VAN LIFE SCOTLAND: Exploring The Remote Scottish Highlands // S03E03

This is our first month touring the UK on our around the world expedition and so far it has been great and wet. Very very wet. It's good Scottish weather. Scotland's beauty and history has blown us away and it just gets better and better the further north that we venture. Today we're pushing for the far northwest of the Scottish Highlands to a remote coastal hamlet where we're meeting up with a man who for the past few months has been sending us lots of advice and encouragement over the internet during the preparation for this expedition. Now we get to meet him in real life. My name is Neil Early Jones. Welcome to Alton Dew on the Wigach Peninsula. Alton Dew. Alton Dew. Alton Dew. Perfect. Am I saying it right? You're saying it right. Don't try a Scottish accent. Do not try a Scottish accent. You've done very well to get here. Yeah it's like it's not it's not the easiest. We've got the our single track road which keeps the riffraff out. The single track road is an adventure in itself. It's 10 miles of twisty white knuckle steering and an absolutely stunning drive. We came up here to meet Neil and to say thanks for all of the advice that he has given us online. For some reason Neil is a vintage Volkswagen fanatic. Yeah I think the the Volkswagen Type 2, all its generations like from T1 to T3 are incredibly capable vehicles and they've been traveling to and from Australia for decades now. It's harder nowadays. I mean what you're doing nowadays is much much harder than say people when they were doing in the 70s and 80s and well back to the 60s and 50s. So yeah when I saw a boomerang and the kind of first thing I noticed was it's so rust free which is a great thing but there was there was next to no structure in the roof. I was quite horrified taking it back and I was a bit worried about you know how long has it been that way you know what kind of twisting has been going on and flopping about and it certainly was not nowhere near capable of traveling to Australia. So yeah it needed it needed reinforcing. I was actually like watching your videos and you coming up through South America and I thought right I've got to find myself a Type 2 but I've always had a kind of hankering for the Syncro as well. Now that I have it my main goal is like everybody's to get as reliable as possible. I don't I don't want to spend all my time just like you. I don't want to spend all my time fixing the dam. I think I'm going to go out having fun meeting people. You know I want to do it in a Volkswagen because I love the Volkswagen and it's the right vehicle to be doing it. I understand it and I understand how it goes together and how to order parts and stuff so it's got to be a Volkswagen and I'd also like to meet you guys somewhere in it as well. But you better hurry up. I know I've got a hell of a lot of work to do. We don't often let people drive boomerang mainly because they don't always know how to treat a Volkswagen but Neil does so he took us on a tour of the peninsula. This land that we're driving through is 58.5 degrees north and almost as far north as you can go on the island of Great Britain. Although some of Scotland's 790 plus islands do stretch out further into the North Sea. It's undeniably a beautiful place to live but living so far north and remotely does have its challenges and in this town at this time of year the people are far outnumbered by the worst kind Yeah there's billions and billions and billions of midges. As the year goes on towards like beginning of October that's when they're getting the most voracious. It's just pure misery then if you're like if it's a still day calm and you're like working in the garden or something or trying to paint a house and all the midges are just some massive midges stuck to me. You don't do you don't I'm really selling this place but when the sun comes out and there's a little breeze it's heaven on earth. Scotland's highlands may not be everyone's cup of tea but living with such challenges does come with rewards. You've got to see this gorge, you've got to see this is incredible. Of course every part of Scotland has a castle and this area is no different. Only the hardiest people could live here and this castle was originally built by the McLeods but during their tenure the wayward McLeods betrayed highland hospitality and gave the Mackenzies of Westeros the perfect excuse to besiege the castle. Legend has it that Adford castle has two ghosts. One is a man dressed in grey that wanders the ruins and the other is the ghost of the daughter of one of the McLeod chieftains who wanders the beach weeping. Legend has it that she married the devil in exchange for his help with the construction of the castle but later threw herself out of the castle window and drowned in the lock below. To add to the spookiness the castle was also struck by lightning. It has a long history of myths and legends making it one of Scotland's most haunted buildings. Neil is taking us to the best pie shop in the world. Is it the best pie shop in the world or in the UK? In the world. So Neil is taking us to the best pie shop in the world it's claimed to be up in northern Scotland in the middle of nowhere so we are happily volunteering to go and see whether it can live up to that title. I love pies. World's greatest pie shop. What are you going to have Lia? So many to choose from. I'm going to have one of the vegetarian options because they look really good. Cauliflower broccoli and cheese. Sounds good. I like the rhubarb pie that would be nice too. That's dessert. Yeah that's dessert. Who's the one that I want? There's a haggis pie too. What? Haggis pie. Take away please. Oh yeah yeah that's fine. Can I have two of the cauliflower and it has been a treat to experience Scotland's highlands and it was made even more special by Neil and his family who were kind enough to invite us into their home and show us some great Scottish hospitality. Right come on delve in when it's warm. They also introduced us to Scotland's famous national drink, our whisky. This is an important part of Scotland's identity and it would only be right to find out more about it. Glenmorangie is one of the most popular whiskies in the world and it just so happens to be the first one that I ever tried. The staff here were kind enough to show us what goes into making Scotland's famous nectar. So my name is Erin. I am a seasonal summer guide here at Glenmorangie. Glenmorangie, it's a word in Gaelic and it means glen of tranquility or in simple terms valley of peace. Before we were a distillery the land here it was a farm and the farm was called modern G farm and that is where we got our name from. It was pretty interesting to see all the different stages involved in producing whisky. This one though was the most surprising. Wow the eyes are watering. What is that? It's really quite strong. Oh my god and look at it You've got to smell them. My