot capture the amount of scenery and detail that the EVO crew’s camera can, but, I always have a good go. I got the car parked up in position – making sure that other vehicles can get past if they come, and then start snapping – knowing in the back of my head that this picture will have a LOT of meaning to me from this holiday. The Quiraing is such a fantastic historic landmark, you really need to see it to appreciate it, or better still, go for a walk up it, but today was more about the pictures, and here they are…….
I am pretty sure this is the same road that the Blue 911 GT3 is captured sideways on – page 88! With our picture on the camera, we head back down the other side of Skye, on the A855, down towards Portree – another superb road! Again, there are some fabulous views along the way, which is mostly to blame for the 500+ pictures that I racked up during my trip.
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Portree is a pretty little village (and a good place to stop for fuel if you are in need!) but beware of the fish and chip shop down by the harbour (next to the colourful buildings) – it is not the best, as we learned a couple of years ago.
A nice bit of tea in a local café, and then steady drive back along the dark twisty roads to Garve rounded the day off nicely, and the Accord has now set foot on the Isle of Skye – roads that I have previously piloted in my clio and my auld Mondeo.
As a side note, I say I rounded the day off with a nice drive, the cold beers back at the cottage are really what put the icing on my fantastic cake that day! A truly superb time, a brilliant feel-good factor, and just some nice feeling that I cannot describe – just knowing that I had graced those fantastic roads in the most fantastic car I have owned to date!
Our other big road trip was due the next day (I think it was anyway? I had drank some beer that night), and this time it was the turn of the AMG. To try and out things in perspective for you here, from a young age, my uncle always had some interesting cars – my best childhood memory was him coming round in his bright Red Fiat Strada Abarth, Ritmo, 130! Complete with its red revolution alloys – superb! I used to have to climb into the Recaro seats, and could never get back out – not that I wanted to anyway (I am never allowed to forget the story of me being sick in the back of it once either – too many marshmallows at the zoo). He has also had a Citroen BX 16 valve, and a Fiat Tipo Sedicivalole – all of which I loved. It is surely my uncle I have to blame for my love (and expense) of cars.
His last car was a little…..different. He bought a new Civic Diesel. Good all round car, but as he put it, it never really excelled at anything, it was just ‘good’ at most things. Usually our road trips would involve banter along the lines of my fuel receipts compared to his, with my line of defense coming with a comparison of the civic to a form of sleeping pill, but not this year!
For those of you that do not know the C36 AMG – and to be honest, I didn’t have a clue what it was, as I am not a Merc fan (well, I wasn’t!), it is a C class Merc, with a 3.6 straight 6 AMG-fettled engine, 5 speed auto box, 280+bhp, Rear wheel drive, LSD, full electric leather seats / headrests and, a very expensive AMG exhaust system – those are the basics anyway! It is also on a P plate, so is even older than the ATR!
We loaded the car up with some flasks, sandwiches, cameras etc, and set off, heading for Betty Hill – basically the top of Scotland, on the way to John o Groats! Sitting in the back of the AMG was great. I could take in all the scenery, I had my tunes in one ear, a comfortable leather ‘sofa’ to sit on, an arm rest, and a very satisfying grumble from the exhaust beneath me every time the accelerator was persuaded slightly closer to the floor. It effortlessly pulls along at low RPM, due to the ludicrous amount of torque that big lump produces. Fantastic, I was already enjoying myself, and thanking my uncle for replacing his Civic
With it being November, the road are even quieter than normal. The sun is out again, blazing down, yet there is still a nice frost on the ground, it is a very pretty scene. I am enjoying the mix that is playing in my ear, totally relaxed and in complete comfort, only to be rapidly thrown back into my seat as I feel the autobox kick-down, sending the rev counter up to 5K….and off we go, 6 cylinders singing their heart out, and one AMG exhaust making all the right noises beneath my legs!! Fantastic – this thing car fair boogy when it lefts its skirt!! With the overtake complete, all calms down again, back to a gentle rumble, and back to our lovely morning cruise – what a machine this is!
The drive up to Durness was amazing. You drive up high in the hills, so you get to see over and long the hills, rather than driving through them – limiting your view. The scenery is simply breathtaking and many stops were made for pictures. We drove up along the A835 from Ullapool, onto the A894 and up the A838. I can strongly recommend this! Here are a few select photos………
The beach up at Durness was lovely. A nice sandy beach, the water was a lovely colour, and it was interesting to look at the big remote rock in the distance, as it is used by the MOD for target practice! Unfortunately they were not shooting at it today – that would have been quite a scene!