eyes are watering. That's insane. So here is where fermentation happens. So the yeast will feed on the sugar and that is what will produce our alcohol and we also get heat and carbon dioxide as byproducts of the reaction. Glenmorangie is renowned for being a very light and very fruity whisky. Our light whisky comes from the height of our stills because our stills are the tallest in Scotland and our fruitiness comes from the minerals in our hard water. So each one of these casks will lose two percent of its volume every single year just due to natural evaporation. So the vapour will evaporate through the wood and into the air and we call it the angel's share. First of all they're good in here. Yes exactly. I wish I could describe the smells in this video because there's been some quite strange ones. Certainly this is my favourite room so far. I could stay in here quite a while. Even with just a wee dram at over 40 percent volume this stuff can seriously go to your head. A wee dram. Did I say that right? A wee dram. I could go a few more wee drams. Erin bless her was attempting to educate us on the complex aromas of whisky. Good luck with that. Well I didn't know that did you? No I didn't. I find it interesting that it smells different at different times of the day. Yes it's unbelievable. Yes I'm definitely getting notes of caramel and banana. What else is on the list? Apple. Apple pie. Smells like whisky. In Scotland we have our very own word for cheers. It means good health Today while it's not raining we decided to explore Edinburgh. Alaska's really excited because it's finally we're going outside and exploring. They have this thing in the UK called park and ride where you can park your vehicle out in a car park outside of the city so you're not trying to look for a car park in the city and then there's a bus or a tram or a train at this car park that you can take straight into the city which is really good and it's quite cheap and Edinburgh is also awesome because it is very dog friendly so we can take Alaska on the trains and trams with us and in some of the cafes and pubs as well in the city so it's going to be a good day today. I love Edinburgh. The Scottish capital city of Edinburgh is something to behold bustling with life and with an old town dating back to the 12th century at the centre of it all is the Edinburgh castle sitting high and proud above it all the castle's dark 1100 year history has given it the title of the most besieged place in Britain and one of the most attacked buildings in the entire world. Hambling through the old cobble streets to the sounds of bagpipes lots of bagpipes gives you a feel which is unique to Edinburgh but of course you have to share it with lots of other tourists. Edinburgh is amazing i've been here before and i really wanted to come back here we really love exploring medieval towns but there are so many people here like so many people it's crazy it's a weekday as well and it's full the town is full but my gosh what an impressive city. For quite a while Leah and I have been mostly vegetarians but we couldn't really leave the great north without trying the national dish of Scotland. How is it? It's like meat. Leah's not happy about eating meat but we had to do it this will be a first time haggis for me. For those of you who don't know what haggis is it's just basically oatmeal and spices mixed with liver heart and the lungs of a sheep oh yeah and it's often served packed into a sheep's stomach. If you don't think about what it is it tastes pretty good. So much for being vegetarian. A day out in Edinburgh can be pretty full-on. When you visit we recommend taking a break from the madness and explore some of the quieter back alleys. These tiny little streets i mean honestly that's how wide it is that's one side to the other and these are flats down here imagine living in old town edinburgh in one of be so much history in that building awesome this this is another free campsite hopefully we have absolutely had no issues finding free places to stay in scotland and they've all been great very few have had facilities but that's okay that's that's not to be expected when you're when you're not paying for anything um this one i think it was up there oh we're not past it yeah it's either here or up on the on the top there but tonight's camp spot looks quite lovely 360 views of the uh surroundings here there's a river down there there's lots of mountains lots of wildlife and farmland it's really pretty i do think that it will be more difficult to find free campsites like this in more populated areas but up here in scotland no problem so here then there is it yeah i think it would be just here on this did you wake up to the rain last night yeah it's been raining all morning all night so that beautiful campsite that we found last night that we haven't yet been able to show you it's just been it's just been bogged we've been bogged here so you need to i think leave because we're just surrounded by really squishy mud and puddles i think the best bit is to come forward just a tiny bit and then back up to the right like it's quite moist it's worse on the other side so i think go forward a bit and back that way and then you can go out on that grass over there definitely gonna try to avoid this avoid that but go back that way good to go this was a really beautiful campsite i tried to show you yesterday before it rains but it's a really good spot apart from the marshy land but it's really pretty too bad we have to leave it wasn't for the rain it'd be perfect expecting to get stuck because i've been stuck before in our previous combi but it's definitely the transmission that pulled us out that limited slip didn't like slip the wheels normally one of them would have been spinning in that grass and we'd have gone nowhere but it just went and they both just pulled us out as if it wasn't even an issue awesome happy with that we haven't really had a lot of time to explore the uk but venturing up to scotland on this shakedown run has been well worth it any place where the scenery is this stunning and we have it all to ourselves will make our highlight real and scotland is no exception from here there's only really one direction and it's south all the way to africa however we're not quite done with exploring the uk yet but that is the story for next time so what do you think of the series so far guys a lot goes into making these episodes we just created an extra behind the scenes video explaining what goes into capturing content like this for the series by supporting combi life and joining the combi crew we'll be able to make better videos more frequently and in return for your support we'll create extra unlisted videos like this just for you to say thanks joining now gets you access to over 100 bonus posts plus lots of other perks with more coming every month please take a minute to visit the combi crew page linked below and thanks for making combi life happen