We made it up to Betty Hill for sunset. The beach is not accessible by car, so due to fading daylight, we climbed high to take some pictures before having a bite to eat in the car. There was actually a guy on a surfboard in the sea, believe it or not!
Yet another truly fantastic day was had, and we then had the long journey back to the cottage. Again, I was well settled in the back of the car, but for this trip, it wasn’t the push in the back I was experiencing, it was the locking ability of the seatbelt as the 4-pot brakes did their thing – there was Deer all over the roadside, which is hard work when you are in the middle of hills, on single track roads, in the pitch black!
A nice stop in Ullapool on the way through for a Haggis supper was a welcome pit-stop, and once again, the beers were flowing when we got back to the cottage – it was the perfect way to unwind from a good days driving!
The other Car-orientated activity we did was our other little tradition of going down to the Kinlochewe viewpoint! This is along the A832 from Garve. This is a MUST for you to visit if you are ever up that way. The road from the viewpoint has been newly resurfaced; it is absolute motoring perfection for the brief few miles you can see. We took a few pictures here, and I also went sliding on my arse in the process…..dedicated to the job in hand I say! I, as always, went for a blast down the route. My uncle managed to get a few pictures of me doing the ‘Nurburgring of Scotland’, in a word, motoring perfection – well, it’s a damn sight closer than Romania Mr Clarkson!
Those were the best car-orientated adventures of the holiday, I did plenty more, including cycling, eating, drinking (I even washed the car once). Here are a few scenic pics for you to scan over.
The Scenic ones.....
For anyone who has read this far, congratulations and thank you! For anyone who has read this far, looked at the pictures, and never been to Scotland….consider it instead of your next track day! And for anyone who fancies organizing a group trip…….i’m on the list!!! One Accord Type R, 1365 miles, £262 in fuel……….the feeling it gives me in life – absolutely priceless! Alba gu brath
I went to the same cottage as I have been to the last few times, perfectly located just outside the small village of Garve – Gorstan to be precise. This is located between Inverness and Ullapool, just off the A835.
This is the latest I have ever been up to the cottage, being mid November. The weather was fantastic, bright, sunny, yet crystal clear air, lovely crisp mornings, and some very nice frost coverage in the mornings.
Now, for anyone who has never been to Scotland, or does not see the attraction of a holiday in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hills, wildlife, and endless stretches of some of road………keep reading and see if I can convince you……..
Anyway, with me living in West Yorkshire, and the family members I went with being in West Lothian, this gives me a nice stop-off point for the night, to break my journey in two. I arrive at my uncles, all in good spirits for our holiday that lies ahead….and notice his new EVO magazine has landed….cool, something to read while we await the trip further north tomorrow.
Now, I am already pretty cheery and excitable as it is – a week off work and some good quality family time awaits, so imagine my delight when I open up the EVO magazine, and find it to be the ECOTY edition (car of the year for those that don’t know). Superb!! But….the first picture catches my eye (page 60)….. I recognize the place…..its the road up to the Quiraing, on the Isle of Skye!! Fantastic – a place I have visited may times in the past, yet never been across to in the Type R!
I quickly start flicking through the rest of the ECOTY pictures – totally oblivious to the feature cars by the way – and find even more landmarks I recognize – Eilean Donan Castle, the Bridge over to the Isle of Skye, even an amazing picture of the Quiraing. Now I love the motion shots of cars that these guys can take but seeing the little page of ‘this and that’ pictures really gives you a little in-sight to the adventure these guys have (page 87). The Isle of Skye ‘Evo Ale’, the McDonalds chips (come on guys, you are in the Highlands! Lol) and the Uig Hotel…….and this gives me an Idea, a nice little welcome edition to my holiday…. I am going to take the ATR to Skye and I am going to have a little EVO-Style road trip too!
So, morning comes, the cars are loaded. Its nice to see my uncle no longer has a boring Civic Diesel ready to go, nope, this time he will be at the petrol station just as much as me, as his new toy – a C36 AMG – is sat on its arse, ready to hit the road (literally!). What is even more of a shock is seeing a bike rack on the arse end of it!! I never thought I would see the day. Luckily for me, my bike fits nicely in the back of the Accord, all nicely wrapped up in a dirty old sleeping bag – well I wouldn’t want to mess my interior now would I?!
So, off we go, on the final leg of the journey, next stop, Garve. The journey is nice and un-eventful. The A9 is not the best of roads, but it gets you there – just watch out for the odd speed camera van, and speed cameras themselves.
A little stop in Dingwall is in order, as I need some of Scotland’s finest beer to get my holiday started upon arrival. Tesco had the beer on offer, so that was even better – I even brought 3 cases home, so that’s my New Year sorted, bonus!
Now I won’t rattle on about everything the holiday involved, as this is a car forum, so I shall stick to the bits that matter…..the roads!
There were 2 main road trips – and by that I mean full days out in the car. After my excitement of the ECOTY spread, I decided that we would take the ATR over to Skye, for its first time in my ownership, and go on the photo shoot mission that the EVO photographers – Chris Rutter & Stuart Collins – have inspired me on.
The 2 main objectives for me were to get to the Quiraing, and get a picture of the car on the same road the guys used for the coverpage of ECOTY. This was the road up behind the Quiraing, not far from the Uig Hotel where the guys stayed. With us passing the Hotel on the way across, we thought we would stop in for some lunch, and of course, get a couple of pictures.
As it turns out, due to the late time of year, the Hotel are not open for Public lunches, but I did manage to have a little chat with the lovely lady on reception, telling her what brought us to the hotel. Next thing I know, she has rounded up all the staff and they are telling us about the cars, how nice the guys were, and that they got to ride out in the Lambo SV and the Lotus Evora. They had not seen a copy of the magazine, so I brought it in for them to have a look. They were chuffed to bits with the picture of their hotel included in the feature. From what I gather, the chef looked after them rather well too; when they had been out doing a photoshoot, someone came back to the hotel to collect a Fish & Chips tea for them – apparently it was the Lotus that was the ‘delivery vehicle’.
The Uig Hotel is on the roadside of the A87 on Skye. You cannot really miss it – just incase anyone else is in the area and fancies a beverage, or room for the night.
We carried on the road, and peeled off up to the Quiraing, confident that we would get some good pictures, as the weather was nice and clear – yes, this is the Scottish highlands in November. The road up to the Quiraing is a single track road, and it is, let’s just say, not the best road surface they have on Skye. My immediate thoughts were for the poor person that had the job of driving the SV up there! The Clio would have been a hoot!
My camera is only an old Fuji FinePix, 2Mega pixel job, nothing fancy in the slightest, so my lens simply cannot capture the amount of scenery and detail that the EVO crew’s camera can, but, I always have a good go. I got the car parked up in position – making sure that other vehicles can get past if they come, and then start snapping – knowing in the back of my head that this picture will have a LOT of meaning to me from this holiday. The Quiraing is such a fantastic historic landmark, you really need to see it to appreciate it, or better still, go for a walk up it, but today was more about the pictures, and here they are…….
I am pretty sure this is the same road that the Blue 911 GT3 is captured sideways on – page 88! With our picture on the camera, we head back down the other side of Skye, on the A855, down towards Portree – another superb road! Again, there are some fabulous views along the way, which is mostly to blame for the 500+ pictures that I racked up during my trip.
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Portree is a pretty little village (and a good place to stop for fuel if you are in need!) but beware of the fish and chip shop down by the harbour (next to the colourful buildings) – it is not the best, as we learned a couple of years ago.
A nice bit of tea in a local café, and then steady drive back along the dark twisty roads to Garve rounded the day off nicely, and the Accord has now set foot on the Isle of Skye – roads that I have previously piloted in my clio and my auld Mondeo.
As a side note, I say I rounded the day off with a nice drive, the cold beers back at the cottage are really what put the icing on my fantastic cake that day! A truly superb time, a brilliant feel-good factor, and just some nice feeling that I cannot describe – just knowing that I had graced those fantastic roads in the most fantastic car I have owned to date!
Our other big road trip was due the next day (I think it was anyway? I had drank some beer that night), and this time it was the turn of the AMG. To try and out things in perspective for you here, from a young age, my uncle always had some interesting cars – my best childhood memory was him coming round in his bright Red Fiat Strada Abarth, Ritmo, 130! Complete with its red revolution alloys – superb! I used to have to climb into the Recaro seats, and could never get back out – not that I wanted to anyway (I am never allowed to forget the story of me being sick in the back of it once either – too many marshmallows at the zoo). He has also had a Citroen BX 16 valve, and a Fiat Tipo Sedicivalole – all of which I loved. It is surely my uncle I have to blame for my love (and expense) of cars.
His last car was a little…..different. He bought a new Civic Diesel. Good all round car, but as he put it, it never really excelled at anything, it was just ‘good’ at most things. Usually our road trips would involve banter along the lines of my fuel receipts compared to his, with my line of defense coming with a comparison of the civic to a form of sleeping pill, but not this year!
For those of you that do not know the C36 AMG – and to be honest, I didn’t have a clue what it was, as I am not a Merc fan (well, I wasn’t!), it is a C class Merc, with a 3.6 straight 6 AMG-fettled engine, 5 speed auto box, 280+bhp, Rear wheel drive, LSD, full electric leather seats / headrests and, a very expensive AMG exhaust system – those are the basics anyway! It is also on a P plate, so is even older than the ATR!
We loaded the car up with some flasks, sandwiches, cameras etc, and set off, heading for Betty Hill – basically the top of Scotland, on the way to John o Groats! Sitting in the back of the AMG was great. I could take in all the scenery, I had my tunes in one ear, a comfortable leather ‘sofa’ to sit on, an arm rest, and a very satisfying grumble from the exhaust beneath me every time the accelerator was persuaded slightly closer to the floor. It effortlessly pulls along at low RPM, due to the ludicrous amount of torque that big lump produces. Fantastic, I was already enjoying myself, and thanking my uncle for replacing his Civic
With it being November, the road are even quieter than normal. The sun is out again, blazing down, yet there is still a nice frost on the ground, it is a very pretty scene. I am enjoying the mix that is playing in my ear, totally relaxed and in complete comfort, only to be rapidly thrown back into my seat as I feel the autobox kick-down, sending the rev counter up to 5K….and off we go, 6 cylinders singing their heart out, and one AMG exhaust making all the right noises beneath my legs!! Fantastic – this thing car fair boogy when it lefts its skirt!! With the overtake complete, all calms down again, back to a gentle rumble, and back to our lovely morning cruise – what a machine this is!
The drive up to Durness was amazing. You drive up high in the hills, so you get to see over and long the hills, rather than driving through them – limiting your view. The scenery is simply breathtaking and many stops were made for pictures. We drove up along the A835 from Ullapool, onto the A894 and up the A838. I can strongly recommend this! Here are a few select photos………
The beach up at Durness was lovely. A nice sandy beach, the water was a lovely colour, and it was interesting to look at the big remote rock in the distance, as it is used by the MOD for target practice! Unfortunately they were not shooting at it today – that would have been quite a scene!
We made it up to Betty Hill for sunset. The beach is not accessible by car, so due to fading daylight, we climbed high to take some pictures before having a bite to eat in the car. There was actually a guy on a surfboard in the sea, believe it or not!
Yet another truly fantastic day was had, and we then had the long journey back to the cottage. Again, I was well settled in the back of the car, but for this trip, it wasn’t the push in the back I was experiencing, it was the locking ability of the seatbelt as the 4-pot brakes did their thing – there was Deer all over the roadside, which is hard work when you are in the middle of hills, on single track roads, in the pitch black!
A nice stop in Ullapool on the way through for a Haggis supper was a welcome pit-stop, and once again, the beers were flowing when we got back to the cottage – it was the perfect way to unwind from a good days driving!
The other Car-orientated activity we did was our other little tradition of going down to the Kinlochewe viewpoint! This is along the A832 from Garve. This is a MUST for you to visit if you are ever up that way. The road from the viewpoint has been newly resurfaced; it is absolute motoring perfection for the brief few miles you can see. We took a few pictures here, and I also went sliding on my arse in the process…..dedicated to the job in hand I say! I, as always, went for a blast down the route. My uncle managed to get a few pictures of me doing the ‘Nurburgring of Scotland’, in a word, motoring perfection – well, it’s a damn sight closer than Romania Mr Clarkson!
Those were the best car-orientated adventures of the holiday, I did plenty more, including cycling, eating, drinking (I even washed the car once). Here are a few scenic pics for you to scan over.
The Scenic ones.....
For anyone who has read this far, congratulations and thank you! For anyone who has read this far, looked at the pictures, and never been to Scotland….consider it instead of your next track day! And for anyone who fancies organizing a group trip…….i’m on the list!!! One Accord Type R, 1365 miles, £262 in fuel……….the feeling it gives me in life – absolutely priceless! Alba gu brath
